Forum: Lost Stories

Yanno, I think mecha deserves a thread of its own. Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?

Yanno, I think mecha deserves a thread of its own.

I thought there had already been one.

ETA: Just done a forum search for 'mech'. There look to be five candidate threads.

AJ

For that matter, Wes Boyd's Snowplow Extra, here on SOL, is all about the heavy trains and fire trucks and oh yeah also snowplows.

👍🏻

I might have a go at some plant porn.

There's been a few plant porn stories recently. I'm currently following 'The Plant' by Saddletramp1956 ;-)

AJ

Only if you plant catnip.

Or pussy grass ;-)

AJ

Only if you plant catnip.

I now have a mental image of a Cat digger, planting some Cat-nip, as another one slowly tracks sneakily (!?!) up behind, reaches up and over it's hydraulic tank and proceeds to administer a reach around....

Okay, time to step away from the keyboard...

Trevor waved at the security guard as he pulled off the main road onto the access road, easing a little off the accelerator so the distance between himself and the van in front opened up a little. The flashing orange LED beacons of his van reflecting off the high visibility markings covering the van in fronts back doors. The same markings that were on the back of his. The mixture of company vans and personal cars in front were mimicked in the vehicles that pulled onto the gravel track behind him.

A camera mounted on a pole at the security hut positioned at the site entrance and another at the car park, ensured that everyone obeyed the twenty mile an hour speed limit. Those that didn't, or didn't know about the average speed camera's, were quickly called up to the site agents office for a little 'chat' and the first strike of a 'three strikes and out' policy. Trevor didn't really agree with average speed camera's on sites, but that was the way things were going these days on large civil projects.

The van behind inched closer and closer. Trevor didn't recognise it. A new contractor probably, itching to get on site, yet to enjoy the pleasure of a two hour site induction and random drugs test. The average speed camera system wasn't signed, most first offenders only finding out about its existence during the induction, and only then if they were paying attention and not playing on their phones.

The van inched closer still, the impatient driver trying to bully Trevor faster. "Fucking nob." He let his van gently drift left onto the looser stone that hadn't been compacted by all the plant, cars and heavy lorries. His van was running on snow tyres, not really a necessity in England these days, but they were useful on muddy sites. The deep tread picked up loose stones and threw them up in the air behind him. Nob-cheese behind hastily braked and dropped back as the thrown stones started impacting off the front of their van.

Trevor snorted and casually drifted back onto the two tramlines of impacted stone.

Parking up in his usual spot at the back of the parking lot, Trevor turned off the vans engine and stepped out. Shutting the drivers door, he stepped back and opened the side door. There was a clean towel on the floor at the doorway, which he sat on. Pulling over a pair of steel soled and toed boots, he changed out of his trainers, placing them in their designated spot on the shelving lining the internal walls of the back of the van. Slipping on a high-vis vest, he collected his helmet with their attached ear defenders, which he donned, his lunch bag containing a full flask, piece for the day along with his paper and a full twenty litre plastic drum of AdBlue. He shut the side door and blipped the locks shut. Making his way along the designated walkway –another naughty boy strike if not used- he entered the plant park.

Various engines rumbled into life as other operators fired them up. Trevor stepped through a gap in the waist high pedestrian fencing and made his way along the back of various machines to his dozer. Slinging the AdBlue drum onto the top of the track, he put his key in the lock of a small hatch next to the bottom of the door, just above the walkway and flipped it open to reveal the battery isolator. Trevor turned the battery isolator on, flipping the door closed and removing the key. Climbing up using three points of contact -they had security camera's overlooking the plant park and jumping off machines was yet another way to earn a strike- he unlocked his cab door. Safely stowing his bag with lunch and flask, he picked up his work gloves off the floor and shut the door, opening the side engine cover, which opened outwards, hinged at the blade end of the dozer. Pulling out the dipstick, he cleaned it against his gloved fingers, re-inserted it, pulled it out and checked the level. It was where it should be. Trevor pushed the dipstick back into place and shut the engine cover door. Walking along the walkway to the back of the machine, he collected the drum of AdBlue as he went. Unscrewing the blue cap next to the black diesel tank cap, he removed the funnel from the side of the plastic drum, screwed it on to the top and upended it where it gurgled and contracted and expanded as the urea inside flowed out and air rushed back in to fill the void. Drum empty he replaced the blue plastic cap and gave the padlock on the metal cap next to it a quick glance to ensure that it was still there, and that the metal cap was still securely in place. With fuel prices at an all time high, the red diesel in plant equipment had become a very tempting target for thieves. His dozer alone had a three hundred and fifty litre tank, the eight articulated dump trucks parked up in a neat row further along, had five hundred litre capacity tanks each.

