Thats quite the title isn't it? Well now that I got you in here... How y'all doin ha ha. Ok I actually do have a question. Earlier this year the company I work for took over their biggest competitor in the Water and Sewer game. The other company IGL (Isn't Gonna Last, It's Gonna Leak) was previously owned by LaFarge and a few other owners before that. This company was quite large 200+ pcs of equipment and 9 water and sewer crews. IGL was heavy into the management aspect and has been said to have a great management team running the company. They say we the Sureway crew lack management, organization and do thinks in an odd way. I know a few people here share that opinion of how we dig but oh well. Most of upper management from IGL did not come over because they don't want to work for our company. Our company does have a good management team, but has fewer levels of management and it all ends with 1 man. As of late I was "sold" to IGL with my 973 to show them how we do things and what is expected. Last week I was sent out to one of their sites and was amazed to find an ME 385 digging with only a small bucket, a 345B for sidehoe, 963C for backfill, WA450 Wheel loader and a Cat CP563 packer. When I showed up backfill was a disaster. I immediately got the jist of things from the foreman and then went and chatted it up with the guy in the 963 only to find out he is useless. So I quickly started doing things my way and we kind of hashed it out for the day to see who would be the alpha male... I won needless to say. Well now we are in a subdivision job I am excited beyong belief... I got my 973C back and we have lots of lots so I have tons of work. We have been digging mainline for a couple days now, I was pushing away from the hoe in the 973 because we didn't have much to backfill, but now we have some ditch opened up and the 963 was traded for my old 973 for the other guy. He complains that the 73 is too rough so he doesn't want to push away, but I mean wow... this guy cannot backfill. If he could watch himself from the outside he would crap a brick. I am a dink to work with I can admit it. I have a set way of how we do things and I stick to it. Our other track loader operator likes to do things the quick, easy and lazy way and I am having trouble sitting by watching. The last 2 days I have been pushing away from the hoe and backfilling myself while he plays in the tractor backhoe hoe packing for 2hrs a day. I have also been putting up with a wheel loader operator who used to run a track loader who has the same attitude and thinks he is still in one and goes and tosses dirt in places that honestly make me want to pull the little bit of hair out I still have left. As for the packer operator.... he is also IGL and he used to be a foreman but now runs packer for me. I had a chat with him this morning about packing and he basically told me where to sit and rotate, which then turned into me packing until his boss showed up and told HIM where to rotate. My question is what do I do here? I am one of those people who just can't say I don't care. I love my job I always have and I want to do it correctly. I am stuck with a crew that still hangs onto the thought that this is IGL, but in 5 months it won't be anyways. Do I sit here and wait for the crap to hit the fan and they try and wash my hands of it? Or do I say forget it, go to their boss and try and change out the few people I actually have to work with?
Here's a little secret learned from 20+ years of work experience. Try to get along with everyone. Picking fights with people does not get any work done. You're being paid to get the job done, not to critique the other operators. Also your post above contains the word "I" a lot more than "we". Maybe try to think more in terms of "we", to work as a team. Just a suggestion.
Hi Burnout, Good advise Buckethead. I am not sure if I fully understand your position. Are you the boss or did somebody tell you as an operator to go there and get some work done. If you are not the boss then the other workmen will surely not forget you. If that is the case, whom ever told you to run the project but gave you no authority has not done you any favors. I can understand an owner operating a piece of equipment and running the project or perhaps a working 4man running the job. If you are supposed to be the boss that should have been made very clear when you showed up with your equipment.
Buckethead, I'd work with you any day. Life's way to short to be having battles on the job. Lot's better ways to solve production issues.
Burnout, I can relate to your situation in that it is a lot like when we hire new guys and we have to train them to our way of doing things. They think they know, and they do, but here we do it this way? I have seen guys that thought they could operate, and put on a good show, but at the end of the day they were either rough on the equipment or lacking in production. I would take a long look at the situation that you are in. How long will it take your boss to come down and look what is going on? And, although they may not be doing it the way your company does things, put yourself in their shoes and see if that helps you to relate better to them? Unless your boss is coming soon, you might have to try and help the guys out and try to bring them around to how your company does things?
At the risk of embarrassment , here's a perspective from a newbie. I've only been in the construction world for about 2 yrs, which includes the time spent in one of those scam HEO schools. I had never set my seat on a machine prior to the school. When I interviewed for the job, I made sure they understood this. I get the job (think they were hard up for help), and the super I get assigned to has a problem with constantly comparing me, and expecting me to perform as well, to his best operator(s). For a newbie, that is very conscious about wanting to do a good job, and not wanting to tear up the project, not wanting to damage the equipment, this is very nerve-racking. This does have an affect on how well you can do, believe me. I've been told to do it this way, by one, and some other by another, so now which way is it done? Don't know if they are new, or experienced and just don't care, hopefully not the latter. If new operators, please give them some benefit of the doubt, as they may be trying to do it right , but not using your technique.
