“AIDIR”
I was just looking through our work shop and noticed this little gadget that we made for ourselves last year for the tall buildings and it reminded me of a story. As rope access technicians our life literally hangs on our ropes so we are quite fussy about what we buy and how we use them.
The ropes we are currently using are 11mm Edelrid and Beale branded Kernmantle rope. That may seem quite thin considering that we often work well over 150 meters from the ground with 200 m ropes. Thin or not they are incredibly strong with a breaking strength in excess of 3000kgs per rope and a bit weighty, we use two of them, one as a working line and the other as a back up
Late last year the contractor we were working for sent one of his laborers up to the roof top to pull up the ropes on one side of the building as it was getting quite breezy and we were on different ropes part way down the other side.
This poor young fellow looked at the pair of ropes and thought well here goes and started pulling up for all he was worth, it was quite a task as we normally only bring one up at a time and we also like to use a roller as pictured otherwise you just have to drag it over the edge of the roof and even though we always have edge protection of some sort such as carpet to protect the rope and finished roof edge it is hard work.
Well this guy did not know any better and was doing it the hard way with not one but both ropes and while he was at it one of the abseilers from another company that were doing the window cleaning saw him and was asked “ Am I doing it right?” by this red faced and sweaty young guy to which he replied” yep just keep going” He told us about it after and we all had a chuckle because he certainly wasn’t doing it right as with one rope at a time and with our roller it is a lot easier.
Luckily he was fit enough to get the job done the hard way and since then we now call our gadget the “ AIDIR” which stands for “Am I Doing It Right”. So next time you want to know if you are doing it right ask us not the other company.
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