Pathetic operator

Welcome to HEF ol' Grump! :drinkup

Ross said:

Well ive seen worse. Least the business end and the running gear looks ok. Cosmetic damage is minor and maybe its been vandalised?

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Umm- have you ever bought Cat sheet metal? Hold on to your ankles!

bigblueox said:

...proceeded to get out of the cab and walk through 15 tons of granular statrer fertilizer in flipflops! EERG shankes fist and this was only a few weeks after he's done with OSHA courses i paid for him to take !! erg shakes fist:Banghead :guns :cussing

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Woah, big tipoff there. Any good operator will show up in BOOTS, I don't care if all they do is walk 15 feet through dirt to their cab and back once at the begining and end of the day, they will have a good set of (usually steel toed) boots.

artherd said:

Woah, big tipoff there. Any good operator will show up in BOOTS, I don't care if all they do is walk 15 feet through dirt to their cab and back once at the begining and end of the day, they will have a good set of (usually steel toed) boots.

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So that would mean any operator that doesn't wear boots is a bad one? Thats a stretch, I have worked with a lot that could blow that theory out of the water.
What about the developing world?

artherd said:

Woah, big tipoff there. Any good operator will show up in BOOTS, I don't care if all they do is walk 15 feet through dirt to their cab and back once at the begining and end of the day, they will have a good set of (usually steel toed) boots.

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I agree. Sometimes we have folks show up on the site looking for a job. If they are wearing anything except work boots we won't even talk to them until they come back with boots on. ( I know I will catch it on this one - but rules are rules)

LDK said:

So that would mean any operator that doesn't wear boots is a bad one? Thats a stretch, I have worked with a lot that could blow that theory out of the water.
What about the developing world?

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I think what artherd meant was a professional operator will have boots on. (I believe he was refering to the States.) We have a gazzillion rules to apply by here in the States - it's more than just being a good operator. BTW - third world countries are another ball game and I don't doubt for a minute there are good operators around the world that show up to work in whatever they have to put on. I am not saying they are not good or professional - it's just a different set of rules to play by.

artherd said:

Woah, big tipoff there. Any good operator will show up in BOOTS, I don't care if all they do is walk 15 feet through dirt to their cab and back once at the begining and end of the day, they will have a good set of (usually steel toed) boots.

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yeah key word is highschool kid. but damn how hard is to drive up and down a field. the compuer does all the work!

Yeah,we have similiar rules in the uk about wearing steel toed boots etc,it is one health and safety rule that makes sense. I do not agree with Tylermckee about keeping the floor brushed out,apart from the health and safety aspect its nice to get into a nice clean machine.
As for those guys who do not encourage their operators to look after their machines,what a bunch of fools, they strive like mad to keep the yardage up to earn more dollars but lose that money when they trade in their machine. due its bad condition. I have a friend who runs a zaxis 130 and when he let it be known he was trading the previous 4 year old machine in for this one the dealers were literally swamped with potential buyers. He is an excellent operator who can extract the work from the machine without leaving it in a pile of bits indeed the machine still looked as new.

Neil

Awww crap I guess Im not as good of an operater as I thought I like to wear flipflops especially if Im in a scraper, 12 hours in boots cooks my feet in there :beatsme I keep my boots in the truck in case I need them. But at least I got it right taking care of the machine. I keep it very clean. Often wear just white socks in it and at the end of the day they are still white. I keep an air hose with me and blow it out/whipe it down at least twice a week. Even pull the floor mats out so I can clean all the dirt and crap out from under them.

BrianHay said:

Awww crap I guess Im not as good of an operater as I thought I like to wear flipflops especially if Im in a scraper, 12 hours in boots cooks my feet in there :beatsme I keep my boots in the truck in case I need them. But at least I got it right taking care of the machine. I keep it very clean. Often wear just white socks in it and at the end of the day they are still white. I keep an air hose with me and blow it out/whipe it down at least twice a week. Even pull the floor mats out so I can clean all the dirt and crap out from under them.