CRAP... I typed out this long winded response yesterday and it didn't post. Ok lets see if I can type this all out again. Yes I used the word "I" a lot when describing how things were going. It came out that way because I was doing most of the work. I don't generally try to pick fights with people because for the most part we get along, tossing another company into the mix that has a pure hatred for us complicates things. Yes I am an operator, but it is general knowledge that the main 973 operator on any of our sites is the backfill supervisor or foreman as you could call it. It has always worked in the past so I came to this site expecting it would be the same. It is not. I went out to the bar on saturday night and actually ran into some guys from work including the superintendant of this crew. He and I sat down and had a discussion further into whats going on. I voiced my concerns with him and he had the same concerns and he has somewhat come around to my point of view, and I have come around to his point of view and we decided we are going to try and make both work. This morning the other T.L. operator this morning was told I am in charge and if he doesn't like it he can jump onto another piece of equipment. He and I came to an agreement today that he is going to come around to our way of doing things, I am going to come around to their way of doing things, and I am going to chill out a little bit....lol The loader operator and one of our foreman had a conversation that wheel loader are not to be used for backfill, it is not what they are intended for and its just plain rough on the iron. About 2hrs later his new WA450 was switched out for a WA480 with 13k hrs on it. I don't know why but I imagine there are a few factors involved there. We have 2 large companies that are being forced into one. Most of the other guys have realized that it's going to be them conforming to us or they can take a hike it sounds like. Our company is entrenched in its ways and I don't see things changing. We are production based, we get things done fast, right and once.... IGL gets things done slow, slow....and sometimes twice. Right now we have a crew that is used to having a 345 for a mainline hoe, no side hoe and a small wheel loader and 963 to run a site like this. We are running an 800 which seems weird to me because we never mainline with anything but the 385's. Today went great around site, I got a new dirt tester who is actually my friend. I make his life easy by throwing in good lifts, making sure everything is packed correctly and he in turn will let the odd little thing slide and.... he brings me coffee :drinkup The dark stain on today is my packer operator. He is/was a foreman with IGL, still has a truck and isn't really useful for anything. He is running the packer for me and wow its an experience. This morning it was over 45 minutes between the time I started and the time he managed to mosey on over to the ditch.. I was waiting and 5 minutes later so was the other 973. He gave everything a half decent pack job and by half decent I mean.... not correctly. I had a very friendly chat with him asking him to kindly go back and pack the spots he quite obviously missed. The first words out of his mouth were to go do something with myself. His next comment was to get back in my machine and worry about my job. Well I informed him it was my job and it turned into 20 minutes of he and I having an unfriendly conversation about what needs to be done. He pulled the whole I am a foreman card and well I can't really argue with that but I do still need things to be done correctly. I did manage to hear my favourite line from him "In my home country I am engineer" well in my country he is a packer operator. My companion tossed in a lift on one part of the ditch that was needless to say was too wet. Well the packer operator went in there full vibrate and brought up all the moisture and screwed us. We came up with a plan, raked the dirt to let it dry and the dirt cop agreed it was a good plan. The packer operator went in right away and started packing again with full vibrate. 15 minutes later we pulled the lift out because he really (insert cuss word of choice here) us. He started blaming the other track loader operator and I quickly came to his defense because it wasn't his fault.... it was like a bonding moment for us...lol Needless to say.... I am stuck with this loser foreman on my packer. I might be in luck though, the IGL super is on holidays as of tommorrow and one of our supers is going to take over.... can anyone say hostile takeover....lol
Fair enough, but was that crew told that? They are new to your company. We know, we know, everybody else is screwed up but you guys are perfect. So? You pulled the "loader operator is a foreman" card on him. And you are challenging his authority as foreman, what do you expect? You own the packer? Yep, you are pretty hostile alright. Do you really need to personally like people to work with them? Maybe you should lose the tough guy attitude, you are a grown man, working at a responsible job. Or are you still in high school?
