poor planning = unhappy operator

Hey there Hendrik, pretty much agree with all that you said there. Nothing wrong with getting out of the machine and most of us started on the ground and know what it feels like to be working with someone who wont get out.

Havent really started looking yet but I have a 15 min drive home and pass 4 major worksites so think I have a good chance of getting work just a matter of dollars.

xrlentau6: I sympathize with your situation, I know what you're going through, I had a job working on a dairy before I was married, granted it was only part time work, but every day when I would get there I'd go there with a fresh attitude and a willingness to work, my thoughts were that if I can show these guys I'm capable of working hard and not afraid of the manual labor I'd more or less get "promoted" to better work as time went on. Of course I had the idea that I'd still have to get out and do the bull work too, but sometimes ya kind of think that there should be a bit of "reward" for your efforts and not taken advantage of. well to make a long story short the guy I was working for hired in some fast talking kid to do the gravy work, and the little S.O.B never would budge an inch to help with the shovel work. If he wasn't sitting in the seat he would not work. I hated it! I wrecked my back working there and finally had to quit do to constant strains on the back. The kicker of the situation is that when I left the guy had to hire in three more guys to do the same job I was doing.
I can almost bet that the guys that you are getting off the seat to help really appreciate the fact that you help them. They will surely miss you if you decide to leave and they have to hire two extra people to do what you are doing.

I often work for a company doing groundworks on railway jobs,drive diggers,dumper,telehandler,swap between machines,get off do setting out,steel fixing,concreting,basically most jobs if machine not working,because I'm self employed operator this helps me turn days/week hires into 7 month jobs,just now the economic climate over here in UK means you get work if your useful,if you're not on a bulk muckshift you can't expect to sit in idle machine,plus it's more interesting from my point of view?

Monte1255 said:

well to make a long story short the guy I was working for hired in some fast talking kid to do the gravy work, and the little S.O.B never would budge an inch to help with the shovel work.

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Which raises another issue, often you get this sort of situation where the boss has pets that get the good jobs, all the time.
Sure if someone has been there a while they tend to get the better gigs but if this happens all the time, people do get annoyed and morale suffers.

We do underground utilities, urban, rural, steep ground, soft ground. Operators are a dime a dozen compared to good pipelayers/ leadmen. Usually the best operators started as pipe crew and get paid operator wages regardless of the job. In my experience the really top hands can operate and or lay pipe and or supervise the crew. Most of them care more about the pay rate than the job. Don't complain learn as much about the business as possible.

I have seen the young operators... they will let a laborer talk them into digging the one more bite...
We were excavating near that old ciba geigy fiberglass pipe.. you cant even look at it without it breaking.. they were to hand dig the last foot... but the lazy 3 si's... kept inching him down.. now when you can see a valve bonnet .. experience would say stop... but they didn't...nor did the operator... they were wet little laborers.. they didn't have a chance to climb from the ditch..
they had to swim... 3 of the 6 fire pumps kicked on when the line broke... I think they are v-12 cat powered pumps
I've seen the warm bodies that are a dime a dozen... they can barely hit the ground with a backhoe bucket...
laborers are the same way.. most think it's easy setting in the seat of a hoe... it ain't...
I'll shoot my tracks... if a laborer offers to help then that's fine.. there are operators that won't even touch their tracks...
Years ago that was the laborer's job ..shoot tracks
it was the hoe hoed ... the loader loaded.... and the labor ... well labored

Mostly when you hire on .. you accept what the boss sets as what is expected of you.. for me it's an operator... if you want a laborer then change your ad..

our policy is that you are being paid for your time not always for your skill and anytime someone can get operator pay for general hand tool work they be thankfull because its a lot better than the couch

Unless your running a scraper or working at a mine your job is whatever your boss tells you it is for the day! I am a foreman i make 30$hr and i dont even batt an eye if my crew has little work or is slow we move over and help out our other crews. And alot of the time i am in the ditch or benching manholes... Why because i am Thankful that i am employed. And for that matter i love swiching guys around on my crew just so everyone can apreciate the jobs that have to be done day in and day out. Like i tell my guys you will never apreciate that machine unless you know where you will be demoted to, aswell as the labourors get a chance to deal with some of the situations that the oporators are in.

To me it sounds like your in the wrong business Why dont you try truck driveing ... Or what i love to see when guys are sitting is Grease that machine and clean the damm cab out !

Best of luck

Guess the thing is work is not slow down here, understand that things around the world might still be slow but things here have really picked up. Prior to the whole GFC thing I used to work for myself as a one man operation so if the road needed sweeping I did it, hand digging by the house- i did it. I then went and worked for a pipelaying company and spent most of my time on the tools. I didnt complain as that was what the job was. After 6 months I was made a Team Leader where I tired to stay on the ground as much as I could and got other people to operate.

For a few different reasons I started looking elsewhere and came across a my current job, " Plant Operator" the money is the same as I was getting paid and the hours better.

As a "operator" I am alsways happy to get out and help as I think its rude to just sit in the machine and watch work mates and also helps to keep in some kind of shape. As for the greasing etc on the days when the machine is used I grease it prior to use and also grease and then at the end of the shift I wipe down the controls and dash etc and sweep out the cab.

My issue is that I am lucky to use the machine 1 day a week so for the rest of the time I am just working as a labourer. Why? because the project manager wants to make sure he has a machine around in case its needed. Not sure thats the right thing to do with a $250,000 machine when it could be used at any number of other projects.

But hey maybe I am not suited to this kind of work?