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Hey Brian, I am in the same boat I have run dozers in flipflops, hell on occasion I have gone bare foot if the mood has taken me. I like to take care of my boots though, just in case I have to go looking for another job!
If I was hiring, I for sure wouldn't turn a guy away just because I didn't like his choice of footwear, now maybe if I didn't like his hairstyle?

Right on LDK. The amount of time we spend in our machines I like to be as comfortable as I can be. Steel toes are not necessary for an operater, I have met very few that disagree with that. Most could care less what I wear in my cab unless we are on a high profile job with some saftey nut watching our every move. Even then steel toes for operators is not often enforced. But if they are I wear them for the time we are on that job and toss them back in my truck for the next one. If I went to talk to someone about a job and he would not talk to me because I didnt have boots on I would get a good laugh out of that. I wouldnt bother going back to talk to him again.

BrianHay said:

If I went to talk to someone about a job and he would not talk to me because I didnt have boots on I would get a good laugh out of that. I wouldnt bother going back to talk to him again.

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Laugh all you want- right off my jobsite. There will be someone behind you that takes the job seriously.

I take my job very seriously. I also take it very serious who I work for. When I consider a perspective employer I scrutinize your resume just as much as you do mine. There are a ton of jobs out there for a guy with my qualifications and I know the odds of the next guy coming to talk to you having as much to offer your company as I do are very slim. He will likley fit right in with the rest of the adults you babysit.

BrianHay said:

I take my job very seriously. I also take it very serious who I work for. When I consider a perspective employer I scrutinize your resume just as much as you do mine. There are a ton of jobs out there for a guy with my qualifications and I know the odds of the next guy coming to talk to you having as much to offer your company as I do are very slim. He will likley fit right in with the rest of the adults you babysit.

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Whoa! Ego party of one.

I have dealt with many operators that think they are so good - only to find out they can't hit the ground with a blade. These guys usually think so much of themselves that they don't have to follow any rules since "the company can't do without them since they are so good" - wrong. When I see a prospective employee show up in flipflops, it tells me he is not serious about his profession. Do you clean your undercarriage out daily? If so do you do this in flipflops?

I think it is a great stretch to single out the guys that operate for me are not the operator someone else is - since you do not know any of them. Likewise I do not know your operating abilities so I am not in any way debating your operating skills just your attitude towards company/safety policies. Furthermore I am not lumping you into the above mentioned category - this is just what I have experienced.

See the real deal is this - you may not care about your toes, head, eyes or other essential body parts.(Now I might be totally wrong in this assumption) If you lost a toe on a job because you were not wearing boots what would likely happen? A WC claim possibly followed by a disability claim would be filed against the employing company. This in turn would raise insurance rates which affects the bottom line of the company - all because your feet were hot and you didn't want to wear boots. And don't forget that you are missing a few toes as well. Now which one is more sensible? Wearing boots and following normal safety procedures or just winging it with flipflops since you can't take your feet getting hot? The main goal of safety rules are that everyone goes home at the end of the day just like they started the day. I wish I had a dollar for everyone that has told me they have been in the business for X number of years and nothing happened. All it takes is a split second for an accident to happen.



I adhear to the rules and reg's that my guys have to abide by. Steel toe boots 12 hrs per day, long pants and hard hat. I would not subject anyone to something that I am not willing to do myself.

BTW - the Adult Babysitter line is for all the bankers, bank inspectors, gov't inspectors, geotechs, architects, land planners, civil engineers, structural engineers, environmental engineers, storm water management tech's, DOT engineers, accountants, clients and the general public that I have to deal with.

BrianHay said:

He will likley fit right in with the rest of the adults you babysit.

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CM1995 said:

Whoa! Ego party of one.

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I know, I for one, have a great respect for people that show professionalism on this site. It usually means they show even more on the Job Site. I'm putting yall in the professional category. Having said that, I hope we aren't stooping to the level of taking cheap shots. :cool2

Let the debate continue but in a way where we are actually accomplishing something productive.

I shall stay neutral in this but will ask that yall take a look at the 2 quotes below. These should cover most people in their respective careers in construction or mining, in the States. Brian, I realise that you are from Canada, so if you are not under these regulatory Administrations then I think we have found where the disagreement is coming from. Just want to point this out so we all are sitting at the same table.

