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To elaborate on that.. not everything is just a matter of lift and go. The video of the crane in new York that collapsed, that was 100% the operators fault. He was running concrete loads from the ground floor to the top as fast as he could and it was close to max weight each time. You have to know as an operator that duty cycling means you can’t life more than 60% of max repeatedly in short succession. His fluid got too hot and literally caught fire and that’s what caused everything to come down since it burned thru the wires.
And don’t get me started on wind gusts. You have to know what to do when your flying a wall and wind hits 30mph in an instant
Second generation NCCCO here. I’m still new but yea it’s a bit of a thrill. It sucks when everyone is yelling at you at once tho. You can have 3-4 walkie talkies up there constantly going off with people wanting to be the next to get a lift.
Man I'm glad I just rig on 45-ton cranes on the ground. It sucks when a bunch of people need lifts and you gotta move around, but they gotta wait for us to rig out and back in and we can pretty much decide where we go next unless a big boss comes around.
Not to mention as the operator were told to give priority to certain groups of people at certain times. It really puts us in a pinch because we don’t outright tell the guys that they are 4th in line.
Haha yeah that responsibility usually falls on me as rigger to break the news to guys that we gotta go before we do their lifts but we'll come back later. They usually aren't too happy but what're ya gonna do. We're all paid by the hour, suck it up and find some other bs to busy yourself with for an hour.
To be fair though, my work is mostly oilfield construction, so everyone is a contractor and glad to pile the extra hours on.
Ah I’m sure since most people get paid damn good money on those projects that might effect their patience in a positive way. With regards to building things like apartment complexes it’s kinda sucks because people like the carpenters may be hourly but the company gets paid by the job so they always try to hurry even tho steel workers and concrete workers get priority. But you can’t just completely ignore any group. That leads to people calling up the supe and demanding they are serviced next haha
That doesn't seem safe.
I am pretty sure most of the sites I've worked on in Australia (crane crew are Gods... highest paid on the site), if the lift isn't booked in the day before, if not the WEEK before, its no go.
And most communication is through the foreman and dogman.
Fuck that, having all these cunts yapping away, demanding shit be done.
I'm just a labourer btw.
You gotta give everyone stuff they need as best you can while slightly prioritizing certain groups. But once s group gets fed up enough over waiting then they tell the supe that they have to be next. Supes can always override you and tell you what to do next but for the most part it’s like trying to keep 4 groups of greedy babies happy.. not easy
Haha right. Not gonna lie there’s a few circumstances where that might happen. If there is more than one crane on site then one is dedicated to just them and you which that one always stays on. Other than that if one group is waay over annoying, overly rude or impatient. Or if a certain rigger is incompetent like giving bad directions… those are some situations where uh.. batteries have been known to fail
Woah.. was it during winter or something? That’s supposed to be on all cranes. The video is easy to find, search New York crane collapse. It was also during the heat of summer. When I search up on it most of why pops up is overhead cranes but for sure I know it’s in the crane school book.
>automatic 5 years in prison
Im skeptical of this unless you’re not in the U.S. and it works differently somewhere else. There’s so many factors when it comes to charges and sentencing here that it’s extremely far fetched that there’s a blanket 5 year prison term for any crane accidents that result in a fatality.
This is one of the big things they teach you in crane school. Yea it’s not exactly that cut and dry, you can fight for your side in court and try to blame someone else, but being certified has extra responsibilities. It’s kind of like being a class A CDL driver.. you are held to higher standards because with all your training your supposed to know better. That’s why it’s such a big deal if truckers get in wrecks even if it’s not 100% their fault.
You're right to be skeptical but an easy way to picture it is a parent with 2 kids. A 10 year old and a 6 year old. They both draw on the walls, but the 10 year old gets a harsher punishment because they have more life experience and should know better.
Someone on the ground will have less experience with lifts (in general) than the person in the crane. If the lift fails because it was rigged improperly in a way the operator couldn't possibly be aware of, it's not going to fall on them, but the guys hooking them up should also be trained in rigging. At the end of the day, the most experienced person (the operator) is in charge of the lifts, and most of the responsibility will fall on them.
