Nightmare Jobs

Yes, we have ALL had them. That job that just kicked your butt, made you question why the hell you got in this business, you lost hair and aged 20 years in a week because of it. What's your story?

I have had numerous of these, but 1 when I was young and had just started in this business is THE one I can never forget.
I was 19 years old and had just gotten hired by a Terex dealer as a trainee. I didn't know squat about heavy equipment except for a few generic things I picked up working for a construction company. My very first week, a semi-truck had broke down on the highway right in front of the dealership and the driver had walked into the shop seeking help. He stated to my boss that the some brake valve had broken off the frame and the driveline had caught it and ripped the thing off with every air line attached to it. Of course, my boss leaves it up to me to fix this for him and I had never even seen one of these much less knew anything about air operated anything.
I had 6 air lines and all them same color, no guide or print to go by......the boss just said fix it. That truck was 150 yards from the shop and it had broke down around noon that day. I bet I walked 10 miles and installed and removed that dam thing 100 times trying to figure out what line went where...……..It was Midnight before I FINALLY got it.
When I did get it fixed, it was like I had won the lottery. I have since to be THAT frustrated over any other job since. I think looking back I really appreciated having a boss that refused to let me give up because had he...….I more than likely would have got out of this business that day. It helped me over the years to be ready for just about anything and to have the determination to get the job done...………...no matter what it takes.

Oh Gawd!
So many, which one. Which one.

Years ago, still just a wet behind the ears apprentice.
Just learning how to work out of a service truck and working with an older and very experienced mechanic.

Afternoon shift on the top of a mountain. Can't remember what month it was but it was a stormy night. We were replacing the low speed clutch on a Madil 044 Grapple Yarder. Not a huge job, but a good long hard nights work.

The machine had to be positioned so that we were right in the path of the storm, no hiding from the wind and rain. And there was wind and rain.

Have you ever been in a storm when the rain is coming sideways?

Just soaked. Cold wet and miserable. Had full rain gear on but when it is that wet, the rain finds ways to get inside of it.

Didn't want to take a break, get back in the warm truck and then have to get back out into the storm, no thank you, just slug on through.

Had many nights like that in my career, but this one always stands out in my mind.

Be a mechanic they said
See the world
Do interesting things
Meet interesting people
Make big money

More than a few. Had one last week. 3 hour PI letter to complete. Took me twice that. Instructions were ****. Spent a half hour just trying to find the damn valve I was supposed to replace. Then 2 hours wrestling with hoses trying to reinstall two P-clamps that I could hardly get my fingers on.

Another one last winter. Skid steer blew the tilt cylinder lines down the loader arm. -30C and I just could not get the new hoses in place properly. Then I could not get the clamps back on. I had to get a 2nd mechanic to pry on the hoses so I could get the clamps installed.

a friend & I were having sunday breakfast, he had a broken water line to dig up at a local dairy farm....my smart ass replied better you than me.
It was the middle of January, snowing and blowing with serious negative windchills.

First we needed to unload his dozer from the trailer, then go pick up the backhoe and take it to the job. Yup, dozer wouldn't start, no biggie, backhoe has a cab/heat, just road it there. Drive to the backhoe, damn thing wouldn't start either...

He looks at me, think your Bobcat will start, "I hope not".

Guess what?

So there I am, sitting out there freezing my ass off on a Bobcat with a backhoe trying to claw my way through 4' of frost and mud trying to get down to the farm's main water line.

I was so frozen by the time it was opened up, didn't even take my equipment home, parkred it in a barn and left, not something I want to do again.

Ed

Dead of winter quarry calls on a Saturday, drill is hung hydraulic line blew out, need the bore out before freezes in place, already 5pm and -10F. Get all my stuff I can think of, go to the machine, shop that made our hoses was closed, go find the twin drill, snag that frozen hydraulic hose off and back to the dead one. Swap hoses, refill hydraulics was like pouring honey, had six salamanders running trying to get to close to 0F. Tarp drill head, already turning to ice around bit in bore hole, still trying to reason WHY are they rigging to blast now. Finally get air passed and machine warmed, run drill then extract bit, 12:30 and change, wind ripping snow blowing and I am froze. Get call next day, cannot get blasting agent truck to start, -15 and 4:25 am, still shivering went back. TWO hours of salamanders and hot shot pack FINALLY the truck starts, guy checks the agent mud, too thick, off it goes to the shop where it sits until TUESDAY where the agent is FINALLY thin enough to pour in the holes. I did not get warm until March.

Last December, Had Hyd motor blow a seal, on the ASV RC30. Cold, wet mud. Hadda rent another, to finish the job, and push the sick one out to the road. Finished the job with the rented loader, had the local rollback haul the sick loader to the dealer, $275, $1200 to put on another motor, that I had on the shelf (think I paid like $1200, maybe $1600 for that motor, but it beat the 3 grand+ that the dealer wanted for the motor!) All told that $950 job cost me like $2675... Lesson learned, as this was the second breakdown I had had with this loader, in December, No more work for it, in that month... Oh yeah, after I got it back after the work was done, I hadda put a new fuel filter, on it too...

I had a few wall panels (3×500 lb each concrete forms clamped together)try to crush me. I learned mortality and stupidity all at once that day....

Probably my worst experience, go out of town, 1 am, drive 6 hours, work 12 with no break, no food, and no one had water. Demo concrete with rebar, grade, replace rebar and pour it back. Nothing is worth that much misery.