A lot of liquid money.

Leaving the empty drum on top of the track, he removed his gloves and sat in his seat. The computer had switched on with the turning of the isolator key and Trevor typed in the pass code. The computer went through its checks then started the engine, which ambled into life with a quiet menacing growl. Pulling out the hire book, he filled out the hours worked the previous day along with a quick annotation of the work done -top cover stripping in the morning and stock piling in the afternoon. Next was the daily checks book. Trevor ticked his way down the boxes, putting a cross in the boxes for tyre pressures and rear skip check. A button press brought up the engine hours and he duly noted it down on the paperwork. Radio Two kicked into life on the radio as it finally awoke from its night-time slumber.

He checked his watch, almost time. Trevor lifted his thermos mug out of the holder and turned the ignition off. The engine, still cold, shut down immediately. In the 'good old days' he would have left it running, but doing so now would earn him a 'strike'. He didn't bother locking the cab, picking up the empty drum, he took it with him and threw into the requisite waste skip as he walked past them.

There were a lot of bodies wandering around the office compound, some heading to and from the toilets. Some, like Trevor, heading towards the canteen, some leaving. Inside, the modular building room created out of stacked Porta-Cabins was loud with boisterous chat and the hum of several microwaves on the go as an assortment of pies and beverages were heated up as their molecular atoms were bounced around. Helping himself to the large trade pot of coffee and some plastic milk, he topped it up with hot water from the Burco boiler.

More bodies pilled in as they awaited their orders for the day. The door to the outside opened and management entered. All notepads and serious expressions. They took up position in front of the bank of microwaves.

"Good morning," There were mumbled replies to the site manager. "Before I start, I'm not happy at the housekeeping gents, or to be more precise, the lack of it. It's not hard gents. There are plenty of skips on site, please use them. If you see any of them full, let Janice in the office know so she can arrange collection and emptying. If I see anyone littering, it will be a strike. Don't do it gents. A reminder as well that smoking is only permitted in the designated areas and put your fag ends in the bins provided. George?"

George stepped forward. "Can I remind you all that the speed limit on site is fifteen miles an hour. Ten in production areas or where men are working. We've already had one near miss this week. That's one more than there needs to be. No stop cards have been submitted in the last three days. May I remind you all, that it's your duty to report anything that you see and think is dangerous. If you see anything that can be improved, or done better, then submit your ideas to the suggestion box up on the wall there. Don't forget that the best suggestion of the month will earn the writer a fifty pound Amazon voucher. Don't be shy lads, the money is there to be earned. On the whole, site safety is good, but don't use that as an excuse to slack off." George nodded to them all and stepped back.

"Dennis?" The site manager prompted.

Dennis, the foreman stepped forward, clipboard held up in front of him. "Stewart?" He looked for and found Stewart. "Carry on as you are ripping with the D ten. Trevor?" Trevor raised his hand, catching his eye. "I need you to stop mounding the type two and make your way to EL four. I need you to dig out a crane pad."

"Okay. What are the dimensions?"

"Er." Dennis paused and looked towards a huddle of four young people, two men and women. "Isobel, can you go down to EL four and mark out the pad?" Isobel nodded as Dennis scribbled on his clipboard. "How soon will you have it dug out ready for the stone?"

Trevor shrugged. "Depends on the ground. Tea break?"

"Okay, say eleven. Let me know when it's dug and I'll send," He paused and consulted the clip board in his hand "ADT's three, nine, fourteen and twenty down to you when you are ready. In the meantime, the rest of you, that's ADT's, carry on with the muck shift. Omar, Chapel, Luke, Stu don't forget to clean your skips out with a rock load before you change over to type two for the crane pad." The four named Articulated Dump Truck drivers nodded their acknowledgement.