Whilst you have made many good points there.. well lets face it you made good points. To the first question.... yes the other track loader operator and packer operator were told I was to be in charge. The new packer operator was not told because he just got transferred to this crew because of other reasons I can't talk about. We are perfect but everyone else is screwed up? Nope... we are far from perfect. But this other company was hemeraging money through a huge boom in the industry here. They got dumped by the second largest aggregate company on earth because of it.... seems like a good enough reason to me to evaluate things. I don't challenge his authority as a foreman, I challenge his knowledge as a packer operator. He is an awful packer operator, not because of his attitude but because of his lack of knowledge on basic packing skills, like hitting everything, not using the vibrate on wet material and some other little things. I tried to have a discussion with the man about it as men. He went on the defensive immediately. A little background on me chasing down packer operators to do a good job.... Last year I was being the nicest guy I could be with my operator. It was a new operator I let some things slide but made sure they were up to our standards. I let a small spot pass that I knew wasn't packed and it just happened to be the day the head of our division was on site. He walked around came over had me walk around with him and went directly to that small spot.... the first words out of his mouth were "I hope this isn't a reflection on your work". He gave me some advice on doing my job. His next piece of guidance was "You aren't here to make friends, if you have to be an (insert name here) then be it" I changed my tube quickly and got the 2 packer operators I had whipped into shape and now they have been stolen by our most senior loader man. Yes I have hostility, I love my job. I know I can be taken the wrong way I expect a lot of myself, I worry about everything moreso than I should. I come off as harsh and I am more than willing to tell people that on site, and I know I have said it here. I don't worry about hurting someones feelings on site... I don't expect them to worry about hurting mine. I like low stress jobs with something easy to do, I don't have that but I still love what I do. It has taken a toll on me but I still manage to keep on truckin. Like I said I know I come off harsh but thats just me and thats the environment I grew up in, and oddly enough I work for a company that operates on the same principle. We are ALL replaceable.
You might have been a little clearer up front that you was there to help them understand YOUR companies way of doing things and to help incorperate them into your company. Also, somewhere down the line the other forman's won't be near the understanding fellow that you are. BTW, everything you have done sounds reasonable to me.
From the outside looking in it sounds like your company has put you in a position that normally is performed by a foreman. Not only is that unfair to you but to the other guys that are not on the same page. Ramming you down their throats is poor management on your company's part. Just my .02
Well Said
Hi Guys, I just don't understand why a company would have a supervisor and a 4man on the job and then tell the loader operator to run the show. Oh well, I guess stranger things have happened.
Would this explain the reason?
Hi Stock, Good One.
We run that was because the foreman generally has enough to worry about than to try and hold the backfill crews hand. Right now it isn't so bad but we get jobs where we are working a half mile from the pipe crew so they appoint the 973 operator or main 973 operator if there are 2 the backfill supervisor. Its kind of like an honorary position. You still answer to the foreman, but if something goes wrong the superintendant comes and chews me out instead of the foreman. Then he goes to tell the foreman and I get chewed out again.... its pretty not fun...lol That is why we run backfill almost as a seperate crew. We work with our little group, they have their group and it works for the best. I like it because we dont generally get involved with the pipe drama when things go bad on their end and in the same respect they get saved from our drama when dirt doesn't play nice. Yes I am in a bit of a crappy position to have a position of power but no real power to go along with it. It's nice to know that they trust you, but at the same time if you have a problem you still have to go talk to higher powers. Today I was greeted on site by one of our higher powers to help iron some stuff out. He informed me that our packer operator/foreman..... is not an actual foreman. He is a guy who runs around with a bobcat to sweep roads who just gave himself a white hardhat. He got put in his place by one of our white hardhats and the score has definately changed on site. Today was a great day, The other 973 was down most of the day which meant I was free to romp around massaging things to the way I generally like to see them. I get picky with my work. Ditches are left level, sides are generally cut nice and straight, spill piles are nice and round and the manholes are all notches around so the 973 can drive on either side of them. It's not so much company policy that guides this, its more my OCD that I like to leave things looking proper and nice. People drive by this site including company big wigs, city inspectors, the competition and the public. It takes very little time to leave things looking nice and its nice that it gets noticed. 3 people complimented me on the fit and finish of the ditch today. I can admit I have weird ideas and ways of doing things when it comes to backfill but I feel it makes everything look more professional and safer. Plus... later this week when we start services I am prepared on my end for backfill. Our piles are spread out and drying to the 18% moisture we need, the ditch is level and wide enough for the service hoe to jump down and sand up services, the wheel loader can drive around on piles if he needs to bring supplies and everything is level for the 800C to sit on and dig the services. We are ready for WW3 on services, instead of running around freaking out with wet material and destroyed sites once the services are in.
