Hello everyone I was wondering what shift most of the mechanic on here work. My shop manager is trying to switch the field heavy equipment mechanics over to swing shift so 2 pm to 10:30 (that's if we only work 8 hours though its more like 2pm to 2am) instead of 7am to 3:30. I am new to this side of the industry but the heavy equipment forman is fighting the manager on the shift change because he say field mechanic can't work at night because its too dangerous. So just wondering what everyone else things about it. I agree about field guys not working night due to the danger but I also get what the manager is saying that its better to work nights because the equipment is parked.
I usually leave the house around 5:30 am and most of the time I'm home by 4pm but sometimes as late as 9pm. I work for a private company and I'm on salary so as long as everything's running I can go home whenever. What dangers do you guys have ?
As far as logging goes,we,up here,have from 2 to 6 mechanics plus welder on A/S. Trucks have lites,mechanics have lites on helmets and trouble lites running off gen set. Shifts vary 3:00 to 11:30 up 4:30 to 1:00 am. No one is to be out alone but stuff does occur with ine man on a small job.
The logging company I work for has a day and a night shift. I work nights. My shift is 3pm to 3am. We have guys in the field every night. Welding, servicing and repairs From a production point of view, having a crew of mechanics out at night is the only way, we fix the machines when they are not working so they will be ready to run in the am. Some of the local shops are trying to get away from it. Good luck trying to get a mechanic from Brant (John Deere) out to your machine anytime other then the middle of the day. I know that they have lost a sale or two because of this. When I worked for the dealers (many years ago) it was any time, any place. We did what ever it took to get the customer back up and running
Just want to add one more note. As wow stated,back in the day one stand out outfit that stayed all nite and got her done was Madill. Started in day lite worked in the dark and went home in the day lite.
You and I must have crossed paths. You nailed it right on. Longest shift I ever worked was 40 hours. Some of it was riding on a plane tho. Just finishing up 8 regular hours in the shop. Someone needed to go to a camp out of Janeau Ak to replace a down drive roto union in a 123. Load tools and parts, home to get overnite bag, catch late ferry, clear customs with cargo, drive to Seattle and get cargo and tools to Alaska Air cargo terminal and figure out where to leave the truck. In Janeau find my cargo, find and charter a float plane and get everything loaded ( roto is about 300#). Out to camp (about 2 hours flying), get things organized (help, truck, lights etc). Drive to machine, another 2 hours, Cool heels while shift finishes. Spend most of the night changing roto. Back to shop in early hours of the morning. Shop foreman " You must be hungry" Me " Just a little I ate on the plane at noon yesterday" Foreman to cleanup kid "Go get him some food" I got 1 small bag of potato chips, a peanut butter and jam sandwich on white bread and a tin of diet pop. But hey it was Alaska and I had been to Alaska before and I knew what the food was like in Alaska camps. My service mananger always wondered why I was reluctant to take on jobs up there. Big bucks to be made tho so a guys gotta go. Regards d.dt
ddt,we may have. CZ shop Nitinat 1968-1972 then log truck and lowbed. We had 2 high lead towers and 3 GY,model 044.
well I work for my self so I work when its time to work day knight when ever being a mechanic is not a 9 to 5 job and whats dangerous about the knight the boogie man
Oh, so true, so true hahahaha Seriously, most of my 40+ years of pulling wrenches have been on nights, and I'm afraid of the dark. Well not afraid but, well you know. Only had the crap scared out me twice. Once in Toba inlet. Up working on a 009 tower. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and I had the willies big time. Got job done and was driving away and about 100 feet from where I was working was a great big grizzly print right in the tire track from where I came up. The second time I was walking in to a machine way back in the mountains of Vancouver island. Some dumb contractor parked his gravel truck right in the middle of the road all locked up. I thought that I would just stroll down to the excavator and bring it to where we could work on it. Got about 100 yards down the road and there was an evil looking set of yellow eyes watching me. Slowly back tracked to the shop truck and left that job. Still don't know what it was. Squirrel, cougar I don't know. didn't want to find out the hard way LOL I'm a bit weird. I like night shift. The pressure is off to get it running RIGHT NOW, I can take my time and do a good job instead of a rush. Blk Prince, I'm sure that we have met at one time also. I've been around Many a time I have been cleaning my tools and the crew shows up to go to work. Makes you feel good, a hand full of men get to go to work instead of staying home because the machine is broken!
CZ Ladysmith and Nanaimo Lakes shops 63,64,65. A little round the world backpacking for a couple of years, then Madill for 33 years a lot of them big time field service. Retired in 2001. Loved it all. I think I'm a lot like camptramp as far as seeing BC costal camps exept I didn't stay in camp as long. More of a camp inspector. Got 2 overseas trips out of the service gig also. Borneo to deliver and teach on an 071 and Yeman to do the same thing on an 071 except they were going to unload ships with a balloon with the 071 as the winch. Born and raised in Ladysmith and still live here. The best place on earth. I've had a great working life. What could be better than getting paid to fly up and down the BC coast and almost 1/2 way around the world in each direction and meet and work with other cultures. Anyway off the topic of shift times. Sorry. Regards d.d.
