Coming Up Through The Ranks

A "green" crew can put grey hairs on your head faster than heavy loads and bad ground conditions. So can over zealous foremen who's prime focus is production. A key point that I always keep in mind now is....The Operator Has The Final Say....

Coming up through the ranks was not easy when you consider that a lot of the rigs that I ran when first starting out were older than I was. There were no LMI's or PAT system's on these machines. And sometimes not even a load chart. The foremen were grizzled old veterans whose word was law and woe be it to whomever crossed them.

That was then. Still being considered a "young Operator" on the crew, I've learned that when an operator starts out standing his ground for safety concerns, and does not back down to the pressures of others, he earns respect. An operator is also respected for the talent that he shows in the seat, but if he is not concerned for the safety of his crew and is easily swayed to "Get a little closer to those lines, Don't worry, Just swing" or "Come on it only has to go another two feet, Boom Down" the crew will loose confidence in him because they will feel he does not know his machine and it's limits, and/or disregards known standards in safety.

Young operators in smaller companies are often under extreme pressure to perform at the edge of the limits of themselves and their rigs. The machines are often too small for the work task and foremen are often under the gun to keep the project online with it's small profit margin. Young operators are often swayed to operate a machine till it's light, and often beyond. Just starting out can be a white knuckled adventure at times with the glory of running the "Big Rig" lost in the pit of your stomach only to be replaced by job crippling images of folded booms and crushed crewman.

My first "Big Job" running a crane came right after I graduated from school. I had my hoisting engineer's license before I was of legal drinking age and worked construction all my life since I was 12. I began working for a construction company that was building a $90 mil. power plant near my hometown. They had a 15 ton Lorain All-Terrain crane and were planning on renting a 35 ton Rough-Terrain Hydraulic crane for the heavier picks. My foreman was a rough SOB from Texas. I remember him telling me to trust him because he "Flipped over 3 cranes in his career" and knew what they could handle before they "Turned Turtle". Even at that time I can remember that I was not impressed and thought that was a good indicator that the guy was a loose cannon.

In the course of that project I picked 15 ton with that little 15 ton Lorain and ended up swapping 35ton cranes with the rental company until I got my Grove 65S. A lot of the project consisted of swinging light structural steel and other light picks. A couple of picks were "Edge of The Seat" picks that where white knuckle to the max. Looking back on it now.....I should have never had made those picks. But being a green "Young Operator" I made them. I thought that if I didn't make those picks my job would be on the line and I really wanted to be a crane operator.

One pick was a 10 ton holding tank that had to be stood up on a low boy and then hoisted over a 15 foot retaining wall. Once over the wall, the tank had to be boomed out and lowered onto studs on a concrete pad. The wind was blowing about 30 knots that day and it was all I could do to control the rig once it got light. I would boom down a little, fighting the machine as it rocked in the wind, take up a little on the hoist and try to watch the signal man. The job got done but I said to myself "never again". I would say that about 10 more times on that job.

Another pick was a 17 ton water injection skid that had to go in between two buildings. The load chart said it could be done but what I didn't know at the time was that I would actually be setting the rig up further out than planned due to the terrain. I ended up with 6' of cribbing under my right front outrigger and 4' under the left. This forced the machine back another 5' or so. Now the pick was off the load chart. But being "green", I looked at the situation like these guys had just busted their asses placing this cribbing and I spent 15 minutes getting the bubble centered and adding additional cribbing so I was obligated to make that pick. Well looking back on it, it was their JOB to place that cribbing, it was not a personal favor they were doing for me. And if all that time we spent getting ready for that pick seemed like a lot, rolling that rig over or buckling the boom would have seemed like eternity. The pick should never have been made. But peer pressure was used and I succumbed. That skid was heavy right off the truck with that 35 ton crane and I still had to boom down with it. Well, I got that skid about 3' away from where it had to go and stopped. My rear pads were about a foot off the ground and I had had enough. My foreman is screaming at me to boom down. I'm waving him off and starting to boom up and lower the load. He went ballistic. I stopped bringing the load to me when my pads were back on the ground. I should have put the skid back on the low boy but didn't. The foreman told me to wait one minute and pretty soon I saw an excavator and a D6 come rumbling up the haul road only to take position behind me and pin each outrigger beam down with the blade on oneside and the bucket on the other. Now it was showtime. The skid was placed where it had to go, the machine remained intact, and no one got hurt. People were clapping me on the back and telling me how "American" I was. Other people were shaking their heads. I could've puked.

That was the last "Never Again" I ever said. After that project I ran excavators for two years because I never wanted to be placed in those circumstances again. I'm back running cranes again for a heavy marine construction company and love every minute of it. I've got a great crew with one "green" guy on deck to teach the ropes to. I know what my rig can do and nobody can persuade me to push the edge of the envelope. If I tell the foreman that the barge needs to get closer to the work, he moves the barge. He knows that a "Just try it" comment doesn't cut it.

This rambling story goes out to all the "young Operator's" just starting with ambition to run the big rig. Don't fall for the peer pressure, stand your ground. Listen to the older operators when it comes to a dicey pick, not some guy with a white hard hat and a cell phone screaming about deadlines. And if push comes to shove, YOU CALL THE SHOTS. If it gets heated, I tell em' "A lack of prior planning on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part."

Thanks for letting me post this letter.

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