Old timer told me to always double check my tag line length before a pick, ignored him and almost took out a scaffold.

He said I'd be 3 feet short on my swing if I didn't measure it right, sure enough I hit the corner of the building and had to reset the whole lift, so who else has learned the hard way that the graybeards on site actually know what they're talking about?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilyt902h ago

Did you at least have to buy the first round for the crew after that one? Because I'm betting they were watching you set up that lift and just waiting for it to happen. The old timers always know the stupid little tricks that aren't written down anywhere, like how a tag line can turn a simple pick into a disaster if you don't account for the angle. I swear they've got some kind of sixth sense for equipment limits and blind spots from decades of getting it wrong themselves. Just be glad you didn't take the scaffold down with you, that would have been a whole different kind of bad day.

kim.hannah39m agoTop Commenter

The old timers thing is spot on. We had this guy Frank on my crew back in the day, must have been 60, never said much. One time I'm trying to muscle a beam into place with a come-along and it's not budging. Frank just walks over, spits his coffee, and taps the pulley with a screwdriver. It moves like butter. No explanation, no lecture, just walks off. I still have no idea what he did but I've never touched a come-along the same way since.