"What about Josh and I?" Steve, one of the ADT ops asked as he raised his hand for attention.

"You and Josh continue taking stone to the Komatsu as normal." Josh and Steve nodded as Dennis turned to the Komatsu Dozer operator. "Marly, carry on as you are..."

Trevor tuned out the rest as the day's work orders were given out to the shovel ops, slew ops, roller ops, dust suppression tractor bowser drives, fuel bowser drivers and all the other professions that went with a large civil project.

Eventually it was finished and they all started filing out of the canteen. Isobel approached Trevor. "I'll just get my stuff and meet you down there."

"Okay."

Trevor stopped off at the toilet for a piss, staring unseeing at the posters proclaiming the multitude of dangers from doing drugs and prostate cancer -as well as how to check yourself for testicular cancer. He washed his hands, picked up his thermos mug and headed for
his dozer. Climbing up into his cab, he sat down on his seat, on top of his seatbelt, which was shortened as tight as it would go and permanently plugged in so that the green light on top of the Roll-Over-Protected cab was lit continually, informing those who looked, that the seat belt was in use. He shut the door, typed the code in and started the engine. The Leica GNSS System connected to the two sensors mounted on a mast at either end of the blade beeped and he turned it off. He wouldn't be needing it for this job.

Gently, he pulled the right joystick back and the three metre wide and one hundred and twenty centimetre high blade lifted off the ground. A quick left and right motion of the joystick caused the blade to tilt down in correspondence to the direction of travel of the lever, whilst a right and left twist of the joystick caused either end of the rigid straight blade to move away or closer to the machine. A left twist causing the left edge of the blade to move closer to the left track as the right edge moved away from the right track. A right twist causing the opposite effect. Blade working as it should, he kept it raised about a foot and a half off the deck and pushed the left joystick slowly forward and the dozer slowly moved into motion.

Most of the wheeled plant had already left by now and the tracked three-sixty slews tended to be left on their work sites as they took too long to track anywhere on a regular basis, and even then, a JCB Fastrac with a low loader trailer was used to ferry them any distance on site.

Trevor gently eased the left joystick left and the left track slowed as the right track sped up slightly, turning the dozer to the left. With the other vehicles gone, Trevor was able to take a long wide turn, thereby avoiding ripping up the hard-core surface as he spragged. He slowed down at the compound entrance letting all the other traffic past before he pushed his left hand forward. The turn onto the main site road was too tight to sprag in one motion without his dozers cleats ripping the surface to bits, so he eased off with his left hand, moving the joystick back into neutral then gently pulled backwards, causing the information screen in front of his knees to black out and change to the view from the rear camera. Trevor eased the joystick to the right as he reversed causing the front to gently swing left. Properly lined up now, he moved the left lever fully forward and the dozer quickly moved off down the gravel road. Though 'quickly' was a relative term and at just over seven miles per hour, not one the drivers of the two ADT's and three pickups would necessarily agree with when they rapidly caught up with him. The pickups could have passed him but the ADT's couldn't have done so easily or safely. The cab vibrated to a regular, gentle vibration as he tracked along the gravel route. Trevor always found it gently soothing.

An entrance to an unused borrow pit allowed him to pull over and let the traffic behind past. Non-functional CB Antennas on the roofs of the pickups held large orange triangular pennants at the top, waving in the air, almost as if they dared the larger plant vehicles to ignore their fluttering presence and drive over them and the small, so easily squashable four by fours they were attached to.

During one of his many pullovers, Trevor reached down the side of his seat and pulled out a large laminated sheet that was a map of the site with the various main locations on it. He knew where he was going, but when you travelled the world at seven mph, you tended to get into the habit that you were definitely travelling in the right direction.

A pickup was already at his destination, pulled of the road so as not to impede his
travel. Isobel was out and about on the ground. GPS staff in one hand spray can in the other. She had already marked out the size of the pad and the area the spoil was to go. He slowly pulled up alongside as she busily typed away at the keyboard on the staff. Dropping the blade, he opened the door and stood at the gap.

"How low are we going Izzy?"

"Till you hit the hard stuff Trevor." She said with a smile.

