That time a site super tried to rush me into a blind pick...

I was on a job in Houston about 6 months ago, setting steel for a new parking garage. This site super, guy named Mike, kept yelling at me to just swing the load over without checking the tagline setup first. Said we were behind schedule and he'd take responsibility if anything went wrong. I told him straight up, nope, not doing it, because I've seen loads spin wild in a gust and take out scaffolding. He got real red in the face and started cussing me out in front of the whole crew. I just sat there in the cab, waited him out until he walked off. An hour later, another operator on a different crane had a near miss because he rushed a pick. Mike didn't say another word to me the rest of the week. Has anyone else had a foreman or super try to override your safety call like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

blake32226d ago

Yeah, a buddy of mine had a super pull that same crap on him in Dallas.

alexw7525d ago

It was actually on Almeda Road, yeah. That other operator's spotter was almost pinned against a column when the load swung wide, so it wasn't a near miss with the load itself, it was the guy on the ground who almost got crushed. I think thezara might be mixing up two different incidents from that week. The blind pick Mike wanted was just a bundle of rebar, maybe 4,000 pounds, which is light enough that wind isn't usually a huge factor, but I still wasn't about to swing it without a tagline guy because of all the workers walking below.

the_zara26d ago

Same Mike that was running that garage job on Almeda Road? I heard about that near miss with the other operator. What was the actual load weight he wanted you to swing blind, because that makes a big difference on whether you gamble or not.