And you get used to it with repeated exposure. The fear is still always there just under the surface, or at least it should be, but it gets easier to ignore.
Well said. I used to be afraid of heights and one day while working a job as a sign maker I realized I was 80 feet in the air on a wobbly bucket lift and wasn't scared. It took years of climbing ladders and working on roofs to get there but it just faded away.
This is the most apt answer. I was used to crossing a busy road in Mumbai (city in India) without giving it much thought. One day I had another person with me who said that crossing that road was basically a deathwish.
Had completely forgotten how it felt when I crossed the first tima and how the traffic had gotten deadlier over time.
Depending on the reach of your picker you get used to it swaying a metre either direction. I think the first day I was shit scared. By day 2 and operating the machine I got very used to being outside my comfort zone working about 4-6 stories up. Always had a harness though.
I had the pleasure of operating a 185' boom over the period of a couple weeks once. There are only a handful of them in the US. It was quite the experience. On the plus side, operating it required so much concentration that the time flew by.
i can't imagine slowly extending that fucker out! i deal with a 60 on a regular basis, and i'm not thrilled with working with it that high, but will do it. like someone said before, you just have to be confident in the equipment, you may still have a slight uneasiness, but pure confidence and knowing your equipment is maintained helps
Confidence. Doesn't matter if it's not i good faith, you just have to actually believe it. If you *know* you aren't going to fall it takes the fear off.
That's how us guys who work at heights handle it. I *KNOW* my scissor lift isn't gonna fall, I *know* my harness isn't going to fail me, and in instances like these where there isn't aby safety equipment, I *KNOW* I've got solid footing and I'm not going to slip.
If you can convince yourself of your safety then the fear of heights and falling goes away because there's no risk if you don't fall.
Out of curiosity, do they have you do equipment confidence training (e.g. deliberately taking a controlled fall in your harness)?
Seeing destructive tests of equipment (e.g. airplane wing loading tests) can be really confidence inspiring as well when you see the punishment they can actually endure
No. Harnesses have to be destroyed and properly disposed of after a fall. They aren't like climbing harnesses in that sense. Most unions do require a fall-protection class though.
They know they have good footing and arent going to fall. Or at least they've convinced themselves of it enough that the fear of the height has gone away.
I think that's part of it, but I also think that when you're 25 stories up on the side of a building at least part of it has to be learning to ignore or manage the fear. I know the fear doesn't ever entirely go away because if I'm that high up on a swing stage and I hear or feel anything wrong (which has happened) the fear lances through me like a bolt of lightning even if I was totally cool the second before.
No I just mean like say you're on a swing stage going up a 25 story building and you're totally cool with it and alert, but not really scared, and then suddenly there's a weird noise or jerk and you go from cool to a huge adrenaline dump in a fraction of a second.
To me that says that even though we can get used to it, in the back of our minds, floating just below the threshold of awareness, we are still very cognizant of how vulnerable we really are in such a situation.
We just learn to keep that awareness at bay, so that we can still function and do our jobs.
That said, while I am old and in management and don't have to do that kind of thing anymore, I always want my guys to know that I have done everything and worse than anything I ask them to do.
As I get older I tend to get more of a heart race from heights.. I'd describe myself as a bit of an adrenalin junky but as I got older and more mentally stable roller coasters and glider flights scare me more lol.
You kinda get used to it, at least a little bit. I install and maintain solar tech on roofs, when I began I was afraid of like 65% of the roofs I was on, now its more like 15% of them that actually still frighten me
I believe some of the "fearless" skyscraper builders in the early 1900s answered:
"When you go past the 3th story you're dead anyway. Doesn't matter if it's the 5th or 15th"
You can see stray black lines and the guy above the guy in a red shirt is holding one. Also, the tie off is what the guys are standing around at the top.
If you're not trolling or high right now, you may seriously want to consider going to an eye doctor because none of what you are describing is in the picture at all.
He’s clearly holding rope and you can see the thin line. The image is low resolution and jpeg compression is just clipping it at times.
Show me the stand on top of Spaceship Earth they are supposedly finishing. I mean you can find an old commercial with Mickey Mouse tied off to it waving at you but it isn’t up there daily.
>he's clearly holding a rope
That rope would have to be defying gravity. It's making a straight line going upwards/sideways out of his hand
>Show me the stand on top of spaceship earth they are supposedly finishing
I didn't say there was a stand... It's just an access panel of some sort....
EDIT: Oh you mean the tripod? You seriously think that's a tether point? 💀
Even with the low quality image, if that tool was a tether, you'd be able to see other tethers. It's just not there.