Trevor tried not to think unprofessional thoughts about her, she was a good lass, a grafter, but by God, her arse looked good in those jeans. She was one of those women who somehow managed to look good in anything they wore. Even that bog standard Hi-Vis T-shirt she wore, somehow accentuated the breasts in an exceptionally pleasing manner. All his did was emphasise how big his pot belly was. He chastised himself, Get a grip Trev. She's young enough to be your daughter. A fact that was all the more galling since site rumour had it on good grounds that she was currently shacked up with one of the new start ADT drivers, who not only was of a similar age to Trevor, but the man was built like a proverbial brick shit-house to boot. To pull a stunner like Izzy implied that another part of him was equally as well built. Wrapped up in what she was doing, she turned and walked clear of the marked out area. Trevor watched those buttocks sway as she carefully navigated the long grass and the uneven ground hidden underneath.

Reluctantly he stepped back, pulling the door shut behind him. He took a sip of coffee from his mug and checking that the ground behind was clear and that Izzy was a safe distance away, he reversed his dozer till the blade was at the edge of the marked zone and pushed his right hand gently forward, the bottom of his blade easily slicing into the loam. A gentle push of his left hand set him in motion, the mound of spoil quickly building up in front of his blade. Reaching the end of the marked out area, he gently raised the blade a little, letting the spoil slowly waste away underneath the blade. Looking through the bottom windows of both the left and right doors, he kept an eye on the bottom corner of either end of the blade, the only bits of the blade he could see. When he saw the colour change as the darkness of the soil gave away to the light of the sun, he knew that his blade was empty and a gentle pull back on the left to set him backwards as a pull back on the right lifted the blade. He didn't lift the blade all the way up, there was no need. He raised it just enough so that it was clear of the ground.

Returning perfectly straight along the track marks of his initial cut, he set the blade down where he had initially started and repeated the process, this time lifting the blade slightly to compensate for the front of the tracks and the machine dipping into the hole he was slowly excavating.

As it turned out, he only had to go a blades depth to cut through all the soft topsoil to the harder clay layer underneath. Izzy came over, peered down and gave the thumbs up before lowering the bottom of her staff to the clay layer. She typed away at the keyboard on the staff. Trevor knew that the staff would send the depth to a laptop, probably sat on the front passenger seat of her pickup, where some program would take the GPS co-ordinates the staff had made of the four corners of the pad, along with the depth reading she had just taken and then spit out the volume of the hole-to-be and the tonnage of stone required to fill it back in.

It didn't take Trevor long to push all the soil out of the hole. Once that was done, he started cutting a trench from the road to the pad. It was only about ten metres in length so only a few passes were required and he spotted four ADT's heading towards him as he did so. They turned round at a nearby junction and reversed closer, waiting for his instruction as a roller also appeared, travelling along the stoned road only a little bit faster than Trevor. Happy with the excavation, Trevor reversed out, bracing his feet against the foot rests as the dozer dipped down severely towards the front, Trevor having to raise the blade fully to avoid dragging the bottom of it across the base of the pad as he climbed out onto the road.

Trevor parked across the road at a forty five degree angle and rose from his seat, opening the door and standing in the doorway on the walkway above the track. He waved at the first ADT and motioned it back until the back wheels were at the start of his cut and gave the signal to tip. The skip raised and the hard-core scraped noisily against the metal sides as it slid out. As the noise subsided, the ADT lurched into motion, the skip slowly lowering as it moved out of the way.

Trevor waved the next back, stopping it when it's back wheels were parked on the load of the first, gave the order to tip. The third, he parked on the load of the second, then sent it off to be reloaded. The same for the fourth.

Tippers clear, Trevor started working the near one hundred and twenty ton of stone into a ramp the ADT's could easily manage and spread the excess out across the pad base. With the ramp in place, the ADT's on their next load, drove past the pad and reversed down the ramp. Trevor guiding them from the side of his dozer, where he had parked in the pad, off to side. There was enough traction and grunt in his dozer for it to take only four passes to spread each dumper load. When he had a layer depth of roughly a foot, he beeped his horn to gain the attention of the roller op and waved him in. As the roller approached the now gentle slope in, it started to clang noisily for a moment before the banging changed to a low hum as the operator turned on the drum vibration. Trevor could feel the rollers vibration resonate through his machine is it made slow overlapping passes across the pad, Trevor tracked across to the rolled part out of the rollers way.

