V8Druid
do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
and hope HSE aren't watching events from afarThey just stand on the box as I lift it dummy
turned up in Brecon many moons ago, mid '80s, with a TMS 300 Grove 8 legger, to carry out some work on the town hall's roof ... main road through town closed for me - set up, tele-ed the manual out and locked it in place, to give me 104 ft of stick, single fall on and got it all in the air. Van pulls up with 'the work crew' - one bloke??
"What's the craic then mate - how're you gonna play this?"
he goes to the back of his van, drags out this scabby plank with some even mankier looking rope threaded through it and says ....
" Hang this on yer hook and let's get going "
" You have got to be ****in' kiddin' me mate .. I'm sat in an HSE/factory inspector magnet and you want me to hang you up there on that! ?? --- WTF did you not ask for a man riding cradle - got two in the yard "
" Nah don't need one .. I'm a registered 'steeplejack' - exempt for all that bollox, now let's get on "
Sure enough, hadn't had the stick in the air an hour and up drives a car and out gets this smug git, clutching a ring binder and clip board, walks up to where I'm sat in me cab about 10 ft above him and says ...
" Driver STOP what you're doing, turn your engine off and come down here NOW!! "
" no can do .. I've a load in the air and I'm not turning the engine off for anyone - to get down to you I have to slew round in line with my carrier which means moving the load .. and he's busy "
thought he was going to blow a gasket - started ranting about who he was and what authority he had, blah, blah ...
shouted up to the guy on the hook and boatswains chair, there was someone wanted a word with him
.. so got him down on the deck and the smug git proceeded to tear him a new ar*e holeAfter the tirade and Mr Smug had run out of expletives, the 'steeplejack' pulls out his wallet and shows him his 'credentials' at which point Smug Git goes reeeeeal quiet
" So are you going to apologise for interrupting our work then? I think you owe me and the driver one, don't you ?? "
" we'll see -- after I've been through all the crane's paperwork "
so that wasted another hour of the day
all my cranes carried a lever arch file with everything in - 4 yearly cert.s, 6 monthly test inspections, birth certificates for the machines, test cert.s for std equipment carried, test certs for everything available that might be added for specific jobs, ins. cert.s, operator ticket photocopies of everyone, HGV photocopies, weekly inspection reports/defect book, log book, even a copy of the V5 reg. doc. -- anything and everything you could possibly ever be asked for -- it certainly shut the smug git up - played his games before - tosser. took him a while to go through it all
as he's conceding defeat and about to leave, the 'steeplejack' says
" Hang on a minute I want to see your credentials now and I need an address to send the invoice to, for my wasted time and the additional cost of the crane that this delay has caused me "
Thought Smug Git was gonna explode
..... but fair play he got what he wanted (whether he ever made use of it I'll never know)came up to me after Smug Git had done one and said
" Did you see his face when I started on him ?? ****ing priceless !
"They never did themselves any favours with their attitudes on arrival - always assumed they were going to 'score' and were mega PO-ed when they didn't
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I'll get my coat
