To those of you who would charge no weekend differential, what about night differential? Night weekend?
I really hate working nights, seems like it messes up everything about sleep, and the next days, and family time, etc.
I try not to work nights, I only have decent lights on one crane for night work, I had a week long night project at a walmart remodel, so I added a bunch of led spot/flood (they're great). Fortunately it was only a couple hours each night, just after midnight. I went and did it myself, I won't send the guys to do it, I figure if I was willing to take the job, I better be ready to work at night. I'm not in a big metro area, so rarely have things that need to happen at night, it seems like that is a more large metro area thing. I think I just charged the overtime rate. There are times i wish I had better lights on all the cranes, but its a good excuse to go home and start again the next day. I find my depth perception is not nearly as good at night, trying to set something down 80' away from yourself at night is no fun. Yes there are signal guys, but the depth perception still matters. I don't care how many lights are up, its not as safe as day work.
Our operators always got their due overtime rate of pay. At $200 to $500 (250 ton Manitowoc) an hour for the cranes extra work hours, it was still a good profit center and well worth eating the operators overtime difference.
I kind of figured that you were using a larger crane if you weren't charging overtime. It's a little easier to make overtime for the operator at $500/ hr. vs $140/ hr on a smaller crane.
I walked away from the National, with 5500 lbs of pull on the hook. It will stay like that all night and into tomorrow morning.
Natman- I wouldn't have walked away from the crane with a load on. Just me. I always figure if I'm hooked to it, I'm liable. Not saying it won't be fine in the morning, but I have had jobs/ projects where they wanted me to stay hooked overnight, and I won't. Find a way to brace it up, tie it off, whatever, if there's a load on the hook, me or one of my operators is going to be there, I'm cutting loose before I go home. I think if a guy had a crawler with dogs in it for both winches, it's not such a big deal, but I wouldn't leave a hydro. I rarely even shut my cranes off with a load on, I guess I've shucked too many starters in my life
. I also wouldn't charge if I'm not there.