Manhole

At 0300 hours, strange thoughts can occupy that wide-awake time.
Two mornings ago the thoughts were of things I have done that few have experienced.
Descending into a "Manhole" is one that I can check off my list.

In the few months after High School, before getting drafted, I worked for Indiana Bell Telephone company as a "cable splicer".  The job required me to splice multi-colored wires correctly to insure Lily Tomlin's phone would work when she wanted to "ringy-dingy".
That meant I had to don "gaffes" and safety harness to climb utility poles.
And since some of the telephone cable ran underground, it meant descending into a hole in the street.

We had to park the truck, flashers on, to protect the workplace from traffic. Then we had to strategically place dayglo orange cones so that no one would run into the truck.

Manhole covers, by necessity, are heavy. 100 pounds? At least.
If you look at one closely you'll see there is a notch on the outer edge. That's where you'd insert your special tool to pull the cover off the hole. It wasn't easy.

Frequently the hole would be full of water. We carried a pump for that purpose. Pump the water out so you could do the work, but some holes would have a steady stream of water flowing into them so you had to either leave the pump running, or intermittently climb out and start the pump to remove the water as needed.
Noisy.

Toxic, heavier than air gases were a possibility. We had a device that could measure the environment in the hole to detect them. If necessary, we had fans with flexible ducting to drop into the hole to ventilate the work area.
More noise.

So into this noisy, ill lit, damp area you'd descend with tools to do the job.
Workers all over the world are doing it as you read this.
Thank God for them.
I'm glad I don't have to do it anymore.

Do you have a "Bet you haven't done this" story to share?
I'd love to hear them.