By the time the roller had completed its passes, the four dumpers were back, the roller, passes completed, moved back onto the road out of the way. Trevor guided the first dumper into position, it tipped, and the process repeated itself until the stone built layer by layer, first up to ground level, then a foot above that, to match the level of the site road.

Isobel, who had been working hard in the pickup with her eyes closed, stirred, exited her pickup, collected her staff, checked the pad top level with her staff and gave the thumbs up.

The roller-op, a chap from Glasgow with an accent so strong that the only person who could understand him, was a three sixty slew operator from Fraserburgh, up in the North East of Scotland. Unfortunately, no one could understand that fucker either, so site management had put the slew–op in a borrow pit loading stone into ADT's where he didn't have to converse with anyone. The roller op, they just had to live with as best they could.

Final pass completed the roller-op waved and headed off to his next task. As it rolled past his dozer, Trevor noticed that someone had modified the 'BOMAG' sign on the back to read 'BAWBAG'. Trevor also noticed that the air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror was blue again. The roller operator descended to such a stunning level of incandescent rage every time it was replaced with a green one, that it ensured that it was mysteriously replaced by someone, or someone's, on a regular basis. The fact that the deed had been done yet again, loudly broadcast across the plant park in the morning by angry incomprehensible shouting in a language unknown to everyone else, delivered at machine gun speed (much to the merriment of everyone else), which just made the whole thing even more amusing and unlikely to end anytime soon.

Looking at the time, it seemed pointless to start anything else and now was as good a time as any to have his tea-break. He parked up and retrieved his lunch box and flask from his bag. Trevor was half way through his sandwiches when a van festooned with more flashing lights than the average Christmas tree appeared from around the side of the hillside, followed by a mass of metal and tyres, at least eight massive wheels along the considerable length that he could make out.

"I thought it was arriving tomorrow.." Trevor said to no-one in particular.

*****

Neil woke as the quiet-ish road noise and smooth-ish ride changed to the rough ride of a gravel surface. He had been on enough wind-farm jobs to know the sound and feel of a gravel track. They had travelled down overnight from Invergordon where they had been working on a berthed oil rig. Silently he prayed to the crane gods that they weren't ready yet. Or even better yet, that it was too windy. Unfortunately, he could tell from the way the van was handling that the wind was not going to be an issue. In high winds the van was a pig on the road, wandering every which way.

Yawning, he slipped out of his bed and dressed, switching on the kettle. As usual there was a heated discussion involving football going on over the CB-radio between the driver of the van- their rigger/banksman, Smiler in the crane and the driver of one of the ballast wagons. The silence from the other ballast wagons implying that they were further behind out of range.

: Your lights have suddenly gone dim : Smiler said over the radio. : That must mean Growler is awake and has just put the kettle on. You know how I like it Growler :

"Fuck you!" Growler shouted through the front bulkhead.

"Growler says 'Fuck you' " Said the van driver into the CB.

: And I want a biscuit! :

Growler pulled down another two mugs and retrieved a Kit-Kat from the Biccy tin.

The van slowed down and the engine turned off. Growler collected the biscuit and three mugs and opened the side door. The crane pulled up behind with a squeal of brakes and idled away as it sat almost in the middle of the road, well clear of the edges. At almost thirteen ton per axle, you parked well away from the edge of anything. Growler walked over to the crane and handed Smiler his coffee and Kit-Kat.

"Shall we go and see if they are ready for us?" A dumper had pulled up behind the ballast wagon, unable to get past. The ballast wagon driver climbed down from his cab and all four of them walked over to the site office.

Crane certs and lifting plan were handed over to be photocopied along with their CITB crane operator cards and their hopes of the site not being ready, were cruelly dashed. The site agent was keen to get them out of the way and the site induction and all the affiliated bullshit was skipped, which was part of their tried and tested method of blocking the main access roads around the site office of every site they arrived at, so that the site office got rid of them as quickly as possible.

They were escorted to the pad, all other site equipment pulling over, making room for them. Smiler drove past the pad, forcing a Dozer parked there to reverse a little to make room as the crane reversed back into the pad. Their banksman parked the van up in the corner of the pad, out of the way and Growler banked the crane into position as per the lifting plan.