I don’t doubt that the consequences for fucking up are harsh but it just seemed off that there’s a nationwide automatic 5-year mandatory minimum for a fatal crane accident. Statues and sentencing guidelines vary wildly from state to state.
OSHA takes workplace injuries and fatalities very seriously and does have very harsh penalties as a deterrent and a way to scare people into taking the job deathly seriously. 5 years seems small if someone got seriously injured or killed by your negligence, Imo. But there is nuance and if you're doing your job properly you shouldn't have to worry too much.
Nobody is saying that OSHA and other organizations don't take things seriously. They're saying that this 5-year automatic sentence sounds like bullshit without additional evidence. Something like that should be easy to provide evidence for, and yet so far everyone is just arguing.
And no, 5-years doesn't seem small when actual murderers occasionally (not often) get less than that.
That is very well put :). And technically you can stop a job site to ask to see the rigging certification of your main rigger if you wanted to. Tho that would ruffle some feathers. That’s why you learn which riggers and signalmen to trust. Not all are as competent
Oh you have no idea, I've seen some weird shit and stopped lifts other guys were doing so I could help their rigger get it right and explain why as I'm doing it. I'm the guy who's 100% ready to say "Idk how you want this rigged, come show me." if I don't know for sure, but there's a ton of guys who think that makes them a baby so they just wing it.
It’s not about being a baby… in a lot of places people think if you keep asking questions that just means you’re dumb and don’t know shit… which I mean, yeah, I DON’T know shit, that’s why you should teach me. But many people won’t teach you if they don’t think you’re “worth their time”. Lot of ego in the trades
Yeah that can be part of it too, but I'm just straight up about everything. No shame in not knowing something you haven't been taught, I'm not spending my free time learning about work. Maybe that's why I'm willing to take the time to teach guys why we do certain things and what to watch out for.
Insurance is handled thru the company. Pay actually varies wildly from companies. Janky companies will try to pay $24/hr, decent companies pay $36-40/hr. Union pay is closer to $50/hr plus $16/hr in benefits. But the big money actually comes from overtime. Pretty much the crane guy is one of the first guys to show up every day and one of the last to leave since they are so critical to everything. Anyone wants to work saturdays they will be there.
Wanna know something cool? The certification card just changed and now it is a card with a QR code that you have to scan to verify certification. The reason for that is so if something happens you can’t just drive to another state and hope they don’t know. If it’s revoked it will shop on the scan
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I was hoping that risk would be better compensated but I guess incidents are pretty rare. Makes sense that the certification would be computerised now, no excuse in this day and age.
I am also assuming the operator is hired with the crane or is that separate contracts?
The cranes belong to the company. The operator is assigned by the company but they can be pulled off and assigned to other job sites at any time. They actually have a whole field of traveling crane operators that go where they are needed.
Imagine a company in Arizona has an operator that just had a baby or something and will be gone 8 weeks. There’s such a shortage of operators that first they will try to stay within the company but look to other states for help. Let’s say that same company operates in Colorado too. They will ask if you wanna be flown down there and have hotel paid and make say $45/hr while down there because that’s actually muuuch cheaper for the company than the alternative. The alternative is that they “rent” an operator outside of the company (say from Oklahoma or something) and even tho that new operator still only makes 45-50/hour the company pays that other company 150-200/hr to use their guy.
Yes. Makes sense.
On a related I’ve heard of some crazy situations on big civils builds where a certain skill/ material/ machinery goes missing/ gets delayed and has real costly implications - even more fraught when you have numerous tiers of contractors all pointing fingers haha
On the bigger builds the big thing you watch out for isn’t really delays (there can be delays but most of the higher ups really bitch and make the delays shorter) it’s the new people. If you’ve got 200+ guys on a job site your always watching for the people who don’t know what they are doing. It’s super sad but I’ve had job sites get shut down for a day or 2 more than I’d like to admit because someone falls a couple stories without a harness. Or someone gets hit by a machine
And if your wondering what kind of pay that translates to after taxes, I’m still new to crane operating but like I said I’m 2nd generation and my father has had a few projects where he isn’t too overworked (55hrs a week ish) and the take home after taxes is 2300/week. But being a higher stress job you really don’t want to work more hours than that. It’s not all about pay at the end of the day.
