Just some work pics

I suffer from the same problem, I have the materials for a few projects here, just need get to get to them. Cam

My dad bought a AC kit for a 1955 Buick he drove to college in the late 50s. He parked the car after college and sold it in the 199? the kit was steal in the trunk.

Day 5 of the endless cell tower job, has been much like the previous ones this week. Lots of sun, not much crane movement. If Saturday goes good- we may finish on Sunday.

Yesterday and today were both supposed to go into the evening hours, but both were broken up by pop up thunderstorms with lightning. The 100 ton doesn't telescope in very quickly, and its a little sketchy when the storms already on you, with a bunch of stick in the air and climbers in the tower. All you can do is get them out of the tower quick and hope for the best.

Tomorrow has the highest temps forecasted for the week (weatherman says 100- or whatever that is in celsius for you foreigners like 537 degrees or something) , supposed to cool down sunday.

I never liked the camo cell towers. Doesn't fool anybody and the bulk & height makes it even more conspicuous.

The only camo tower I like is the flagpole. Even has a flag on it.

Camo towers look particularly obvious when they are in the middle of a deciduous forest in the fall or winter.

As a low flying pilot, I just don't like the sound of a "camo tower!"

With a storm moving in, I bet it gets intense with that much stick to pull in, wow.

Didn't finish on Sunday. We're going back on Monday and the possibility of finishing was listed as "maybe".

crane operator said:

Didn't finish on Sunday. We're going back on Monday and the possibility of finishing was listed as "maybe".

Click to expand...

Sounds like a well paying job provided this is by the hour and not a fixed bid. I'm never a fan of a job running long, but sometimes there's a nice silver lining attached.

Still not done. Tomorrow is Friday and I've got a cabin booked in the wilderness down in Arkansas for Sat. and Sunday night for the family.

Might not get my holiday weekend off. Wife isn't very happy.

We're right by a big resort (that's why the tower is a fake tree) and I know one of the guys that helps run it. He called me today "are you guys going to have that crane sticking up all weekend?" "Its really sticking out on the hillside".

Our ugly old boom sticking out and making people uncomfortable- sounded like a pretty good excuse to tell the cell boys to head back to texas for the weekend, and they can figure out their problems next week. But the more I discussed it with the resort guy, we decided neither one of us wanted to be the reason for customers at the resort not having good cell service for their holiday weekend.

So if we don't get done tomorrow- on the weekend we're telescoping out and putting the cell boys in the tree in the morning, retracting boom while they are working, and telescoping back out to bring them down at the end of the day.

And if we finish tomorrow, we won't have to worry about any of that.

fingers crossed for success. Darling Wife needs to be happy
I asked for the 5th off several months ago, and it turned into a pi$$ing contest. The owner wanted to trade working on Saturday for taking the 5th off. I said no, I'll be off both of those days. I had mentioned it back at the beginning of the year when we reserved our camp site.
One of the engineers stuck his nose in and found out I cared about as much for his opinion on that matter as I did anything else. "I was rude" he said. Don't call me and we'll do just fine

crane operator said:

Still not done. Tomorrow is Friday and I've got a cabin booked in the wilderness down in Arkansas for Sat. and Sunday night for the family.

Might not get my holiday weekend off. Wife isn't very happy.

Click to expand...

If you don't set your personal time boundary's then no one will. We are taking tomorrow through Monday off and paying our guys for the time. Everyone needs a vacation - the ones bitching about your crane sticking up over the weekend will more than likely be enjoying their time off.

skyking1 said:

I asked for the 5th off several months ago, and it turned into a pi$$ing contest. The owner wanted to trade working on Saturday for taking the 5th off. I said no, I'll be off both of those days. I had mentioned it back at the beginning of the year when we reserved our camp site.

Click to expand...

Stick to your guns. You asked for the time off and they should've noted that - it's not your problem they didn't.

Of course it's an individual decision whether you are an employee or small business owner on what stance to take in order to set those personal boundary's. From my perspective the world needs skilled tradesmen like never before in my lifetime, might be time to reflect that. Just my $.035 adjust for inflation, YMMV.

I was an oiler for a 250 and 170 ton ATC after the great meltdown of 2009.We stacked alot of 300+ foot towers.Stacked a mono pine in a ski resort once,it only took a day.We must have had better tower hands back then.

I'm betting supply chain issues on that tower problem. They are everywhere.
CM, it was not a thing. It was mostly that guy sticking his nose in and risking losing it. I can walk away from this gig and be working elsewhere in a matter of days, if not hours. We ALL know that

mekon said:

Stacked a mono pine in a ski resort once,it only took a day.We must have had better tower hands back then.

