I tore down an old house a couple weeks before Christmas. I had never done one myself before, but have seen it done many times. Anyone familiar with my posts know that I don't claim to be an excavator operator, but I can run them. They were short handed, so the job fell to me. I used a 2 year old 235 Linkbelt with a thumb. I just did what I had seen before. Flattened the structure, broke it up for loading, loaded it on the trucks, broke up the basement, loaded the concrete, then back filled the hole with sandstone that the trucks brought. I can remember a time being discouraged by older operators when I was young. Being told not to touch the machines, and meeting silence when asking questions. Not sure if it was fear of competition, or what. I always try to share with anyone that doesn't already know it all. Anyone have similar experiences.
I worked as a kid for my dad with his crew now some of the guys were not interested in showing anything to a young guy kid or a 20 year old apprentice one of the old timers taught me a lot but only when I would listen if I wasn't heeding his advice end of lesson One thing I have seen currently to the guys coming up now is the guys that ate supposed to be journeyman operators dont know jack about the science of moving dirt and most lack overall understanding of the big picture of the job. I think that has probably always been the case to some extent like i better not show this guy anything cause he will realize how much i dont know or cant do. My biggest pet peeve in teaching somebody to operate is the guys doing the training that has it in his head that digging plumbing is different than digging footings or that's different than mass ex and yes there all different but if you are good at one you should be good at them all it's just different product