The 6th Step
by Present Perfect
There are three things that I've always been consistently afraid of: spiders, heights, and the infinite. The last one I don't really want to get into, but the first has mitigated somewhat over the past decade. I freak out less when I see spiders; I've come to realize I'm not afraid of jumping spiders or tarantulas. If they don't invade my home, I leave them alone, and I regret the ones I kill because it's still a life taken. For the record, the only things I kill with impunity these days are mosquitoes and fleas; I have no respect for parasites. But spiders? It's not their fault I hate them; I just do. And I could talk at length about my more abstract phobias -- fear of failure, fear of being wrong, fear of change and new things -- but it's the middle one, the high places, that's key.
Although I said that I've always been consistently afraid of heights, that's not completely true. One year, I took a family trip out West to visit my grandfather. On the way home, we went north through the Rockies, as my brother and I had never been there, and it was during one particularly steep and winding patch of highway that the change in my fear occurred. As my parents recount it, they were all scared stiff -- dad white-knuckling the steering wheel; my mother with her fingers wrapped around the door handle, pointedly looking anywhere but to the side; my brother with his head between his knees -- while I was plastered to the window, gazing out at the highway dropping down below us and exclaiming, "Hey you guys! You gotta see this! This is amazing!"
Looking back on it later, I decided that in fact I am not afraid of heights, but of falling. More specifically, the sensation of losing control over my body is what triggers the fear reaction. I experienced the same feeling of panic once while slipping on a patch of ice during the winter; these two occurrences are how I realized the true nature of my fear. So long as I feel that I am in a secure position, I can lean out over the high banister or look over the edge of the gorge sans temerity. And while I've let fear rule my entire life, this revelation helped me take steps toward controlling my fear.
High places still suck like jumping spiders, though.
Fast forward about a decade or so to today. I got a job, finally, at a local adhesives manufacturer. I do the paperwork necessary to get orders shipped out in time, and no, telling people "My job is shipping" has yet to get old. While I do enjoy the paperwork to some degree, there are unfortunately other, more physical, aspects of my job that I like far less, namely picking orders.
The basic idea is that a customer places an order, and then someone -- I'm not sure who. I've only been here for a month and no one tells me anything -- prints out a little piece of paper called a picking ticket that tells you where to go looking for the materials the customer ordered. The places the materials are kept are organized into areas, given a number, which are full of shelves, lettered from A to D in most spots. A is on the floor and the D shelves are up near the ceiling.
I once calculated the ceiling of our facility to be around twenty-two feet. You can probably see where this is going.
My supervisor, Pam, is always excited when I come to pick orders for some reason, and she treats me well by giving me the "easy" ones, maybe because it's not really my job, I don't know. I've told her that, by myself, I can reach the B shelves, and up to H in the 7 area, where the shelving is spaced more closely, but anything else is going to be problematic for me. On this day, she handed me a picking ticket and said, "Don't worry, I think everything's low." Glancing at it, I saw four separate items that needed to be pulled, and plenty of A's for their locations, so I got myself a little cart and set about pulling vinyl laminate rolls.
Imagine my consternation when, upon reaching the third item and giving it an actual reading, I saw the shelf listed as being C. I hesitated, but as I consider myself to have a good work ethic, I decided to head over to the 3 area and give it a look.
Indeed, the shelf was far, far above my head. B, for reference, is about at chin-level for me at six-foot-four, and I can usually reach the top boxes in the stacks by standing tip-toe. C is a good five feet above that.
It just so happened that in this aisle of the 3 area was Charles, an older gentleman who, for the first two days of my employment, I never saw leave his tow motor -- that's a forklift to the rest of us. I'd wondered if maybe he didn't live in it. He was taking stock of a pair of pallets laden with boxes, and I thought, "Maybe I should ask him to get this down for me." But he was quite busy, so I decided to ask him later, and instead attempted using the stepladder which also happened to be in that aisle.
Now when I say "stepladder", I'm not talking about a little wooden stool or anything that looks safe for human usage. You may have seen something similar in big-box stores: twenty or so feet high, made of metal poles and held together by screws, its steps thin and full of holes, with large gaps in between them. They usually shake when people climb up and down them. Not good conveyances for people afraid of falling.
But I intrepidly dragged it over and read the safety instructions, stepping on the lowest step to lock it in place. I tried shaking it front to back and found it to be amazingly stable, a good sign. Side to side was another matter. I looked up, saw the top wiggling back and forth, and became very, very concerned. This was about the time I remembered I'd wanted to ask Charles for help, only to turn around and see that he had finished his work and vanished completely. I became quite nervous.
Gripping the thick metal rails of the stepladder, my palms began to sweat. It didn't help that it was a ninety-degree day with better than fifty percent humidity and I had been sweating like a pig since I'd gotten to work. I began my ascent, dismayed to discover that the first step actually depressed under my weight. That would not be fun going back down.
I tried to focus on thoughts of climbing the wooden stairs leading into my attic, likewise gappy and far more rickety than this lovely metal staircase. The end result would be very similar, after all: just go up a few steps, grab something above my head, and bring it back down. It was nothing I hadn't done before.
Four steps up, I realized just what deep shit I was in. Dizzy and short of breath, I clutched at the rails, kneeling on the steps in front of me. Mistakenly, I looked up to see how much further I had to go; I was but halfway there. I slumped on the steps, heart racing, thinking about nothing except how fucking scared I was. Through the gaps in the shelving, I could see my coworker Charlene, who I didn't really know, over by the coating press. With my eyes, I begged her for help, but if she saw me, she didn't respond.
