Probably true,.. I've been to Key West and a lot of things tend to go both ways there.
Why is a 15 year old …
- Thread starter St. Louis Hawk
- Start date
Probably true,.. I've been to Key West and a lot of things tend to go both ways there.
Your family farm or for a company?
Working on a family farm is different than employed by a corporation. If you’ve seen OSHA regs for elevated work, yeah, my grandfather wasn’t following those.
The only 2 things we couldn’t do is go in the grain bins or near the new mama sows.
its like saying you die from a car hitting you going 15 mph just as easily as a car hitting you going 55 mph
sure...you can die from either, but the probability is much much higher at the higher speed/height
Don't make light, picking butter beans is one of the most dangerous things a young boy can do for money. Poisonous bean flowers and bean-row panthers are no joke.
You forgot dad or grandpa chucking a wrench at you when we did something stupid. I figured my early death would be from that.
I did steel construction in AZ. I've walked I-beams at 60' while wearing a harness and most laborers were undocumented teenagers.
Same here...almost. I used to work informally for a guy when I was that age that sold farm equipment for a living. For a few extra bucks he would offer to assemble said equipment. Only he would "farm out", get it, farm out
all of the physical labor to a few of us neighbor kids, ranging in age from 12-15 or so.We LOVED it, we made peanuts, but to us poor kids it was big money and had a hoot doing the work. But...looking back...it was more dangerous at times than what we kids should have been doing by ourselves, as Dad would drop of us and then go on into the nearest town/tavern and relax on a stool for few hours before coming back to get us and take us home. Some of those rides home were pretty scary.
Well, I used my hard earned gains to buy myself my first pair of Nikes...only being an idiot, I wore my brand new tennies, that I was very proud of, the next weekend when we were working in an old hog confinement building...and...got so much pig crap on them that I basically couldn't wear them again. Easy come, easy go.
- Sep 13, 2002
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When I was 14 I sold Coca Cola at Camp Randall.
Drunk Badger fans are more dangerous than any roof.
Ya’ll are a bunch of babies!
Drunk Badger fans are more dangerous than any roof.
Ya’ll are a bunch of babies!
So you think picking butter beans is comparable to a 15 year old on his first day of work - which means he didn’t know jack shit about safety and likely had little or no training - working on an 50 ft elevated roof?
Classic HORT for you indeed. Comical.
Safer than state college
I was agreeing with you that the comparisons people are making are foolish.
- Sep 13, 2002
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If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
Whoa bro. You are completely misinterpreting what I am saying. I am 100% in agreement with you and said so in the second post of this thread.
I definitely wasn’t trying to brag about how tough I was back in the day because god knows I wasn’t. Just commenting that I roofed houses as a teenager too. I’m not that old (37) but kids in my high school working construction over the summer was pretty common.
Crappy situation all around though. We did our share of two story houses, but I was rarely facing a 50 foot drop, and definitely not on my first day.
Crappy situation all around though. We did our share of two story houses, but I was rarely facing a 50 foot drop, and definitely not on my first day.
At 14 I worked (under the table) at TruValue Hardware in Mt Dora, FL. I worked with my Papaw who got me the job. At 15 I switched jobs and got hired at a car wash. Once I turned 16 and could legally drive, I got hired on at Publix. I'd have loved to have gotten a good construction job at 14 or 15, it would have likely paid more.
I don't see the problem with them being on the roof if they have been properly trained.
I helped dad on the small farm until I was 11 or 12 and then I started working for the neighbor farmer and got paid.
One huge part of this is that not all 15 year olds are the same. My 16 year old son wouldnt be allowed to do any of the stuff I did as a kid. I would trust him.
Most of us farm kids if we were the oldest son had to start driving the tractors around age 8. I was a tall kid so I could reach the peddles easily. Dad would send me out on the WD with the 7ft sickle mower to mow hay all day. If I broke down I would walk home. That was a highly dangerous job but I knew what not to do and not take short cuts.
What comes to mind with this is stacking hay in the barn. We would be up at least 30 ft walking across bales in the 100 degree heat. We had a barn that had a center storage area that we stacked from the ground to the roof. The hay feeders were on each side.