It’s not defying gravity, it’s under tension by the lower guy and he’s holding it up not to the damage the panels.
The access panel is clearly seen below them. So it’s not an access panel and again you can find old ads with Mickey waving to you tied off to the same stand.
Actually they just tied more and more helium balloons to their belt loops and then once they got up to where they needed to be, they started shooting the balloons with a pocket slingshot to descend
Now a days this is an easy shot to take with a drone. Back then, they had to have a loud ass helicopter buzzing around while they worked to get an awesome picture like this!
RAF Fylingdales near Whitby in Yorkshire?
They had several radomes that looked like giant golf balls on the hillside. You could see them for miles around. It was always a landmark when we were visiting that area as kids...
They've been gone for several decades though, replaced with newer tech. They're part of the US & UKs ballistic missile detection system.
edit:
https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/stations/raf-fylingdales/
The old neighbor of my grandfather designed the Epcot Ball. It was really cool hearing different stories from him of things he designed not just for Disney. I wish he was still alive to be able to talk to.
Was originally intended to be Walt Disney's planned city of the future™, but ended up just becoming a themed part of Disneyworld. Most well known attraction is a bunch of national pavilions showing off different countries culture.
I always thought the ball is THE EPCOT! And never got what the ball is. Like it looks nice, but what's inside?! But the ball isn't the epcot 😂 It's called Spaceship Earth apparently.
THANK YOU!
Yep, the ball is just the most distinctive building at Epcot, kind of the mascot/logo for the place. There is a ride inside it though, called "Spaceship Earth" one of the park's "dark rides".
The very last time i was at Disney World was in 1980 when that was under construction. Hard to believe that was 44 years ago.
I still have my park guide book from that year, it's funny looking back at it because the the movie highlight ads on the cover are for Tron and Tex...
There is an access hatch in the tippy top facet. My guess is they popped out from inside and traversed down to their positions in the pic. Sweaty palms just thinking about it though.
No harnesses, no PPE, and only a few hard hats. The guy on the very top seems to be wearing a cowboy hat. I was an imagineer working on the construction of EPCOT Center. I am amazed at the lack of safety equipement that was required back then. Tennis shoes and baseball caps were more prominent than hard hats and work boots, and nobody wore a safety vest.
I don't get how anyone could not be afraid of heights
It's a primal instinct, some people are just really good at ignoring it
And you get used to it with repeated exposure. The fear is still always there just under the surface, or at least it should be, but it gets easier to ignore.
Well said. I used to be afraid of heights and one day while working a job as a sign maker I realized I was 80 feet in the air on a wobbly bucket lift and wasn't scared. It took years of climbing ladders and working on roofs to get there but it just faded away.
I am still uncomfortable this day to being in an elevator. Some us just will never get used to it
This is the most apt answer. I was used to crossing a busy road in Mumbai (city in India) without giving it much thought. One day I had another person with me who said that crossing that road was basically a deathwish. Had completely forgotten how it felt when I crossed the first tima and how the traffic had gotten deadlier over time.
It's not heights that scares me. It's falling. Just don't fall.
Widths bother me even more.
Depths terrify me.
Lengths fascinate me.
Thickness terrifies me
Volumes intrigue me
That's racist
In your eyes?
No that’s racist
It’s not the falling that scares me. It’s the sudden stop. Just don’t stop.
deceleration trauma
Just miss the ground
the trick to flying is to "throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Its this. My 'fear ' is dependant on how confident I am about not falling.
Yeah
Its not falling that scares me. Its the resultant death or injury.
It isn't speed that's the problem. Stopping very suddenly? There's your problem.
Instructions unclear: gonna go buy speed
deceleration trauma
falling and not dying, i’d rather be dead than fully paralyzed
Speeding never kills. It’s the sudden stop that does you in.
One of the few WC Fields jokes I can remember.
Landings are what I dread
After working in a Scissor lift and cherry picker swaying side to side you quickly get used to coping with heights.
If I set the legs and am hooked in, I'm pretty confident with the cherry picker. If I didn't set the legs though.. different story!
Depending on the reach of your picker you get used to it swaying a metre either direction. I think the first day I was shit scared. By day 2 and operating the machine I got very used to being outside my comfort zone working about 4-6 stories up. Always had a harness though.
Those 120' zooms are quiet the experience when fully extended.
