Visited a job site in Portland and saw something that clicked for me about crane hand signals

I was up in Portland last week helping a buddy with a steel beam install. We were using hand signals from the ground and I caught myself hesitating on a few moves. It hit me that most of us just wing it instead of sticking to the standard signals. Has anyone else noticed guys getting sloppy with the basic hand signals on site?

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miles_jackson913d ago

Honestly the sloppy signals thing is real but I think the bigger issue nobody talks about is how many guys on site don't even know the full set of standard signals anymore. I've seen dudes just point and yell or do a weird arm wave and expect the operator to figure it out. Real specific example - last month I watched a guy try to signal "boom up" by just pointing his thumb up while also moving his arm in a circle. The operator had to stop and ask what he meant three times before they got it right. It's like the basic stuff from the OSHA training just gets forgotten after a while and people make up their own shortcuts that don't mean anything to anyone else.