I've done the work around the clock and run a crew on double shifts. The dangerous part depends on what you are working on and the people doing it. If you have a crew of bodies it will cost you. I never let just one man do a job by themselves where there was no communications. The cost of industrial insurance in those days would double on one lost time accident and triple on the second and it always happened on second shift. The mistake ratio also got to us. Lost components in the dark can be real costly. A good field man can make it work real well. As far as the woods goes I've had to do some overnight jobs with some help who then left me on my own. At least someone knew where I was and when I was supposed to be out. On the other hand I've been chased out by a wind storm once or twice. One operator who had a helper with him was going to leave me by myself with limbs and trees falling all around us. I told him he had to leave the helper and he got aggravated. He got real angry when I told him he had to leave a chain saw too. I started loading the tools when he started understanding my point. The tree limb that fell in the back of his pickup might have helped me with the debate.
Been there. Wanted to leave me alone 60 miles from nowheare. Told them wcb won,t be happy so they stayed and cut firewood close by but didn't give me any help Maybe I'm wrong but I think maybe west coast forest industry field service is in a class by itself as far as get it running for when the crew gets there in the the morning, money or hours is no problem. Just git er done. Like to hear other donkey doctors take on this d.d.
im also self employed so when the customer calls & says I need it fixed asap I go. I have worked many holidays weekends & nights.. if you have to work nights do yourself a favor & buy some LED flood lights to light up the work area. they make a green LED that wont attract bugs at night & you can see really good with it also sometimes you just have to have the big white light tho!! there is also a pistol on each side of the service bed ( I might not b able to get to the other side of the truck but its close that way) I have worked several nights on jobsites all by my self, as I get older (wiser maybe) I try to find a helper to go with me nowdays you never know. your mind will play tricks on you sometime also but like he said in the earlier post always trust your gut/hair raising up, iv had a few of those over the years. usually the bridge crew I do a lot of work for is close to the road. have worked in several strip mines & usually the guard will come by to check on me several time during his shift..
vera66:I hope we are not getting away from your question. As you can see there are afternoon and even graveyard shifts for maintaining equipment. Number one thing is do not work alone!
dd: I have sent you a PM.
What is the point of working if you never get to see your wife and kids. I work 6-6 most days, I also coach my sons baseball team and go to football, basketball and track meets. I have an understanding with my boss, family comes first. I have a great job with 15 years in so I get a little leeway for taking off early. My dad never got to see his kids grow up and I won't do that to my son.
Blk prince its awesome to see everyones response basically I work at a rock plant and they run the equipment during the day when the mobile heavy equipment mechanic are there as we start at 7 I worked in the truck shop before they offered me the heavy equipment mechanic position and that was swing I like having a normal work day I hated for swing but the shop manager is trying to get the heavy equipment mechanics on swing but the heavy equipment shop forman says that the reason we work days is because its just too dangerous overall to have mobile guys out by them selves working in the dark . I am just trying to justify that we have to work days as I agree with caterpillarmech I am having my first son in June and I want to be there for my family and working nights doesn't work
I work for a construction company and we have 4 field mechanics and we all work from 6:30am till... well till we are done for the day and that can be anywhere from 5pm to 1am just depends on what's broke down and how bad they need the machine. But my shop Forman makes sure someone is with us if we are gonna be out that late for safety reasons. Personally as much as I like being home in the evening its more peaceful and nicer to work when everyone is gone from the job sites and I'm not being bothered every 5 min. But I don't think I volunteer for that shift if it was offered.
I work in a stone quarry at least for the next two weeks, Well 90% of the time for the last 15 years I have had to work alone much of the day. Yes there are maybe 25 guys working in the plant but I'm in the shop working by myself for several hours at a time. Not sure what they expect me to do if I got trapped between something and could not reach the phone. They run their mouths for hours each month on working safety. I'm going to be retired the 23rd so they finally decided to have someone work with me for the final 4 weeks. They expect him to learn everything about maintaining the mobile equipment that I have been doing for 44 years. Then when I suggested they get working on getting this guy his own email address so he could do the oil samples, Cat Parts Store/SIS stuff among the many other uses of email/internet these days I was told with this guy standing right there. Well if he does get the job, we still need to post it to see if anyone else at our plant or other plants is interested in bidding on the job! ***? I don't really blame my local boss for this as now days local superintendents are so highly micro-managed they have to call higher ups to get permission to take a leak. But then when something goes wrong they get the grief for the loss of production!