In the bottom front cab, Smiler on getting the thumbs up, pulled on the handbrake and pressed the green 'N' at the top of a bank of buttons, pressed and held a yellow hand with his forefinger as his thumb simultaneously pressed the yellow button denoting the axle locks. A light above the axle lock button came on and Smiler pulled the Bluetooth remote out of the dash.

Outside, Growler was pulling the pins out on the outriggers and pulling the outrigger pans into position as their banksman or 'Wank-Stain' as he was called , guided the first of the ballast wagons up alongside, the tyres making popping sounds as they scrubbed over the gravel.

Smiler adjusted his grip on the back of the remote to trigger the dead-man and navigated the menus to the outrigger controls, extending the front drivers side to it's half way point then pinning it in place. He moved onto the rear and repeated the process, pushing the thick pin in as the beam reached half extension. Wank-Stain and the ballast driver were removing the ratchet straps off the metal matts and the chains off the ballast slabs.

Round the opposite side, Growler had the pins pulled and pads extended, and like the other side, Smiler extended the outriggers to the halfway point and pinned them. Moving round the front of the crane, back to the driver's side, he climbed in and stuck the remote back in it's charging hole and climbed up to the top cab and started it up. Pulling the right golf ball that was the joystick left towards him, he simultaneously pushed forward to lower off the hoist rope as the boom raised upright whilst he also navigated the top cab menus and selected fifty percent of the end light section.

Growler gave a thumbs up from the front to say the block was released and Smiler gave the cane some revs as he continued to boom up and lower off with his right hand as his left pushed the left golf ball forward, extending the very end light section. There followed a series of clunks as the pins inside of the boom extended and locked into place. Releasing the slew brake, Smiler slewed left, still lowering off as he positioned the hook block above the matts. Wank-Stain had donned a harness and was hooked on to a wire rope that ran the length of the trailer as he patiently stood on top of the matts, master link of a set of four light chains in his hand.

Smiler stopped the hook of the block at waist height and Wank-Stain slipped on the master link of the chains and stepped clear as Smiler took up the slack. Wank-Stain stopped the four matts from turning and once they were clear of the ballast wagon, jumped down and gave the wagon driver a hand steadying the matts as they were lowered right next to the rear outrigger. Wank-Stain nodded and Smiler landed the four matts, lowering off enough to give the chains some slack. Wank-Stain and the driver unhooked the four chains and hooked them on the next matt above as Growler tried to sort out the tangled mess that was his safety harness. Wank-Stain nodded and Smiler pulled back on the right golf ball, taking up the slack and lifting up the three steel matts, slewed round the back to the opposite rear outrigger and repeated the process, taking the remaining two to the front right, dropping the chains enough to hook onto the last matt and slewed round the front of the crane to the front left outrigger.

Matt in position, he pressed the hare symbol on the golf ball and dropped the chains all the way down so Wank-Stain could remove them from his hook and drop them onto the matt, kicking, the chains clear of the centre. Smiler slewed back over the front, put the slew pin in, navigated the menus on the computer screen and lifted all jacks as the three on the ground pulled all the outrigger pins. Pins clear, he fully extended the outrigger beams, the outrigger beam pads lining up perfectly in the middle of the large metal matts. The other three fired the beam locking pins back into the outriggers as Wank-Stain climbed back onto the wagon and Growler climbed up to stand on the top deck in front of the cab as Smiler extended the four jacks lifting the crane and the wheels clear of the ground before he released the slew brake and slewed round to position the hook over the base slab with it's two upright guide/anchor pillars.

Wank-Stain struggled a bit with the heavier chains as Smiler centred the hook above the base plate, taking up the slack when the chains were slipped on and took note of the radius on his computer screen, jibbing the boom back rather than using the hoist, in order to compensate for boom deflection.

The base plate rose with almost no swing, and Smiler paused to allow Wank-Stain to give it a gentle push. Booming back and lowering off the hoist rope at the same time to float the base section at the same height towards him. He adjusted the slew peed of the crane so that the base plate turned on it's own steam into roughly the right position.

Growler took hold of the edge, to steady the base section and kill the little swing left as Smiler boomed up to the correct radius on his screen. He waited for the nod from Growler and lowered off so that the base section came to a gentle stop on the deck of the crane.

