“Uncle John”

 

Working for DJ as Grunt is was like working for a favorite Uncle. You were pretty much on your own if you saw it needed to be done and did it, everything was cool. There was a good side and a down side to this work ethic. A few mistakes were made; on one job we painted all the governors. Why? they didn’t match the rest of the machine equipment that had already been painted. Hey! they really looked great, but there was one major rub. The adjusters had already calibrated them in preparation for the safety tests that were to be held the next day. Our paint job was very through and pretty. A note here, elevator guys don’t really use strokes to apply the paint; it’s more of a stabbing action. I really believe there is equipment that I painted in the 60’s that hasn’t dried yet. John was not only a great guy to work for, but also a lot of fun. He watched out for his people. One of the best examples I can remember was when a helper charged into the shack with tears in his eyes. This helper had been around for some time, a big tough guy and definitely not subject to turning on the water works. As the story goes, the helper was installing gutter cover in one of the machine rooms when he dropped a screw into a running gearless machine. This machine belonged to elevator had just been turned over and was in service. The screw hit the machine, bounced into the space between the field pieces and the armature, sparks flew, the DC overload tripped and the elevator ground to a halt. Fortunately the elevator was un-occupied.   DJ handed him a rag from the rag box so he could wipe his eyes and proceeded to settle him down. “Don’t sweat it, we’ll figure something out.” Together they headed for the machine room to assess the damage. The helper had a reason to be crying. The machine was trashed and would have to be dissembled, the damaged field pieces and armature replaced. No easy task for this was a Big Ass Haughton #40 Machine that weighed in at around 12000 pounds. Being the clever guy that DJ was, he looked at the damage and within seconds came up with a solution to this dilemma. There was an air conditioning duct that ran right over the top of the machine. DJ removed one of the screws from the duct, looked at it and said. “That’s the son-of-bitch right here that screwed up our machine”. The screw was a pretty good match and became a perfect match after a couple of blows with a single jack. Right or wrong the sheet metal contractor’s insurance company footed the bill for the repair job.