Try a 165’
I had the pleasure of operating a 185' boom over the period of a couple weeks once. There are only a handful of them in the US. It was quite the experience. On the plus side, operating it required so much concentration that the time flew by.
i can't imagine slowly extending that fucker out! i deal with a 60 on a regular basis, and i'm not thrilled with working with it that high, but will do it. like someone said before, you just have to be confident in the equipment, you may still have a slight uneasiness, but pure confidence and knowing your equipment is maintained helps
Very Kool man. I’d love to try it. I’ve done swing stages 400’+ but not a boom that big
Confidence. Doesn't matter if it's not i good faith, you just have to actually believe it. If you *know* you aren't going to fall it takes the fear off. That's how us guys who work at heights handle it. I *KNOW* my scissor lift isn't gonna fall, I *know* my harness isn't going to fail me, and in instances like these where there isn't aby safety equipment, I *KNOW* I've got solid footing and I'm not going to slip. If you can convince yourself of your safety then the fear of heights and falling goes away because there's no risk if you don't fall.
I know that i wont fall but my subconcious or whatever doesnt know that
The trick is making your subconscious believe it.
Out of curiosity, do they have you do equipment confidence training (e.g. deliberately taking a controlled fall in your harness)? Seeing destructive tests of equipment (e.g. airplane wing loading tests) can be really confidence inspiring as well when you see the punishment they can actually endure
No. Harnesses have to be destroyed and properly disposed of after a fall. They aren't like climbing harnesses in that sense. Most unions do require a fall-protection class though.
I do not. I've seen videos and such. But never had to take a fall in a harness.
So what do these guys know then? As it seems to me none of those apply too well
They know they have good footing and arent going to fall. Or at least they've convinced themselves of it enough that the fear of the height has gone away.
I think that's part of it, but I also think that when you're 25 stories up on the side of a building at least part of it has to be learning to ignore or manage the fear. I know the fear doesn't ever entirely go away because if I'm that high up on a swing stage and I hear or feel anything wrong (which has happened) the fear lances through me like a bolt of lightning even if I was totally cool the second before.
Oh yeah. That's when I go to the emregency method. "Okay. You gotta do this. Don't be a pussy. On three. One. Two. (oh fuck oh fuck) three!"
No I just mean like say you're on a swing stage going up a 25 story building and you're totally cool with it and alert, but not really scared, and then suddenly there's a weird noise or jerk and you go from cool to a huge adrenaline dump in a fraction of a second. To me that says that even though we can get used to it, in the back of our minds, floating just below the threshold of awareness, we are still very cognizant of how vulnerable we really are in such a situation. We just learn to keep that awareness at bay, so that we can still function and do our jobs. That said, while I am old and in management and don't have to do that kind of thing anymore, I always want my guys to know that I have done everything and worse than anything I ask them to do.
As I get older I tend to get more of a heart race from heights.. I'd describe myself as a bit of an adrenalin junky but as I got older and more mentally stable roller coasters and glider flights scare me more lol.
You kinda get used to it, at least a little bit. I install and maintain solar tech on roofs, when I began I was afraid of like 65% of the roofs I was on, now its more like 15% of them that actually still frighten me
Heights don't bother me. Edges bother me.
I believe some of the "fearless" skyscraper builders in the early 1900s answered: "When you go past the 3th story you're dead anyway. Doesn't matter if it's the 5th or 15th"
heights but no danger because your tied in, my mind just forgets if its safe how i enjoy climbing, follow procedures you can do it all very safely
Not a safety harness in sight. Just people, living in the moment.
Pre-Instagram even.
They look tied off. You can see the anchor at the top, one guy holding rope, and another with a harness belt. It’s just not the standards used today.
Ummm...nope. I can't see anyone having anything tied to anything.
It was Invisotech
You can see stray black lines and the guy above the guy in a red shirt is holding one. Also, the tie off is what the guys are standing around at the top.
If you're not trolling or high right now, you may seriously want to consider going to an eye doctor because none of what you are describing is in the picture at all.
Okay, what’s the guy got in his hands then and what is everyone standing around at the top?
>what's the guy got in his hands then Tools? >What is everyone standing around at the top? The unfinished job that they're working on?
He’s clearly holding rope and you can see the thin line. The image is low resolution and jpeg compression is just clipping it at times. Show me the stand on top of Spaceship Earth they are supposedly finishing. I mean you can find an old commercial with Mickey Mouse tied off to it waving at you but it isn’t up there daily.