OSHA Regulations (Standards - 29 CFR) said:

The employer shall ensure that each affected employee wears protective footwear when working in areas where there is a danger of foot injuries due to falling or rolling objects or objects piercing the sole.
OSHA.org

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MSHA 30 CFR § 57.15003 said:

All persons shall wear suitable protective footwear when in or around an area of a mine or plant where a hazard exists which could cause an injury to the feet.
MSHA.org

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Thanks :drinkup

CM1995 said:

Whoa! Ego party of one. .

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OK - that was a cheap shot and I apologize.

No appology necessary CM That was probably easy to be read as if I have a big ego. I dont though, I am experienced but I dont think I am the best there is. There are plenty of operators out there better then I am and I still learn everyday. As for being better then your guys, like you said I dont know them so I have no idea how my skills compare to theirs. I just thought your signiture was referring to your employees so thats what I was going by. Im sure others read it that way as well. What I meant was Experienced operators are hard find nowadays. If one employer is not interested in me its not a big deal, there are plenty more who are. That does not mean that I am indispensable to an employer though, the company would do just fine without me. And on the same note the company is dispensable to me too. Maybe even more so with the shortage of operators here. Its far easier for me to find a new job then it is for an employer to find a new experienced operator.

If I was leaving the house with the intention of going to see you on the job, I would be wearing my boots and possibly a vest as well. But if I just happened to be in the neighborhood and spotted you working I wouldnt go home and get them. I would wait for an opportunity to catch your attention and flag you over to the edge of the job to talk. If you told me to get my boots before you would talk to me I would not be back. If you told me to go get them and get to work I would. As I said before if its enforced on the job site I wear them. If not then they are in my truck ready for if I gotta get out and work on the ground. I think our saftey rules read almost exactly the same as yours. Steel toes in the cab of a machine is something that has been debated plenty. Partly because of how its worded. It says steel toes must be worn were there is a danger of injury to your feet....were is the danger inside the cab? Or even walking from your vehicle to your machine?

lol Countryboy no worries :drinkup I dont think I have ever seen a thread locked in HEF and I dont think there will be a need to lock one any time soon. HEF is full of good people and even though we may not always agree with eachother its still all good.

I had to laugh tonight on some of CM1995's comment's in his post. You'll see why in a minute.

I'm starting a new job Monday after being basically out of work on disability since 2004, when I had both worn-out and arthritic knees replaced. I did do a little cat skinning last summer, before coming down with Valley Fever, but that was almost more play than serious work. (The cat-skinnin that is!)

Anyway, I had to pick up my son today after he drops his Chev off for some warranty work, and it's close to the new job, so we head out there after, so my wife and he can see the place.

Most everyone is gone as it's afternoon on a Friday you know, but two of the owner-managers are in and so I introduce the son and wife and we get to talking. The one lady asks if I really use 'surfer-joe' as a handle on the internet and I said yes, I do. She and the other gal burst out laughing cause they knew I was from California, and they had gotten this e-mail from surfer-joe, so they just knew I was a tattooed young buck with a pair of salty baggies, stringy long hair, and a beat-up old VW Microbus with a shark-chewed surf-board tied down on top. You know, sorta like squizzy.

And there I was today, a gray-haired pot-bellied ole dirt stiff in Nike flip-flops, a paint-spattered tee-shirt, a pair of dusty stretch pants, and an old sweaty and battered Seabee hat. Another gal came up and asked the others who I was, and they told her I was the new Fleet Manager. "Ahuh," she said, with that sceptical look in her eye like she knew her leg was being pulled. "No, no, honest," the others exclaimed, and we all busted out laughing.

I could see this other gal was thinking that "this is sloppy Friday, but really!" I didn't explain to her that when I go to the VA for a medical appointment, as I was today, I wear the minimum clothing I can get away without scaring all the old women and little kids. It's just easier to pull stuff up or down as the doctor directs if you don't have shoes and socks on, or other things like belts, zippers, buttons or snaps. Course, for the last four or five years, I have usually looked like this or worse all the time anyway, as I battled my way thru the many ailments I've had.