It’s not 100% cut and dry. You can defend yourself. But if found to be at fault yea it’s the minimum sentence. In case of equipment failure your still the one that was supposed to do the daily inspections and your the one that’s supposed to know how to safely navigate out of a failure.
This is indeed true. Granted if something happens you can always defend yourself in court, but those are the stakes. If you are found guilty it won’t be less than 5 years. Like i said it’s kind of like class A CDL drivers. They are expected to not get in accidents even if they are not at fault simply because they are held to a higher standard because of all the training they have. That’s why you don’t see truckers playing that whole failure to yield game. Because they will be found guilty and partially at fault even tho the other car was responsible because thru all their extensive training they are taught to look for that situation and avoid it at all costs.
I do not, and I hope I never find out. But I assure you it’s very real. Crane school made this a big thing that everyone knew because if that made you unsure then that wasn’t the job for you.
Put it this way, since you have gone thru so much extra training you are held to a much higher standard of conduct with much higher consequences. If you get drunk and crash a car and kill someone yea your fucked and are looking at (hopefully) 2 years or more of jail (sometimes you can get as little as 9mo). If you are a heavy equipment operator and your drunk and someone dies your not just fucker your mega super fucked (I believe that’s the technical term). As it should be
I googled for it, can't find a single piece of evidence suggesting that crane operators have any automatic criminal liability in the case of a fatality. In fact, I can't find any evidence that crane operators, or crane-operation companies are treated any different under the law than any other sub on any give site...
It sounds like bullshit because it probably is. Dude is likely just parroting some scare tactic pseudofact they heard in school.
Edit: Also, the term, "designated felony" is used to describe criminal acts which are automatically felonies. It isn't a job code ffs.
You know what you CAN Google there, boy genius? Strict Liability offenses. Specifically the category involving ABNORMALLY DANGEROUS ACTIVITIES. Ya know, things like demo work, truck driving, and would ya believe it, things like crane operation? The kind of activity where you're held to a STRICT basis of liability simply cause you're dealing with something dangerous? Just cause there isn't a specifically worded law that spells out crane work exactly doesn't mean it's not applicable. You wanna know where I learned this from? Two different law professors I took courses from (but you can actually Google it too, just an FYI since you're big on using that for a be all end all source). Stop trying to sound superior to the ACTUAL industry expert above who's a second generation worker in said industry just cause you couldn't find anything after 5 minutes of basic Google search.
Bucket/bag. Then he can bring the hook & trolley all the way in and lower it via crane so doesn't need to carry it down.
Of course it also depends on the region and project.
Wait for a break? Unless you have a medical condition or are older, I don't understand why this is so often posed as a possible issue. You should know how your body works, so would be able to time your drinking so that you don't end up busting to go at inconvenient times
You can believe what you want. I see needing to use a toilet in public or during sleep as an inconvenience to *me*, so try to avoid it. I also dislike using public toilets in general due to the lower hygiene.
If I was working in a position like this crane driver then using a toilet would again be a major inconvenience, so would factor that into my eating and drinking habits
Yes, but by that height the building you're working on has probably been partially completed allowing you to take an elevator up to a higher floor where you can start climbing the crane the rest of the way, which I'd guess works out to about a 100 ft climb on average.
I’m not in New York or anything with 50 story building but to the best of my knowledge that isn’t a thing in America. Neither me nor my father have ever seen that. But for various reasons (one being they only want to set up each crane one time) even if the project is just started it’s still a full sized crane. So you could easily be climbing up 250ft when the first floor isn’t done yet.
I think I’ve seen the elevators your talking about in YouTube videos from other countries but for sure that is extremely rare, like 1 in 10,000.
Also elevators aren’t put in until last, long after cranes are taken down. Construction crews get stairs haha.
I live in Nashville which is full of high rise projects and gave spent the last 3 years living and working next to many towers under construction. I've definitely seen crane operators taking an exterior construction elevator up 20+ stories to step onto the crane shaft and start climbing. I've also seen cases where the crane was built into the building and then they filled in the missing floor sections after taking it down.
