Hi SatP Hope all is well with you. I thought the work they did was amazing, no shouting, just little hand signals. Brilliant. If you go to youtube you can see more of their work, it's advertising for the recovery company but it's very good advertising. And those little kids are great.
I'm fortunate to have seen lots of heavy plant operations in open cut mining and, in more recent years, in civil construction.
You see a lot of young monkeys trying to be clever and tough in excavators and back hoes that are downright dangerous. You keep moving them on until you find competence and the right temperament.
Crane operators and dogmen are somewhat different however. They must operate in unison yards apart, taking loads which travel simultaneously through all planes, developing momentum and reacting to wind gusts. They take great pride in their craft, quietly discussing the solution (using about three barely audible muttered words per 10 minutes, with lots of "Yeah, no, no yeah, alright then.") before going forth to untangle the most complex challenges of physics.
You will see there that no professional engineers were present telling the dogman what they reckoned should happen, and that is common – they defer to their knowledge and scarper out of the way.
That dogman was typical – judging the movement constantly, increasing the tension on the far cables, walking around the vehicle to check and re-check. They do subscribe to the mantra “Do it well, do it once”.
I have noticed that missing teeth, torn pants and uber-faded workshirts are de rigueur, as is a minimum of visible communication and hand movement. I’d be out there with one of those long baton thingys favoured by the highland band masters, swinging and twirling and posturing to create a grand performance!!!
One still sees dogmen who use their own whistle and I defy anyone to decode that method – I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for years.
Highlighting Barnes Towing & Salvage at the end was a nice touch.
Mick o GC I just like to watch people like that work. They're so good, so smooth in what they do. Just like a machine, and there's two men doing the job, working together.
Martin, yes, it's the skill that they have in what they do.
The builder who build my house was amazing. A joy to work with. Nothing, no change, was too hard or too expensive.
My father was a carpenter. He was amazing to watch when he worked, too. I have photos of Dad and my brother renovating the family home. My father's legacy to my brother was teching him how to do the types of renovations which have made his house very stylish from the neglected house they bought.
My brother's skill amazes me, and all the more amazing as he has a learning difficulty (a kind of dyslexia).
I'm not sure if it was ever on Australian TV but on the Speed Channel in the U.S. they had a show called "Wrecked: Life in the Crash Lane" about a towing company in Chicago. They had regular tow-trucks for cars (of course) but also those monster tow-trucks for semi-trucks and other big rigs. It was amazing how they got some of those big rigs upright or out of the trouble they'd gotten into.
Being in Chicago they had the extra joy of doing all that during the brutal winters they get in that city. Those drivers really earned their money being out in single digit temperatures, with the wind howling off Lake Michigan.
8 comments:
Quite educational.
Hi SatP
Hope all is well with you.
I thought the work they did was amazing, no shouting, just little hand signals. Brilliant.
If you go to youtube you can see more of their work, it's advertising for the recovery company but it's very good advertising.
And those little kids are great.
I'm fortunate to have seen lots of heavy plant operations in open cut mining and, in more recent years, in civil construction.
You see a lot of young monkeys trying to be clever and tough in excavators and back hoes that are downright dangerous. You keep moving them on until you find competence and the right temperament.
Crane operators and dogmen are somewhat different however. They must operate in unison yards apart, taking loads which travel simultaneously through all planes, developing momentum and reacting to wind gusts. They take great pride in their craft, quietly discussing the solution (using about three barely audible muttered words per 10 minutes, with lots of "Yeah, no, no yeah, alright then.") before going forth to untangle the most complex challenges of physics.
You will see there that no professional engineers were present telling the dogman what they reckoned should happen, and that is common – they defer to their knowledge and scarper out of the way.
That dogman was typical – judging the movement constantly, increasing the tension on the far cables, walking around the vehicle to check and re-check. They do subscribe to the mantra “Do it well, do it once”.
I have noticed that missing teeth, torn pants and uber-faded workshirts are de rigueur, as is a minimum of visible communication and hand movement. I’d be out there with one of those long baton thingys favoured by the highland band masters, swinging and twirling and posturing to create a grand performance!!!
One still sees dogmen who use their own whistle and I defy anyone to decode that method – I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for years.
Highlighting Barnes Towing & Salvage at the end was a nice touch.
Mick o GC
I just like to watch people like that work. They're so good, so smooth in what they do. Just like a machine, and there's two men doing the job, working together.
All that was missing was music to make it a ballet. Great work. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this.
kae said
"I just like to watch people like that work."
Same here, no matter what the work is, digging a hole or filling a tooth. Watching a proficient workman doing his job is a joy.
Martin
Hi Missred, it was great to watch, wasn't it!
Martin, yes, it's the skill that they have in what they do.
The builder who build my house was amazing. A joy to work with. Nothing, no change, was too hard or too expensive.
My father was a carpenter. He was amazing to watch when he worked, too. I have photos of Dad and my brother renovating the family home. My father's legacy to my brother was teching him how to do the types of renovations which have made his house very stylish from the neglected house they bought.
My brother's skill amazes me, and all the more amazing as he has a learning difficulty (a kind of dyslexia).
I'm not sure if it was ever on Australian TV but on the Speed Channel in the U.S. they had a show called "Wrecked: Life in the Crash Lane" about a towing company in Chicago. They had regular tow-trucks for cars (of course) but also those monster tow-trucks for semi-trucks and other big rigs. It was amazing how they got some of those big rigs upright or out of the trouble they'd gotten into.
Being in Chicago they had the extra joy of doing all that during the brutal winters they get in that city. Those drivers really earned their money being out in single digit temperatures, with the wind howling off Lake Michigan.
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