They repeated the process for the two remaining slabs on the ballast wagon. These two slabs had two holes in them so they could be lowered over the base slab, the two pillars of the base slab keeping them in place. Once done, Smiler turned off the engine as there was nothing to do until the remaining ballast wagons arrived. The wagon driver and Wank-Stain rolled up the ratchet straps and stowed the chains and turnbuckles that had anchored the ballast slabs to the trailer.

always feels good to drive under a crane working loads controlled by a guy you saw drink at least 2 litre of vodka the day before.

Ironically, not always. Years ago (Well, this millennium), I used to work for a well known petrochemical company and the yard squad used to arrive for the morning (7:30) tool box talk completely sozzled. The company in question also had a free canteen which was pretty spectacular (as to food quality), as all the company heads for the region also ate there, and you could have a bottle of wine with your meal if you so wished. Anyway, lunch hour was, errr, an hour, yet the yard squad decided not to avail themselves of the free meal and left the site to go round the corner to the pub. One hour of liquid lunching later, they would re-appear, carry on the afternoon work and then go home, or at least, be woken from where-ever they had collapsed to be sent home.

This carried on for years until one of the squads' livers decided it had enough and decided to no longer play ball. A replacement liver and it's attached meaty parts was brought in whilst the other liver died. A few days later (like, two days later) the new (sober) liver stood in a place he shouldn't have and was injured by a bundle of drill-pipe. H&S was involved and the rest of the squad went on sudden 'holiday' whilst drink and drugs testing was carried out on the yard 'squad' consisting entirely of Ad-hocs who hadn't actually been there at the time of the accident.

Now did the 'temporary' squad not go and have another accident (Face-palm) and the yard squad suddenly had pressing matters to attend to at home and stayed home for another week as yet another investigation was carried out and people asked the obvious question of "How come the yard squad are suddenly having accidents?" and coming up with completely the wrong answer.

This was just the start.

Management decided that the simplest (and correct) assumption that lack of experience of those injured was the actual reason for the spate of accidents, couldn't simply be possible. So, in their wisdom, attached two managers who had absolutely no knowledge of warehouse/yard work to shadow the squad to see where things were going wrong. It became apparent that things were going to go badly, right from the off, when the first crane lift of the day sent the female assessor literally running and screaming from the crane.

Anyway, it turns out (eventually) that these two assessors (who could only speak French) whilst Degree qualified in Subsea geology and financial accounting, had all the mechanical aptitude of a house brick. But never mind! They had a great big long list of how the job could be made safer! Management decided that after shadowing the squad for a week, (and asking not one single question as to why things were done the way they were done) the two assessors were perfectly suited to changing years of procedure.

By this point, the original squad were back, their 'alcoholism' which everyone knew about, was flagged by the two French assessors and because of that, were sacked basically on the spot. The crane driver took one look at the 'new working practices' and jacked.

Management wasn't that bothered, it gave them a chance to recruit an entire new yard squad, and do things 'safely'.

Within a month, backloads had built up, rigs weren't getting the equipment they had asked for, when they had asked for it, production of both gas and oil had dropped accordingly. Accidents, far from dropping back to previous levels, had actually increased and were continuing to increase, whilst the crane jib bent in half due to an inexperienced driver being behind the levers. By this point no one wanted to work there (word having quickly spread amongst those who worked in that profession), hindering equipment shipping times further.

Needless to say, it was not the fault of the new 'safer' system but of 'things outwith of their control'. Eventually, a few months later, things had got so bad that the yard was in effect, 'shutdown', and all the work outsourced to a 'new' yard a few miles away where (management couldn't see/meddle) the new procedures of working were quietly ripped up and binned and things went back to the way they used to be done. Accidents dropped back to almost zero and shipping times increased and incorrect orders decreased.

I've always heard of the term "High functioning alcoholic", but that was the first place I had ever been where I had actually met some. I suppose it helped that the job itself was a tedious and monotonous one where you could, quite literally, carry it out whilst drunk/half asleep.

Subsequently, I have noticed that the most dangerous people in a workplace, tend to be the most recent employees or the youngest (or even worse, those who are both).