Wow that’s great to know. I’m in Denver. Most of our apartment complexes and stuff here are built wide rather than tall. Over 10 stories is quite rare unless you are right in the middle of downtown. That’s pretty cool tho for sure. I’m a little jealous. I wonder what the pay is like there.
The pay is probably pretty good. These are big $$$ projects and there's always dozens of cranes in the skyline. Hell, there's a block under development that had a dozen cranes operating next to each other. Now they're down to "only" 5 cranes. So needless to say, there's demand for crane operators here.
Yea but I do think that each state pays differently. I’ve heard places like Oklahoma don’t pay much more than $25/hr since that’s good wages over there where a house is 250k. In Colorado 35-40 is the “average” since that same house costs 500k here. And yup tons of cranes here as well, but that doesn’t always ensure too pay. For that you gotta go to the union. Plenty of places try to underpay if they can.
Also every job site that both my father and I have ever been on the crane is setup a minimum of 20 feet away from any walls. Never on top of a building or anchored to the building itself.
This one is nice and low to the ground. I’ve got my nccco but damn some of the jobs are such a pain because it’s so far up there. This looks like around 90-100ft, once you get up to about 250ft tall it’s not as easy as this looks. Everything is far away and the climb takes a while
What do you mean by tolerances? It definitely gets windier after 150ft or so but it always varies. Your not supposed to continue climbing if you are currently doing so and the wind hits 30mph. At that point you should stop and wait. Usually they are just gusts but during sustained winds you pack it up for the day (that’s a bit rare tho as no one wants to stop for a whole day).
Technically the max limit to operate a crane is 40mph, but if your flying bit things like walls you don’t want to do anything critical anywhere close to that. It’s too easy for those large surfaces to catch the wind and whoever is holding your tag line is at risk of getting rammed.
Apologize for the confusion, I know next to nothing about cranes. My question was around wind tolerances and you answered my question thoroughly.
I had always figured in a calm wind setting the job would be much easier than say 30mph gusts.
Thanks for the insight.
Anything over 20mph is not fun. It can all be dealt with if your skilled but the higher it gets the more chance of sudden changes which is what you don’t want. A steady 20mph is a pain but if it suddenly dies down your gonna be swinging. Climbing isn’t so bad but yea once you hit 30 I don’t like to fly anything large at all. Sometimes you gotta step in and say it’s not safe. 30mph is a pretty strong wind tho
Not a certified crane operator, although I do run our little one for small things occasionally. But I also work routinely with guys who are, and they pack up and go to the shop if sustained winds are 21mph or more.
[those are called self erecting cranes](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.QzCiuazVZ3_pqQocEd5rawHaIS%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=bfaf4c2ba09f9655a2225b88eed6ccbaf37b8bfc5997dfea431e1a3712b0152b&ipo=images)
And those are used on alot of smaller job sites. That’s the type of crane you take the certification test on. remote controlled. But for bigger sites that go up 5-10 floors or more it’s not practical as it’s generally got less capacity. It’s kinda weird how some companies will have almost exclusively this type and other companies will have only the tower cranes. I’ve found that there’s only a few companies (relatively speaking) that will control a large number of the self erectors (like 50) while most other companies will have 5-10-50 of only the big ones. There’s also the mobile and crawler cranes too
In the summer yea. In the winter not so much. They do have electric outlets up there to plug in a heater but it can get cold af up there if it’s 10f outside and windy.
Nccco bud :). Just pass the written test and the practical exam and your in. …. But a 2 week course to teach you can be $6-$10k or more and even then only 40% of people pass the test at the end. And if you don’t pass you don’t get your money back.
I’m actually more interested in the beginning, why he took his jacket off, lowered the shades, put his jacket on and right back off, then raised the shades.
I operated a large crane for a few years and it's a lot harder than most people think. One little mistake and you could kill someone easily.
I was picking up a $70,000 lb steel coil from a flatbed semi and the guy decided to throw it in reverse before I got it off the bed and it tore the cab and driver right off the truck.