But it was great fun today. The ladies weren't dressed much better than I was, but yesterday they all looked real nice, and that's the way they look most of the time. By the way, this is the first construction company office I've ever been in that had one large room dedicated to being a day-care center for little kids. I think there were several grandkids in there plus a couple of other urchins that drifted in from down the street.


1995 has a point in that what we wear at work is designed more to protect us from not only the elements, but from the additional hazards we face every day on the job. Hard hats, ear-plugs, safety glasses, gloves, long-sleeved shirts, long pants, (no slight to our down-under brethren intended) and a good pair of high top boots. You can get away with wearing or not wearing some items at one time or another, but all this stuff is mandated for a very good reason, and that reason is primarily to get YOU, the individual worker, back home in as good of condition as when you went into work.

I've done all the things Brian mentioned, as I'm sure many here have. I have a lot of hours operating equipment with no shirt, just a pair of flip-flops or tennis shoes, and I was never hurt or in any particular danger because of it. I grew up that way and those I worked around in those days basically showed me the way. I can also remember tiny ole Vietnamese fellers wearing nothing but a pair of raggedy shorts and a rice-straw hat barreling down the haul road bare-footed on a TS24 scraper in a big cloud of dust and diesel smoke. When I was in Antigua, the Bi-Wi's didn't wear much more as they toiled on the international airport expansion for a contractor out of Montreal.

But, they didn't have our laws to contend with, and they hadn't a clue what a safety culture was. Even some folks from foreign countries working here in our area still do not. I saw a crew of obvious illegal's in south Phoenix the other day working in a narrow slab-sided trench about six or 7 feet deep, no lay-back, no trench-box, no safety ropes, no ladders, no hard hats, no English, no nothing. The evening news will report some of those guys as dead or injured one of these days soon for sure.

I could say that things might have stayed loose like the old days, but as time went on, more and more people were getting hurt, and lack of proper protective clothing was a big factor. Insurance companies, medical providers and others began to take notice and here we are today, especially when our politicians found out thay could appear to be real noble and forward thinking when they passed laws mandating protective clothing, gear, and methods, and all the while their brother-in-laws were raking in the dough from the hard-hats and safety goggles they was making and selling.

You know, back years ago on a job, I started getting complaints that the 651B's wouldn't shift into reverse. My mechanics were starting to report the same thing as they tried to start the bloomin things in the severe cold. So nothing for it but to head on out and see what the matter was.

My ace mechanic climbed into one cab and said, "I'll bet these here sunflower seeds have something to do with it." Sure enough, there was a thick layer of dirt, seed hulls, Twinkie wrappers, butts, candy wrappers, newspapers, dirty old clothes and gloves, and all of this had managed to migrate in under the shift quadrant. In that quadrant there is a long shifter lever that is mostly parallel to the floor, and it goes DOWN for reverse. But with all the crap on the floor in this cab, and many others we found, the shifter didn't have a prayer of going far enough to affect a reverse gear.

I received a Michigan loader all the way back from Vietnam in 1972 at my college in Michigan, and it was served up the same way. Old clothes and hats and gloves. Dusty Vietnamese newspapers, drink containers, lots of butts, dirty magazines, and a ton of just plain dirt.

One of my real pet peeves is the guys that chew tobacco and can't be bothered to either spit in a bottle or at least outside the cab. There is almost nothing worse than having to operate a machine behind a fella that is a real slob with tobacco juice, or even worse, having to work on a machine coated with the filthy stuff!

With some operators, I guess it just doesn't feel natural if they aren't wallowing IN the same dirt they are working on moving around.

So, CM1995, you go fella! Brian, you and LDK are going to have to tighten up.

Congrats on the new job Joe :thumbsup

CM1995 said:

OK - that was a cheap shot and I apologize.

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BrianHay said:

lol Countryboy no worries :drinkup I dont think I have ever seen a thread locked in HEF and I dont think there will be a need to lock one any time soon. HEF is full of good people and even though we may not always agree with eachother its still all good.

