The cold weather is setting in fast in the area I live in. Our asphalt plant is done for the winter, and with the freezing at night, simple grading jobs are pretty much done as well. I've been here for 25 years, so although they don't have year round work for me, besides snow removal, they do their best to keep me busy till around Christmas. I have spent the last 2 days at our quarry on the D6 pushing overburden that a couple wiggle wagons are hauling. One of the young fellas on the wiggle wagons is an operator school graduate. I let him take the tractor for a while so I could go to the little brown building. They have been hauling the material to this spot for years, and the face is about 60 feet, When I got back I noticed him pushing in second gear, blade well over the bank, then hitting reverse hard, causing that nose down tip those high sprocket machines do. I tried to give a lesson on why that is dangerous, even showing him the crack about ten feet back from the edge. All I got was the shoulder shake, and back to the truck he went. Now in the area where our asphalt plant, shop, scales are, there is a large sandstone pit. Every year, the company hosts a heavy equipment operator school. They require a certain number of machines. A skid steer, a mini excavator, a dozer, a grader, backhoe, a loader, and a production size excavator. I asked one of the instructors, and he said it's just the basics and some seat time. It's difficult for smaller companies to absorb the cost of training a new out of school operator. I almost think a heavy industrial setting is a better spot to get experience. I wonder if there is such a thing as a more advanced operator school where they can get more training and be exposed to more situations?
How did you learn?
they do a pretty good job at the union school. I went there to get some blade time and there was not much available besides the 112 Cat. After I got tired of waiting on a modern machine, I went down to the crusher. They have a cool mom and pop crusher and I had already worked around one, so I helped out instructing guys on the finer points of loader operations.
My property is 3/4 a mile from the union training school. Lots of new equipment and good instructors but it's only for those in the union. I don't know if non union operators can pay for training??
I was already a truck driver when I started. I lucked into working with a grader operator that had the time to show me the ropes. My current job, they were hard up at the time for a grader man, so they kinda had to put up with the learning process. Once I got over myself, I started paying attention to older operators. Because of watching an awesome operator, and trying his tricks, I can rip up an entire asphalt parking lot, without taking hardly a flake of gravel with it. I think in our youth we are too sure of ourselves and refuse to learn from more experienced people. I would almost say that fresh out of school would be better on larger machines in places like the oilsands. I've trained seasoned operators that have come from oil jobs, or big road building companies. They can handle the equipment, but need to get used to working in some ones yard. They almost need a block type system. School, work, then school. Like a PHD in operating
You can't fix stupid in school; when the old guy tells the kid he is doing it wrong, and the kid doesn't listen . . . you won't fix that in school.
I jumped in a nextgen 2D excavator the other day, it made a good operator out of me. Then I realised what that means for all the skilled operators out there.
I went through the school of hard knocks. Young people don't understand that they are born with 2 ears, 2 eyes and 1mouth and don't know how to use them in that ratio. I was no different until I attended the above school.