At 15/16 I was working 60 hour weeks in the summertime for a concrete foundation company (I turned 16 in June).
Was never 50 feet up in the air, but I distinctly remember walking on 20 foot high walls on nothing but the aluminum forms, each about 2.5" wide.....so yeah looking back on that the probability of falling and really injuring myself was super high.....
And now for CSB time....another summer while working concrete, we were setting forms and one kid was getting a full form (4' x 8') off the basket and their was a wind gust that pushed the rest of the forms on the basket toward him so in one single motion he ditched the form he was holding to try and get away, but stumbled and fell over right over top of a 1/2" stick or rebar that was sticking straight up out of the footing.....the rebar entered right in his upper chest and probably went in like 6-8" deep and ultimately collapsed his lung and apparently just barely missed his jugular....
Needless to say, the owner promptly went and bought rebar caps for all the exposed rebar (which should have been present anyway)
Was never 50 feet up in the air, but I distinctly remember walking on 20 foot high walls on nothing but the aluminum forms, each about 2.5" wide.....so yeah looking back on that the probability of falling and really injuring myself was super high.....
And now for CSB time....another summer while working concrete, we were setting forms and one kid was getting a full form (4' x 8') off the basket and their was a wind gust that pushed the rest of the forms on the basket toward him so in one single motion he ditched the form he was holding to try and get away, but stumbled and fell over right over top of a 1/2" stick or rebar that was sticking straight up out of the footing.....the rebar entered right in his upper chest and probably went in like 6-8" deep and ultimately collapsed his lung and apparently just barely missed his jugular....
Needless to say, the owner promptly went and bought rebar caps for all the exposed rebar (which should have been present anyway)
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Am I the only one here that was already cleaning chimneys at the age of three??
You were able to do that because your training started from day one. Most kids aren't exposed to that kind of training and so putting them on a roof might not be a smart thing. Most 15 year old boys don't have much fear or respect for knowing what could be dangerous.
I did some roofing with my dad when I was about that age. He owned a small construction company at the time and I helped out, got paid a small amount. Not 50 feet high though.
That said a 15 year old shouldn't be doing commercial roofing like that.
And quite frankly I'm not sure that my dad having me do roofing at that age was the right thing to be doing either.
Just because I did it and came out unscathed doesn't mean it was right. I also rode in the back of pickup trucks when I was a kid and I sure as hell think that's unsafe and if I saw that now I would likely call the police.
That said a 15 year old shouldn't be doing commercial roofing like that.
And quite frankly I'm not sure that my dad having me do roofing at that age was the right thing to be doing either.
Just because I did it and came out unscathed doesn't mean it was right. I also rode in the back of pickup trucks when I was a kid and I sure as hell think that's unsafe and if I saw that now I would likely call the police.
When I was 15 I was cutting produce in the back of the store and cut myself. I had to rinse, clean, and put on a bandaid. Hurt like hell.
I was running a lawnmower at 10 and by 13 I was up on our roof cleaning out the gutters with my dad. I'm ashamed of myself for the lack of manual labor I DON'T have my son do.
Sounds like the concrete company I worked for in college. What a shit show
The Governor of Mississippi North has actively promoted having 14/15/16 year old kids filling adult positions.
It's her solution to worker shortages.
It's her solution to worker shortages.
roofing at 50' with no safety equipment at 15 is not the same as roofing your roof that's 10 feet off the ground.
walking beans baling hay and driving a tractor isn't quite the same as roofing at 50' high.
Like a lot of you I also was busy when I was 15. I was watching Gilligan's Island and collecting my allowance every week.
In MY day I had to ride my bike to work, work like crazy for $1.50 or $2 an hour (cash money right out of the boss man's wallet), ride my bike home and THEN pull myself up by my own damn bootstraps. And we didn't have your fancy air conditioning to lounge in.
I am thinking some spent childhood in bubble wrap.
At 15 and younger I was free hand climbing everything I could find in our weekly summer visit to Pulpit Rock. Nothing like climbing limestone and being a hundred foot up and everything you try to grab crumbles 😀
I got a bunch of 10 year old neighborhood kids on my single story roof last 4th of July. Glad this dude wasn’t around. 🤣