Deeretime said:

Unless your running a scraper or working at a mine your job is whatever your boss tells you it is for the day! I am a foreman i make 30$hr and i dont even batt an eye if my crew has little work or is slow we move over and help out our other crews. And alot of the time i am in the ditch or benching manholes... Why because i am Thankful that i am employed. And for that matter i love swiching guys around on my crew just so everyone can apreciate the jobs that have to be done day in and day out. Like i tell my guys you will never apreciate that machine unless you know where you will be demoted to, aswell as the labourors get a chance to deal with some of the situations that the oporators are in.

To me it sounds like your in the wrong business Why dont you try truck driveing ... Or what i love to see when guys are sitting is Grease that machine and clean the damm cab out !

Best of luck

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This thread has shown a few things:
Whos a "Boss"

Whos going to be a "Boss"

Whos going to be doing the same thing....................

lts simple around here, you get paid well for your trade what ever that may be, you do what ever needs to be done to get the project finished, if you dont like it theres the door.

Im a small operation, albeit Ive got pretty good amount of equipment. When I put an ad for an operator- It says Operator-Laborer. If its for a laborer, it says Laborer -Operator/Driver. Like some of the other guys here, all my guys are expected to do everything. My #1 guy now grew up same as me, working for his dad-which means hes just as happy running an excavator as he is pulling a rake or mowing my lawn on a slow friday. Just thankful he punching in. As am I.

Im an owner and opererator, thats what you should consider. I do fencing and excavating. When I go to a job to quote I make sure that my equipment is needed. Ill hire a friend or family if there is grunt work to do. this allows me to operatate the machines and do what I do best. Im certainly not above getting out of the machine at times to shovel , chainsaw ,etc. But I did not get into this business to break my back, if thats the case I could do framing. To many of my friends who are in construction have had thier bodies breakdown now that they have reached thier 40's-50's as a result. The reason I got into this is because I saw men in their 70's operating the equipment and figure its a long term career that pays well. My jobs are relatively small $3k-$5k and so are my customers. I make it clear to my customers that Im not doing hard, chaingang type labour. And simply dont take on jobs that require that. Im not arguing with anyone here about what employees are expected to do and I respect that they get work for the employees. But for this post I understand your concerns. Owner/operator may be the way for you to go.

I think some people don't quite understand the original nature of this thread, the question was should an operator be expected to do an unreasonable amount of labouring, especially if this was not made clear in the job specifications?
The current status of the economy is not the point and answering the question based on that is not what was asked.
Obviously when times are tough and their are more experienced behinds than seats, you will try and hang onto a job, especially if the pay is good but in order to answer this question you have to look past that and work on the basis that there are other job vacancies.

You think this is bad just wait until you get promoted again to babysitter.

If you are unhappy its alway nice to get the boss a crack at making it better before you up and quit. Just don't let him blow smoke up your butt.

I myself would stay as i know there is going to be manual labour envolved like look what kind of industery your in its not an easy one thats for sure. I'm an owner/operator and ive been down in the trenchs that are 7'-8' ft deep in mud up to my knees well my employee is sitting in a nice warm cab does it bother me no cause i know it part of the job i treat each person evenly. theres times when i'm sitting in the seat and there doing the grunt work but i swich it up

In my experience the operators where I was working would get out and give you a hand. The site super could operate all the equipment and also was in the ditch to locate the service with his shovel in hand. That works well.

But if some one is hired as an operator, I would expect the majority of their time would be operating.

Thanks all for the repleys, all have at least been good to get me thinking.

Guess where I am coming from is my last job, they didnt employe "operators" we where all employed as operators/labourers so it was clear that a good part of your job would be spent on the tools. The reason for this was they didnt want operators who refused to get out of the cab.

The company I work for now is a bigger company and at the interview explained they have clear roles, pipe layers, labourers, truck drivers operators etc.

No while more than happy to get out and help I didnt take the job to be a labourer. Times when you are trying to hand dig to expose a service I am happy to get out and help, or in fact do it all as ofter there is no one else there. As I think about it this seems to be the issue, a shortage of labourers.

As there are so much work the company seems to have trouble keeping staff and this inculdes labourers. Have spoken to the company about it a few weeks ago and was told that they want me "in the seat" as much as possible but things havent changed.

Its a bit like if you where employed to sell cars. You wouldnt mind giving them a wipe down and a hose off at the start of the day. However if all you did was wash cars you would find somewhere else to work.

I must say one thing did cross my mind and that was am I a crap operator? however all the feedback has been good with my direct supervisor even saying I am worth more money.

I am getting close to being 40, and feel its time to look after my self as I want to be able to still be working when I am 60 (would be nice not to have to). Have been in a range to roles in the past and like the idea of being about to leave the job at work with out taking stress home.

Ok time to apply for a few jobs now. Thanks all.

the short and direct answer is to move on, if you feel they didn't hold up their end of the deal, move on, if the work is plentiful and you have the skills, what are you waiting for? move on. You have the best scenario, excellent operator, very knowledgeable at running a business, plenty of work, why not go back into business for yourself?

Hey guys an update on my situation. Of course I have been and spoken to management about this and have now heard back. The company has another project starting up soon and I am going to be moved there to be trained up on another form of equipment for a couple of weeks. At the same time the digger that I have been using is moving to another project and I will then be moved there and will be spending much more time in the seat. The good things are all of these projects are within 15 minutes from home, the feedback has been that I look after the machine and they are wanting me to stay in it. It may not be the best machine in the world as its a JCB but its new and everything works (only had 450 hours when I got in it).

I know it might seem like I was complaining about things but what I was doing wasnt what I expected when I took on the job, seems that all is going to be sorted.

Happy digging.

Great to hear your results and a good lesson, talk to your employer, be reasonable and things may just work out for ya. Good luck and I think its been a great thread.