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Disagreement is educational but animosity expressd with witty remarks usually leads to a downward spiral. Glad to see its settled. :thumbsup

After all, I'd hate to see yall, like the cowboys in the old Westerns, drawing at High Noon over a pair of Flippy Floppies. I don't think they even had them back then. :beatsme

Congrats on the job Joe. :drinkup
Does this mean you will have to spend less time on your interesting "ramblings" and more time doing work?

Resolved????????????????

Hi, Folks.
Glad to see that the safety issue, if not totally resolved, has at least arrived at the point of agreeing to disagree.

Here is a little story with some preamble and an aftermath. The story is from a book that I am (slowly) writing about my experiences on the operating game and other things.

"One of the more noticeable of the operators on this project was a man whom we could call ‘Brian’ 'cos that was his name but he was known to almost everyone on the job as ‘Wildcat’ so that is the name that we’ll use. Wildcat mostly drove scrapers which suited him as it enabled him to indulge his ’need for speed’ and still get paid for rushing madly about the place. He was able however, to operate several other types of plant quite well, including ‘dozers.

Now, it just happened that, as a result of an accident where an employee was injured, the contractor’s insurance company decreed that all non-office employees had to wear hard hats and boots at all times. We eventually got them to relent and allow those travelling in vehicles to remove their hard hats. (We ARE talking 1970 here.) This direction was met with some resistance from a number of employees, Wildcat among them.

One day whilst Wildcat was driving his scraper at a his usual speed of flat out down the haul road, his foreman pulled him up to give him some new instructions. The first thing the foreman noticed was that Wildcat was not wearing his hard hat and, knowing his man, the foreman suspected that the feet might be bare too, so he asked, â€Where are your hard hat and boots, Wildcat?†Our hero reached down beside his seat, picked up the requested items, held them up and said, “Here, Boss.†The foreman said, “Put ‘em on, Wildcat.†Next question, “Aw, do I hafta?†The answer, “Yeah. Put ‘em on.†And the foreman departed after giving his further instructions.

About an hour later, the same foreman drove into the pit where the scrapers were being loaded and almost the first thing he saw was that Wildcat had switched machines with one of the ‘dozer operators and was now operating one of the ‘dozers push-loading the scrapers. As soon as Wildcat saw the foreman, he raised the hard hat from his head in a mock salute, lifted his feet, one at a time, from the pedals of the ‘dozer to show his safety boots --- and then stood up and flapped his penis at the foreman. Except for a huge grin, his hard hat and boots were ALL he was wearing (The insurance company didn’t say we had to wear anything else – not even SP15+ sunscreen, which wasn’t even a twinkle in a chemical company’s financial report way back then.) When this foreman had finished telling me this story he asked, “What the hell can you do with a man like that?†Good question.

About a month later, Wildcat was dead. Working night shift at the time, he had been drinking all afternoon with his foreman (A different foreman.) and some other men from his shift. As the men were getting on the man-hauler to go out to work that evening, the foreman called out, “Wildcat, your scraper is in the workshop. Pick it up and take it out to the job.†Being a good employee when it suited him, Wildcat went to the workshop, got on his scraper and away he went at his usual leisurely flat out.

About two miles from camp, there was a fairly sharp left hand bend around the side of a hill. Wildcat missed the bend, went over the side, was thrown out of the seat (The insurance company hadn’t said anything about wearing seat belts on the scrapers either.) and was killed when the back wheel of the scraper ran over his head. The insurance company argued about paying up on the accident because Wildcat apparently was not wearing his hard hat at the time. Fat lot of good that would have done with nearly eight tons of scraper (the weight on that one wheel) running squarely over his head.

There is also a moral to this story: You can NEVER tell for 100% certain sure that something is NOT going to go wrong and cause an injury. For mine, it is better to be wearing the correct safety apparel in the event of the unexpected than to be dressed as you choose and curse the insurance company for the rest of your life.

That's just my 0.02 - - - and hey, it's getting closer to being on a par with topside dollars.

On a different note, still connected with currency values though. On Feb., 14, 1966, Australia went to decimal currency - dollars and cents. Can anybody here tell me what the cross rate was on that date? (LOL. I KNOW what it was but how many of the rest of you do?)