I've been thinking of writing a book on some of these adventures but might be accused of writing sea stories. You know the difference between and sea story and a fairy tail? A fairy tail begins with "Once upon a time" and a sea story begins with "This in no S--T". For a title I was thinking about Southeast Alaska Adventures.

I had been working for the Komatsu dealer for about two months and just got moved into a permanent service truck and was then informed that part of the job involved flying to Southeast Alaska every so often. They handed me the tickets and told me I was making three or four stops in the logging camps. I had been to Alaska before and knew a little of what to expect but this trip was pretty bad. The first one was to reinstall all new pad bolts in a PC400-3 logging shovel and that the camp would have all the necessary tools and a big impact. Now what had happened was that the dealership used a new track outfit to install pads on a new set of chains and all the bolts were coming loose. So this was supposed to be a warranty project. I knew I was in for hell because the service manager came and told me one of the owners was lower than whale crap and that if he gave me any guff I should kick him in the stones.
I got on the plane the next morning at about 4:00AM for a 6:00AM flight and found out it was a milk run. The front part of the plane is set up for a cargo container and the back has enough room for about twenty passengers. I was on the starboard side of the plane looking out the window at the back of the wing. As the plane was climbing out of the airport I noticed what looked like oil running out of the wing. I commented to the stewardess about the oil and she commented back that they wrote up the leak yesterday and was wondering why it was still running out of the wing. That probably wasn't the best way to start the project but we got to Ketchikan OK. From there I was to get on a scheduled bush plane over to Prince of Wales Island to the camp. Got there and met the owners one of which was the favored one who didn't say two words good about the outfit I was working for. Found out we had to get on a boat to the other side of the water to get to the logging site. The boat looked kind of like the river boats they use for fishing in Oregon and found out it had a jet instead of propellers. Well half way across the water the engine started overheating and the driver decided that the suction had gotten fouled and he needed to hang over the back of the boat with the engine off scratching at the bottom of the boat with what looked like a garden rake. A little bit of sea weed got caught in the rake and he declared it clean enough and we took off again. The pier on the other side was just a log chained to the shore. I mention that as I had to carry my two steel tool boxes from the boat along about twenty feet of log looking down at clear water that I would guess was about twenty foot deep. Make the trek twice, once for each box and then walked up the hill carrying both to a waiting pickup. We drove to the machine about three miles up the hills and I noticed right away there was no compressor, torch set, hose, or big impact wrench. One of the two guys I was going to be working with was a little peeved to say the least and started trying to get ahold of someone on the radio. Apparently he was told we wouldn't get to use it with no explanation of why not. My next question concerned a cutting torch to take all the old bolts out with, which of course also wasn't going to be available. Normally I would have stopped everything at that point and just turned around and left. Problem was, I was trapped! I couldn't leave, I wasn't going to have the right tools to do the job, and I was supposed to do other project after this one and now all the scheduling went up on smoke. Cell phones had not been invented yet and the only communication available was the radio phone where every one in all of Southeast Alaska could listen in to my conversation with my dispatched back in Seattle, and that only when I got back to the camp in the evening. I had the operator who had some physical problems and a 40 year old chaser to help. All that I could do was start busting bolts loose by hand. That first day I think we got twelve pads done of the eighty total that had to be done. That evening in camp at dinner the nice owner came over and asked about how the project was going and I told him how slow the project was going. At this rate we were looking at a week's amount of work. He commented that it should go faster the next day. Now I a bit aggravated but could only note the my options were limited to say the least. To make matters worse they put me up in a cabin instead of a bunk house which was OK. It was in a group of three of four units. I was exhausted as expected but I never sleep well on the first day on the road. It got even worse around mid night and I was awakened by a screening women and a yelling man who was apparently beating her up. This went on for about half an hour which didn't do much for my thinking on Alaska, logging camps or my current employment. I mentioned this the next morning at breakfast to one of the guys I was working with who said that problem was going to be taken care of soon.
On day two the sled across the bay didn't catch any sea weed and we got to the machine on time. It took about an hour to get the burning muscles to free up again and we made pretty good time. We got sixteen pads done that day and back in camp that night when the nice owner came over I told him I was supposed to have a torch, a compressor and a big impact to do the job with and he seemed surprised that we didn't have them. His next question was how long would it take to finish the job with the tools and I told him at least two more days. Without the tools it was looking like four to six more days. He turned and left and we got to the machine the next morning with the same tools as before. About half way through the day we heard a machine coming and low and behold there was a truck pulling a box car compressor and when he stopped by us he had a one inch gun. On top of that a pickup had followed up behind him with a couple of bottles and a gas axe. That put us in overdrive at that point and we finished up the side we were working on and got about six more pads done on the other track before quitting time. At any rate the job went pretty well from that point. I finished up that work and a couple of other issues with the machine a day and a half later. I couldn't get out of that camp fast enough but had to wait for the next regularly scheduled bush plane on Thursday. The nice partner came up to me before I could get on the plane and commented on the work with all the conditions they had put me in and apologized. As for the grumpy partner, if I had seen him I had planned on fulfilling the suggestion of my service manager.
That trip had another memorable project that I might tell in another episode of Southeast Alaska Adventures.

I will bet we have all had all manner of Nightmare jobs, some worse but all of that type you can still see vividly especially as wake up from dreaming of them.

Did I get those main & rod bolts torqued? I have dropped several pans to check and always A-OK.
But the one time you don't it will bite you in the a$$.