Click to expand...

We're not stacking a new tower. This is a existing tower, we put some new antenna on, and they are having electrical/ communication/ fiber optic / interwebization issues.

If you remember stacking towers, they don't do any of the antenna/ wiring hookup when you stack the tower- all the wiring connecting happens after the crane leaves.

So this tree/ tower, doesn't have a set of steel pegs like the towers, so instead of the cell boys climbing the tower for a week and hooking everything up after the crane leaves, they have to have us there to put them in the top of the tower so they can work. Its not the site guys issues. The climbers take endless pictures of all the electrical connections they have made, send them off to some engineer in a office, and wait for responses while the computer guys in who knows where, run diagnostic tests.

So far, we haven't gotten a "all green" good to go signal, back from all the diagnostic guys.

And as far as the taking off, I think I'm going to the cabin, all the guys have split up the weekend work (if it has to happen). They knew I had plans and they are covering. They're a great group of employees.

skyking1 said:

fingers crossed for success. Darling Wife needs to be happy
I asked for the 5th off several months ago, and it turned into a pi$$ing contest. The owner wanted to trade working on Saturday for taking the 5th off. I said no, I'll be off both of those days. I had mentioned it back at the beginning of the year when we reserved our camp site.
One of the engineers stuck his nose in and found out I cared about as much for his opinion on that matter as I did anything else. "I was rude" he said. Don't call me and we'll do just fine

Click to expand...

If any of my guys asked have asked off, they are getting the time off. I just call the customers and tell them they are going to have to switch days or find someone else. I don't pull that on my guys.

Asking for the saturday before the 4th- so that you can "get off on tuesday"- isn't going to fly. I'm going to venture a guess that the engineer and the boss man aren't showing up on Saturday.

I don't ask my guys to work on saturday, unless I'm already working and can't cover everything. And its always voluntary. I figure them showing up on monday is voluntary also- and I would like to keep them all working for me. So with the weekend stuff, I'll "do you have weekend plans?" before I ask.

We already kinda knew that about you Mr Slings.

CM1995 said:

the ones bitching about your crane sticking up over the weekend will more than likely be enjoying their time off.

Click to expand...

We're right up the hill from the resort marina and can hear the music and laughing and fun- it was going on all weekend.

And just on another note. The climbers we are working with- are two tough dudes.

It was high 90's and over 100 temps last week until after saturday. So they went monday through the weekend, every day in the tower in those conditions. Monday we were onsite until 8. Two days we got afternoon thunderstormed out around 5 (high humidity brews up afternoon storms here). But we would put them in the tree at 8:30-9:00 every morning and then they would stay in the tree working until at least 6:00pm, mostly later. Their boss would send up water and food, but that was it.

Friday and saturday were both 105-108 heat indexes and it wasn't very nice out. I and my rigger were sitting under the shade tree drinking water and dying. Those two little hardcore dudes kept at it all day long. I like to think I'm pretty tough- but I ain't that tough.

If I came across as brash it wasn't intended. Hitting the "over the hill" point in my life has me rethinking a lot of things.

CM1995 said:

If I came across as brash it wasn't intended. Hitting the "over the hill" point in my life has me rethinking a lot of things.

Click to expand...

No problems here , I sometimes wish our work was scheduled out 6 months or even 6 weeks in advance, and I had all my little ducks in a row. I've been on the phone numerous times this week working around a 5 day job that's into its second week of work, with a one hour back notice of a start time. Its been interesting to say the least.

But we've made it work so far, and I think we're going to finish tomorrow, and everyone is going to have off until tuesday and if doesn't all happen quite like that- I guess we will deal with whatever curve balls we get.

And I'm also in that stage of life when I'm beginning to see that maybe I didn't have to work all those hours for all those years, and miss all those events. I've even been kind of looking at motorhomes.

CM1995 said:

If I came across as brash it wasn't intended. Hitting the "over the hill" point in my life has me rethinking a lot of things.

Click to expand...

That was not brash it was just direct

My guys get all the time off they schedule I do a few paid holidays but that's about all we can afford as the owner I seem to never take time off but I think that's a mind set more than anything kids are growing and starting to get to a fun age so it will be less 7 day weeks in my future

My guys probably work an average of 45 to 50 hours a week so I really dont want to work Saturday unless its absolutely necessary cause that's the days I can do maintenance and no matter what when I have employees out on Saturday I get about half of what I planned to fix done