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| Rusty Liberatore prepares to begin washing windows on a building high above Pittsburgh city streets. |
Familiarity diminishes fright factor of ‘creepy’ jobs: Being suspended 200 feet above ground is enough to make many people tremble, but for Rusty Liberatore, the thrill is the reason he started his window washing business. The sight of blood and dead bodies can terrify some people, but it’s just a part of the job for Servpro estimator Tom Apel. And though death usually elicits emotions of dread, sadness and grief, it also presents funeral director Jim Atticks an opportunity to serve the community. Though Halloween is a time to celebrate frightful sights and creepie crawlies, people who regularly deal with scary situations have leaned to manage any fear they might experience.
Fear can take many forms and affect people in different ways, said Jill Fischer, a psychologist at Integrity Psychological Services in Monroeville. Though some people avoid what they fear, others make it their life’s work to try and conquer it, said Fischer, who specializes in stress management. When Liberatore is rapelling down a 20-story building on a tiny wooden platform, his emotions — like his feet — are dangling somewhere between terrified and elated. “I was always thrilled by heights,” he said. “There’s always a sense of fear.”
New employees with his business rappel from the roof of his business as a training exercise, but he said that doesn’t prepare them for a job in downtown Pittsburgh, when they’re swinging like a pendulum 18 stories up, “cooking” in the summer sun. “A lot of them,” he said, “just turn away and say, ‘I’m sorry. This isn’t for me.’” People often tell him that whatever he’s being paid, “it’s not enough.”
New members of the crew start off at about $12 per hour, but there are perks to the job, such as college girls blowing kisses through their dorm windows and clients plastering “thank you” notes to the window. Liberatore — whose Penn Hills-based Liberatore Inc. is a member of the Monroeville Area Chamber of Commerce — admits that while it is a thrill, parts of the job are scary. There’s the fear of being electrocuted by power lines or his harness giving out. He has heard stories of the worst, including a window washer who fell six stories to his death at UPMC McKeesport. Whether it’s six floors or 20 floors, “at that point it doesn’t really make a difference,” he said.
When there’s a messy death — accidental or intentional — someone has to clean up afterward. That’s when Servpro in Monroeville gets a call, and estimators such as Tom Apel, 50, zip up their biohazard suits and masks. “They’re all pretty gruesome, “Apel said of the places he is called to clean. “I really can’t say it excites anybody. That wasn’t why they started working here; (it) just goes along with what we do.” Suicides are the most graphic, but the worst are death scenes that go unnoticed for weeks, he said.
Usually it’s a downstairs neighbor who first notifies the authorities when blood begins to seep through the ceiling. “I don’t want to say they don’t bother me too much,” he said. “Until you actually get there and do it, you don’t know really how you’re going to act,” he said. He remembers the smell of his first job. His supervisor kept a close eye on him that day as he learned on the job. “Every step of the way, it was,‘Are you OK?’” Apel recalls. Friends and family often ask Apel for the gory details but then stop him mid-sentence, he said.
Fear can take many forms and affect people in different ways, said Jill Fischer, a psychologist at Integrity Psychological Services in Monroeville. Though some people avoid what they fear, others make it their life’s work to try and conquer it, said Fischer, who specializes in stress management. When Liberatore is rapelling down a 20-story building on a tiny wooden platform, his emotions — like his feet — are dangling somewhere between terrified and elated. “I was always thrilled by heights,” he said. “There’s always a sense of fear.”
New employees with his business rappel from the roof of his business as a training exercise, but he said that doesn’t prepare them for a job in downtown Pittsburgh, when they’re swinging like a pendulum 18 stories up, “cooking” in the summer sun. “A lot of them,” he said, “just turn away and say, ‘I’m sorry. This isn’t for me.’” People often tell him that whatever he’s being paid, “it’s not enough.”
New members of the crew start off at about $12 per hour, but there are perks to the job, such as college girls blowing kisses through their dorm windows and clients plastering “thank you” notes to the window. Liberatore — whose Penn Hills-based Liberatore Inc. is a member of the Monroeville Area Chamber of Commerce — admits that while it is a thrill, parts of the job are scary. There’s the fear of being electrocuted by power lines or his harness giving out. He has heard stories of the worst, including a window washer who fell six stories to his death at UPMC McKeesport. Whether it’s six floors or 20 floors, “at that point it doesn’t really make a difference,” he said.