Hi Burnout, I am glad that some of your issues are being worked out on the site and that the crew is happy with the results. We probably all like a project to run the way we are accustomed to and the fewer suprises the better. I have worked in 3 different states and 4 foreign countrys and just never found the need to have a skinner run a part of the show. Costs of equipment being what they are I figure it's cheaper to hire a 4man and have the equipment working study. It could also be a safety issue on some high density sites such as a dam project where you might be handeling over 4,000 yds. of fill per hour. No I never worked a pipeline job.
"Yes I am in a bit of a crappy position to have a position of power but no real power to go along with it. It's nice to know that they trust you, but at the same time if you have a problem you still have to go talk to higher powers. " quote from Burnout "Responsibility without power, the Prerogative of the eunuch through out the ages"
:my2c Who ever is the main boss should come out to the site and have a meeting. Explain to the crew the chain of command and how your job site is structured. This is just a case of no one knowing the chain of command. Once there is clear chain of command; you and the few people you lead, can go to work and leave the rest of the job to the others.
That has now happened and that is what has definately made things better, at least for me. I will admit the other 973 operator is all butt hurt right now because I have been making do with just myself rockin around site instead of both machines burning fuel. This morning the foreman told him he needed to find something to do and stop sitting around watching me work. I gave him some nice tasks to do that would take him all day but he would go over, get it half done lose interest and then come over to bug me. I was up witht he pipe crew once again, pushing away when needed, backfilling, setting up for tommorrow and had time to sit and make a video for you fine folks. I left him a giant piece of ditch to go and level out and make nice, he spent an hour over there came over and told me it was complete. So I gave him some more stuff to do and he was all butt hurt over the fact that he didn't get to do the main backfill. I said cool I left him to backfill and went and worked on the random crap. I drove byt he bigger project I had given him and holy crap, it was horrendous. So I dug it out again, made it look right because tommorrow we are digging services in that ditch. I then killed some random projects and was called over by the foreman to fix things because my dirt cop was all stirred up about wet dirt. I now have in essence a track loader operator that just wanders around half finishing things... which is cool with me. We are firing up another crew in the next few days and it sounds like I am leaving to go to that subdivision so this guy is gonna be screwed when I leave, and I can keep more than busy staying in the background tidying things up and playing with the sat radio. The funny part of this morning was the other 973 operator sitting there telling me that the superintendant I worked for at Waiward who is from IGL is coming over to Sureway to be our new boss. The main reason I left Waiward is because of that guy not knowing anything about anything. He was a great guy to talk to, but just couldn't grasp being a super. So the other operator here said that this guy is coming over here and his first task was running me off site. I thought it was kind of funny since he was fired from Sureway 6 months ago. I ended up calling a friend at Waiward to find out the skinny and he thought it was just as funny to give up a permanent job at Waiward for 160k a year to come over here and be a foreman again.
That 973 operator I think is proving Darwin's theory wrong...
Yes he is, we got another one sent over today.... same problem on his attitude is worse. So I have decided to play a lemming. I shouldn't have to walk on eggshells all day and I don't want to. I will let crap run downhill for the next day or so, and when it hits the fan I can just say I'm sorry I didn't want to get anyone all riled up. I can't stand people sitting around not doing their job on site, but at the same time I am willing to do the same thing myself. I managed to pull it off for about an hour this afternoon and the dirt cop on site was already up in arms about work going downhill. I am at a loss for what to do now. So why not just be like everyone else and give up?
Or mind your own business. Every company has drama queens, lazy, and blind operators/workers. All you can do is worry about what your doing, and let the foreman worry about everyone. I don't mean to sound like I'm insulting you, because I am not, but if their is nothing you can do about these operators then just do what you can to make your work look good. I am like you, I want things done the proper way, and I'll be a **** if I have to, to make sure its done right, and the loader is kept in prestige shape. At the end of the day a company would rather keep an employee who cares about the equipment and the job then one who cares about the paycheque at the end of the day. If they won't listen then I'm sure your foreman will.
Problem is solved, I asked for a transfer this morning and it was granted. I am still with a somewhat IGL crew but they are trying to fit in and I have been told that doing things properly is 10x more important than any kind of speed. I am back with other employees from our company and the 973 operator from the other crew... got turfed.
YEA SEE it all ended well ,a little time and patience is all it took...
