Imagine standing high above the ground in a bucket truck, looking out over your neighborhood from the top of a utility pole. Below you, houses stretch out in every direction, and the wires you are working on carry the electricity that powers everything inside them: the lights, the refrigerator, the television, and the chargers for phones and tablets. You can feel the wind up here, and you can see things most people never get to see from this angle. Your tools hang from your belt, ready for the next connection. You are a lineman, and your job is to make sure all that keeps working.

Linemen spend their days outdoors, working with their hands and powerful tools to install, repair, and maintain the power lines that deliver electricity from where it is made to where people use it. They climb wooden poles using special boots with metal spikes called gaffs, or they ride in bucket trucks that lift them up to the wires. They work in crews, calling out instructions and watching out for each other, because the electricity in those wires is powerful and demands total respect. When a storm blows through, and the lights go out, linemen are the first ones called to fix it, often heading straight into the wind and rain while everyone else heads inside.