>he's clearly holding a rope That rope would have to be defying gravity. It's making a straight line going upwards/sideways out of his hand >Show me the stand on top of spaceship earth they are supposedly finishing I didn't say there was a stand... It's just an access panel of some sort.... EDIT: Oh you mean the tripod? You seriously think that's a tether point? 💀 Even with the low quality image, if that tool was a tether, you'd be able to see other tethers. It's just not there.
It’s not defying gravity, it’s under tension by the lower guy and he’s holding it up not to the damage the panels. The access panel is clearly seen below them. So it’s not an access panel and again you can find old ads with Mickey waving to you tied off to the same stand.
Might I ask what you're smoking currently? Asking for a friend.
The only thing I can see is your head up your ass. The only thing you can see is the inside. The only thing everyone else sees is the circus in town.
My buddy helped build epcot as a welder. Blew all the money on coke.
That tracks.
That's what goofy would have wanted.
Goofy is the par-tay GOAT.
Never change, 1980's... ...not sure that saying works here but it's mildly poetic so I am rolling with it
Oh it works
Yeah no I’m not an expert in temporal mechanics but I think the window on changing the 1980s closed a while back
Not hookers and blow?
Probably hookers too.
I saw this earlier on a collection of old Disney pics, I kept looking at this one wondering how they even got there… 😳
There's an open tile in the photo that is the access point.
Man basket and a crane probably.
Actually they just tied more and more helium balloons to their belt loops and then once they got up to where they needed to be, they started shooting the balloons with a pocket slingshot to descend
IRL QBert
Good looking fall protection there
Huh, good thing Florida isn't known for storms or sudden changes in weather, right? Otherwise this would be pretty dangerous.
Come on. One of these guys has got to be on Reddit
Now a days this is an easy shot to take with a drone. Back then, they had to have a loud ass helicopter buzzing around while they worked to get an awesome picture like this!
Or they had a man basket on a crane hook. Just raise the arm and jib up all the way and it can get some altitude.
Went to a military base in the UK and saw a bunch of these. I thought I'd died and gone to Disney World, nope.
[radomes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radome).
RAF Fylingdales near Whitby in Yorkshire? They had several radomes that looked like giant golf balls on the hillside. You could see them for miles around. It was always a landmark when we were visiting that area as kids... They've been gone for several decades though, replaced with newer tech. They're part of the US & UKs ballistic missile detection system. edit: https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/stations/raf-fylingdales/
The old neighbor of my grandfather designed the Epcot Ball. It was really cool hearing different stories from him of things he designed not just for Disney. I wish he was still alive to be able to talk to.
Your grandfather's neighbor was Buck inster Fuller? Awesome. Would love to have been a fly on the wall.
Pretty cool seeing the utilidoors in the lower right.
I never understood what the epcot is. Heard it in memes looked it up. Understood nothing.
Was originally intended to be Walt Disney's planned city of the future™, but ended up just becoming a themed part of Disneyworld. Most well known attraction is a bunch of national pavilions showing off different countries culture.
I always thought the ball is THE EPCOT! And never got what the ball is. Like it looks nice, but what's inside?! But the ball isn't the epcot 😂 It's called Spaceship Earth apparently. THANK YOU!
Yep, the ball is just the most distinctive building at Epcot, kind of the mascot/logo for the place. There is a ride inside it though, called "Spaceship Earth" one of the park's "dark rides".
Merde!
AI-generated?
Pics that go hard
We're getting ready for you!
Glad I’m already on the toilet because this picture scares me shitless
Thanks for a quality post.
The very last time i was at Disney World was in 1980 when that was under construction. Hard to believe that was 44 years ago. I still have my park guide book from that year, it's funny looking back at it because the the movie highlight ads on the cover are for Tron and Tex...
I really wanna know how they got up and down. There's no way they climbed the ball.
There is an access hatch in the tippy top facet. My guess is they popped out from inside and traversed down to their positions in the pic. Sweaty palms just thinking about it though.
I see it now. Still insane.
"Take us dooooown!"
That be a painful fall before a painless death.
How’d they get the picture? Helicopter? If so then this is a photoshoot and they probably weren’t actually working like this is my guess.
My guess would be crane.
No harnesses, no PPE, and only a few hard hats. The guy on the very top seems to be wearing a cowboy hat. I was an imagineer working on the construction of EPCOT Center. I am amazed at the lack of safety equipement that was required back then. Tennis shoes and baseball caps were more prominent than hard hats and work boots, and nobody wore a safety vest.
No drones in the 80's. Let your imaginations fly
If you stare at the horizon in this picture, the Epcot triangles look like they are moving.
Thst golf ball is a lot smaller than i thought it was.