Yes it did, and its kinda funny. The foreman on this crew is actually from IGL, he is also very young but he cares about his work. Today I got to the site everything was wet because the dirt is garbage here. I need 15% moisture and only 13% if its sandy. Most of the dirt is kickin in around 23-24%. The guy that was on this site hasn't been in a track loader very long so he didn't know to crash piles and disk the crap out of it. So we did that today. By lunchtime my dirt cop was happy, I was throwin dirt in left right and center and I finally got my seat fixed in the 973 (yesterday when I left site 1, other operator jumped in my loader and managed to break the lock lever for the forward/back seat adjustment) so I got that taken care of. Tommorrow im goin in for an hour or two to disk up some dirt and maybe go play around in te D9 for a bit. But for stickin with me on this drama affair for a thread... I have some pics and a video or two for you. What would you like first? Video of krissy dancing around whilst under the influence of brown pop, the D9N from yesterday or the 973 videos from the last couple days?
Hi Burnout, Why do you need less moisture for the sand than the dirt?
This thread reminds me of how hard it is to work on a site when everybody is not on the same page. Some years back we had cleared a 4000m2 lot and finally got the drawings. During the clearing we had hit plenty of rock. They were pinnacles sticking up here and there not solid rock. The guy I was working with was on an excavator and he had a breaker. While I was clearing on the loader instead of ripping the stumps for me he just kept finding a rock sticking up and going and putting the breaker on..:Banghead Makes for a long day on a wheel loader pushing out stumps. Anyway, the spec called for the pad to be clear of rock down to 600mm. So I tell this guy we should bet on a face at least 700mm deep and work our way across the pad and expose all the rocks sticking up and then we can break them. he reckoned I was crazy cause he's already broken all the rock and it was fine. ointhead I went ahead and formed the face and asked him to dig across with the excavator while I cleared out with the loader. First bucket, bang!..rock "Oh, I musta missed a couple he said". Anyways we get going. him digging the hard dirt and me clearing out and he finds a big rock...and immediatley goes and changes to the breaker. I'm trying to dig out a lot with a 924 and my digger keeps morphing into a rockbreaker. No matter what I did he couldn't get the idea of working across the face keeping in a straight line so we didn't miss anything...he just kept racing off ahead to break another rock but the rocks weren't fully exposed so he'd be poking around in the dirt and only get half of it and he's have to come back. That couple of days just about frustrated me to tears. I could never work with that guy again. I initially thought he was just trying to get the breaker on to up the hourly rate...but it dawned on me later that he just didn't have the slightest idea of what needed to be acheived. It was just not possible for him to form a picture in his head of the general plan of work ointhead. In the end I told him that when the builders plumber came on site of there was any rock above 600mm he would have to come out and break it without pay so he packed his backs and .......... left. I spoke to the owner and got him on my loader. I ripped the site with a 20 tonne digger (borrowed from a mate next door) down to depth, then we broke all the rock, raked out the rubble and put in the lifts with loader and compactor. The owner wanted too know what so hard about all that. I was thinking about rockets and men in white coats:cool2 Minor Hi-jack
Its never a hijack if the story is good enough . I am glad that your frustration was solved burnout, and would it be too much to ask to see both videos?
Hi-jacks are always good... I have hi-jacked a couple in my day. I posted a few videos last night on youtube. It's nice to see people all in the same gear on site, it makes for a nice day. The only bad part is that track loader operator that didnt have much experience.... now has to run the disk tractor, so he isnt too happy. I don't know why the dirt cop wants less moisture for sand, sand doesn't compact without moisture. Most of the site is quite sandy and our dirt is junk but the earthworks division had a nice big stockpile of good clay, except its wet. Like I said though.... they had a nice big stockpile. I have now stolen it with the D9 fanned it out and we are drying it out to use. At the end we will build them a new pile with the sandy crap we have left or possibly they will have to grab more clay off the stockpile on the far end of the site. Yesterday was a good bit of fooling around in the 973. We had lots of piles that weren't crashed, some parts of the ditch weren't very dry so we basically disked everything we could get the tractor around. The job is starting to look weird because now you can't tell where ditch begins and stockpile ends but we're on the right track. And any big pushing... I think we can solve with a D9.
Hostile Takeovers in the Construction Industry: Good... I'll do one then... I'm glad to read that you're a happy man again... so let's make a deal on those HID lights that you ?? probably ?? haven't put on anything yet... Eh. OCR...
They have been on the Jeep for 6 months already... I actually am just working on modifying the lightbar to go from 4 lights to 7 lights... you know for purely functional reasons.
Hostile Takeovers in the Construction Industry: How well do you like them... as good as you hoped they'd be?? OCR
They are pretty good.... don't shine as far as I thought they would..... but I think 3 more facing forward should do the trick. Maybe some light brackets on the windshield would do the truck.... then I would have 13 lights shining forward on the beast