Breaking in a new operator

[Lashlander]

The Barge service company that leases half our yard had a driver that wanted to become an operator. You try to train people right but sometimes you miss a few couple points. For instance, don't pull a 60,000# container of canned salmon off a 4 high stack then race to the other end of the yard (without lowering it down) and make a hard right. If you do I'll have to walk my crane down to upright you.

 

[Lashlander]

A week later

Same guy decided to take a forklift rated to pick 96,000# out on a wood dock built in 1944. The crane couldn't pick the whole forklift so we had to use our Chevy dozer to snub it off under the crane in case the rear broke though when I picked the front out. We then walked everything back. The only thing that kept the forklift from going all the way in was a piling stuck right in the transmission and held it. The guy went back to driving truck.
To be fair there's also a couple we've had to fix from the other freight company that comes here.

 

[digger242j]

Just a comment on the first one--it may not be the very first thing you teach a new operator (on any type of machine), but surely it's the second or third thing: Carry your load low. Either he wasn't bright enough to absorb ihat to begin with, or whoever trained him didn't do a very good job...

 

[RonG]

I finally figured out the "Chevy" dozer,cute.Euclid.We ALL love your pics and commentary,keep 'em coming!!.Ron G

 

[Squizzy246B]

Poor guy... I mean you have to feel sorry for him

I mean I've only taken out a few power cables and fallen off a few trucks but this guy has real talent.:wink2

 

[Lashlander]

Just a comment on the first one--it may not be the very first thing you teach a new operator (on any type of machine), but surely it's the second or third thing: Carry your load low. Either he wasn't bright enough to absorb ihat to begin with, or whoever trained him didn't do a very good job...

I agree with you, and I'm not sure if he never got told or it didn't sink in, but its that common sense thing again. The driver of the tractor trailer roll over claimed his load shifted when he came around the cornor. We rolled it back up and they opened the doors. It was packed with fiber boxes for the canneries. The trailer was upside down and the load didn't even shift. He had his fifth wheel as high as it would go to keep from having to crank the jack and took the cornor to fast. His truck caught a guy wire or it would have rolled all the way to tha bottom of the hill. He was lucky.

 

[Ford LT-9000]

Thats a big forklift never ran one that big the biggest we have is a 10,000lb Patrick. I guess like the saying goes bigger they are harder they fall.

People have watched me run forklift lifing stuff that is heavier than what they are rated for but I have been running forklift for many years it was the first piece of equipment I learned on. If your ever lifting anything from up high soon as it clears what ever you need drop it to 12 inches off the ground.

Some of the loads I have picked up you have no steering so your using the brakes to steer while you back up.

Now we have a regulations in B.C. that require you to be a certified forklift operator. The stupid part of it the instructor that gives you the test can have all the knowlege but no forklift experience.

One of the worst loads I had to unload was roof trusses they were a decent stack of them they were 40 feet tip to tip and 12 feet wide at the king post. Nobody in the yard would unload them they didn't have as many forklift experience than me. I told the yard manager I want two forklifts one on eitherside but he said no do it with one soon as I started picking them up 6"s off the trailer deck one of the 2x4s let go. Yard manager said I guess we should use two forklifts .

I do like the pictures as I said before it reminds me of stuff we do here that doesn't happen much anymore.