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Serious question, a kid at the Lubbock site asked why I radio the load before every pick and it got me thinking
He's 19 and brand new on the crew and he asked why I call out every load over the radio even when it's just a bundle of rebar I've lifted 400 times. I told him about a guy I trained under at a yard in Amarillo who said your hands get lazy but your mouth never does, and honestly that line has saved me more than once. Last Wednesday I caught a tagline snagged on a stack of forms at about 30 feet because I said the pick out loud and the spotter heard it. Has anyone else picked up a habit from an old timer that sounded dumb at first but ended up earning its keep?
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brooke7675d ago
My grandpa did concrete for 38 years and he used to walk the whole pour line slapping his hand on the forms before every single truck came down the chute, even on a driveway he'd done a hundred times. I always thought it was some superstitious thing until I watched him catch a loose brace pin that would've blown a form out under the weight. That whole idea of your hands getting lazy but your mouth staying honest is the same deal, it's not about being forgetful, it's about building a second set of eyes into your own routine. The call out forces your brain to slow down and actually see the pick instead of running on autopilot, and that half second is where all the close calls get caught. I do the same thing now when I'm on a roof, I say my steps out loud before I take them, and yeah the young guys laugh but I've never put a foot through a soft spot. The old timers weren't being weird, they were just smart enough to build a backup system that doesn't depend on them being sharp every single time.
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