"I need water," I finally said to myself, "that's it!" Dehydration was the enemy on hot days like this, after all, and I'd already experienced once before the dizziness, disorientation and lack of focus that came with not drinking enough water. I slunk backward down the steps and shakily made my way to the bathroom, all the way on the other side of the factory floor, as though putting distance between myself and that aisle would ameliorate the fear.
My second attempt went no better. Alec, an order picker who the others call "Droopy", saw me trying to psych myself up while on the bottom step and asked if I was going to be pushing the ladder his way. I shook my head no. He got the rolls he had come to the aisle for and left without further inquiry. I wasn't sure if I had wanted him to or not. I was really regretting not having asked Charles for help when I had the chance.
"It's okay," I told myself, "this thing is safe. It's OSHA certified." Or at least the sticker on the side of it had said so. It might as well have been High Mage certified, for all that actually meant to me.
I mounted the ladder again, five steps this time. "I can't do it" flashed through my head over and over as I hyperventilated. "I'll have to quit" was the only other thing I could think of. "I'm not cut out for this job."
All I could think of were people I would have to tell. My motherly supervisor, Pam. Christopher, the company controller, who I'd no doubt have to tender my resignation to. William, our soon-to-retire plant manager, who had seen something in me and given me the job in the first place. Bart, the sales guy who, a week into my job, came to yell at us for screwing up an order -- thankfully shipped before I began -- then a month later stopped by to say he'd "heard good things" about me. They would all shake their heads in disappointment and wonder where they'd gone wrong. I'd be back looking for jobs again.
I had to do go up there and get that box. But I wasn't, I couldn't. Yet I couldn't quit; I needed this job. It was too much to handle. I backed down. Third time's the charm, right?
Looking up again, I saw one of the boxes sticking out beyond those below it. I'd been aiming for that one, as it would be easy to pull down. I realized my climb would be far lower up the ladder if I aimed for the boxes all the way on the right, stacked only two high. I undid the safety lock on the ladder, pushed it forward, and secured it again.
"Only five steps," I said. "Just five steps and I can reach."
I got to four before I lost count. I pushed myself to the next step. I looked up, the boxes so far away, and reached out, touching the one all the way at the end.
It wouldn't budge.
"Fuck," I said under my breath, "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." This continued for a good two minutes. I was so close, but I couldn't move them, not while holding safely onto the railing!
Then a thought came to me out of nowhere: "What would Rainbow Dash do?"
"Keep climbing, duh!" She snorted, crossing her hooves. "What is this, giving up?"
She was right. But I couldn't go any higher.
"Come on, ***," said Applejack, "I know darn tootin' you're capable o' doin' this."
"You've already come so far!" Rarity added. "It would be such a shame to turn back now!"
"If you do it, I'll make you a cupcaaaake!" Pinkie chimed in.
"I was scared once," said Fluttershy, "but I got through it because my friends were there."
She had a point. With the ponies here, I felt that maybe, just maybe, I could push through this. Twilight was the last to add encouragement.
"The shaking is just an illusion. The fear is all in your mind. Control it!"
I squeezed my eyes shut and reached out. I grabbed the box, and with two fingers, lifted it a tiny bit. It budged.
"That's the spirit!" Rainbow Dash and Applejack cheered, high-hoofing each other.
"You can do it!" crowed Rarity. "Just reach out, we're here!"
"Do it for me?" Fluttershy asked, her eyes large. "Please?"
"We all believe in you, ***," Twilight said, smiling. "Nothing bad will happen!"
"I'll even sing you a song!" cried Pinkie, and launched into a rendition of Giggle at the Ghostly.
I laughed. I reached out with my other arm, abandoning my death grip on the ladder, and grabbed the box. It was fucking heavy -- fifty-four inch rolls are -- but I scooted it forward, tilted it down, got my other hand near the back and drew it to the step above me.
"I did it!" I breathed, like something out of a cheesy movie.
Standing the box on end, I was able to bump it gently down the stairs. For a moment, I worried I might be damaging the box, but then I told myself a little box damage was better than the customer not getting their roll.
I dragged it down the final steps and hefted it onto my cart. I was halfway there; it had only taken me thirty minutes since when I'd first come into the 3 area. Gripping the railings once again, I steeled my nerve. I'd just done it, after all; what was one more roll?
I was on the sixth step before I knew it. With the ponies cheering me on, I grabbed the box that had been next to the one I'd just gotten and dragged it down the steps the same way, placing it next to its twin and marking off the item as pulled. Then I sat down on the second step of the ladder and took my glasses off.
I had to laugh. Whatever had just happened, it had worked. I'd never, and I mean never been able to psych myself through fear that way before. And it wasn't like I felt invincible or even able to do it again. Well, maybe a tiny bit invincible, but I certainly hoped I would never have to go through it ever again.
Still, as I wondered whether perhaps I was losing my sanity, or if I would be able to muster up this kind of courage ever again, if I would have to rely on the apparitions or learn to do it on my own, the fact remained that I had done it. All it had taken were some colorful marshmallow ponies. For all the cheesiness of the situation that I had just found myself in -- I mean, I had actually said, "I did it!" That's so retarded -- it had happened, and I felt great.
For the first time in my life, I had conquered fear.