When there’s a messy death — accidental or intentional — someone has to clean up afterward. That’s when Servpro in Monroeville gets a call, and estimators such as Tom Apel, 50, zip up their biohazard suits and masks. “They’re all pretty gruesome, “Apel said of the places he is called to clean. “I really can’t say it excites anybody. That wasn’t why they started working here; (it) just goes along with what we do.” Suicides are the most graphic, but the worst are death scenes that go unnoticed for weeks, he said.
Usually it’s a downstairs neighbor who first notifies the authorities when blood begins to seep through the ceiling. “I don’t want to say they don’t bother me too much,” he said. “Until you actually get there and do it, you don’t know really how you’re going to act,” he said. He remembers the smell of his first job. His supervisor kept a close eye on him that day as he learned on the job. “Every step of the way, it was,‘Are you OK?’” Apel recalls. Friends and family often ask Apel for the gory details but then stop him mid-sentence, he said.
For those people, facing their fear might be a source of entertainment, but for many it can be a by-product of deep-rooted emotional stress, Fischer said. “Sometimes, when people go through trauma, they’re compelled to repeat it to gain mastery over it,” she said. A single event during childhood can shape what a person fears or what drives them as an adult, she said. For example, a child who sees someone bleeding, surrounded by distressed onlookers, might develop a fear of blood, but a child who sees his father rescue someone who is bleeding might be motivated to become a paramedic, she said.
For Atticks, it was the first dead body he saw as a teenager that eventually led him to become funeral director at Gene H. Corl Funeral Chapel in Monroeville. He was 14 when he helped his father transport a body from a hospital to a funeral home in Harrisburg. “I can still picture the first man I picked up with him,” Atticks said. “It was a shock to me … it makes an impression on you. But it did not bother me.” The science and artistry of cosmetically restoring the body is what first attracted him to the profession as a teen, and throughout his career, he has prepared the bodies of family and friends for viewing. “I feel that’s the last thing I can do for them,” he said. “Why have a stranger doing that when their grandson or son is a part of it? Not everybody can.”
He said preparing the body is easy, but the tough part is consulting with grieving families. Some use humor as a way to deal; others treat the funeral as a celebration. Some, he said, plan the funeral in preparation of an imminent death, to save themselves from the additional stress when it happens. “I’ve had rough ones, and I’ve had some that felt like a party,” Atticks said. Of the last 100 funerals he has directed, he said each one was a little different.
Some fears are less rational, such as the fear of a doctor’s needle — which might explain why, according to the Central Blood Bank, only 5 percent of Americans donate blood each year. “It is a fairly common fear to be afraid of needles and things,” said Megan Schlegel, a conversational marketing expert with the Central Blood Bank. “Needles aren’t my favorite thing in the world, I just have to not look at it when they’re doing it.” Schlegel has learned to work with her dislike of needles.
Liberatore focuses on the thrill of being so high above ground instead of the fear of falling.
For Atticks, it was the first dead body he saw as a teenager that eventually led him to become funeral director at Gene H. Corl Funeral Chapel in Monroeville. He was 14 when he helped his father transport a body from a hospital to a funeral home in Harrisburg. “I can still picture the first man I picked up with him,” Atticks said. “It was a shock to me … it makes an impression on you. But it did not bother me.” The science and artistry of cosmetically restoring the body is what first attracted him to the profession as a teen, and throughout his career, he has prepared the bodies of family and friends for viewing. “I feel that’s the last thing I can do for them,” he said. “Why have a stranger doing that when their grandson or son is a part of it? Not everybody can.”
He said preparing the body is easy, but the tough part is consulting with grieving families. Some use humor as a way to deal; others treat the funeral as a celebration. Some, he said, plan the funeral in preparation of an imminent death, to save themselves from the additional stress when it happens. “I’ve had rough ones, and I’ve had some that felt like a party,” Atticks said. Of the last 100 funerals he has directed, he said each one was a little different.
Some fears are less rational, such as the fear of a doctor’s needle — which might explain why, according to the Central Blood Bank, only 5 percent of Americans donate blood each year. “It is a fairly common fear to be afraid of needles and things,” said Megan Schlegel, a conversational marketing expert with the Central Blood Bank. “Needles aren’t my favorite thing in the world, I just have to not look at it when they’re doing it.” Schlegel has learned to work with her dislike of needles.
Liberatore focuses on the thrill of being so high above ground instead of the fear of falling.
And Apel has become accustomed to dealing with gory locations. But his fear of spiders? Well, that’s another situation entirely.
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