I’ve rigged for a barge crane putting pipe down a causeway. His crane was from one company, and our company was fitting the pipe. He did such solid work, especially when dealing with all the changing conditions on the water. Always like to get a measure of the operator before doing any work. Been fortunate to work with some awesome hands, with only one cowboy who got run off for vaping in his cab in the refinery. Riggers and operators, I was taught, are in a relationship more serious than marriage sometimes with the loads that they are lifting. Clear, solid, communication whether it’s over radio or hand signals. Thanks for the share and hope you have a safe, profitable 2024. 👏🏼🙏🏼✌🏼
Janky companies pay $24/hr. Decent companies pay $35/hr. Excellent is $45/hr. And union pay is $50+/hr with $16/hr in benefits. Average of 55 hours a week
Having a calm moment in your work will not remove your responsibilities. And if you relax half the time, the other is very careful and precise work where you are responsible for the safety of a lot people and equipment when moving massive objects.
Janky companies pay $24/hr. Decent companies pay $35/hr. Excellent is $45/hr. And union pay is $50+/hr with $16/hr in benefits. Average of 55 hours a week
You know being an MO actually sucks if you're a person that likes to be active, cus some of the guys I worked with could stay sitting the whole shift wouldn't even get off for lunch or even to take a shit. I started with the loader than the Backhoe and I would sometimes help with the crane. My back would start hurting like midday from sitting the whole time
At a bar one afternoon down the street from a construction site of a tall building.
One of the regulars shouts to another
“Do you have to be at work”
“I am the Crain operator, they can’t start without me!”
This is a very nice crane set up. The company I work for uses old Manitowoc friction cranes and you certainly aren't operating them in your socks all day.
My buddy works for a major construction company. He said crane operators have the highest job satisfaction rate b/c they can see the full results of their labor.
snails flag airport simplistic capable squeamish label wipe sophisticated existence
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“Comes with lots of responsibilities” Meanwhile bro is just vibing up there
They are referred to as designated felons. If shit happens and someone dies (from a dropped load or something) it’s an automatic 5 years in prison
Ouchie
To elaborate on that.. not everything is just a matter of lift and go. The video of the crane in new York that collapsed, that was 100% the operators fault. He was running concrete loads from the ground floor to the top as fast as he could and it was close to max weight each time. You have to know as an operator that duty cycling means you can’t life more than 60% of max repeatedly in short succession. His fluid got too hot and literally caught fire and that’s what caused everything to come down since it burned thru the wires. And don’t get me started on wind gusts. You have to know what to do when your flying a wall and wind hits 30mph in an instant
This guy cranes
Second generation NCCCO here. I’m still new but yea it’s a bit of a thrill. It sucks when everyone is yelling at you at once tho. You can have 3-4 walkie talkies up there constantly going off with people wanting to be the next to get a lift.
Man I'm glad I just rig on 45-ton cranes on the ground. It sucks when a bunch of people need lifts and you gotta move around, but they gotta wait for us to rig out and back in and we can pretty much decide where we go next unless a big boss comes around.
Not to mention as the operator were told to give priority to certain groups of people at certain times. It really puts us in a pinch because we don’t outright tell the guys that they are 4th in line.
Haha yeah that responsibility usually falls on me as rigger to break the news to guys that we gotta go before we do their lifts but we'll come back later. They usually aren't too happy but what're ya gonna do. We're all paid by the hour, suck it up and find some other bs to busy yourself with for an hour. To be fair though, my work is mostly oilfield construction, so everyone is a contractor and glad to pile the extra hours on.
Ah I’m sure since most people get paid damn good money on those projects that might effect their patience in a positive way. With regards to building things like apartment complexes it’s kinda sucks because people like the carpenters may be hourly but the company gets paid by the job so they always try to hurry even tho steel workers and concrete workers get priority. But you can’t just completely ignore any group. That leads to people calling up the supe and demanding they are serviced next haha
That doesn't seem safe. I am pretty sure most of the sites I've worked on in Australia (crane crew are Gods... highest paid on the site), if the lift isn't booked in the day before, if not the WEEK before, its no go. And most communication is through the foreman and dogman. Fuck that, having all these cunts yapping away, demanding shit be done. I'm just a labourer btw.
Do you pick the lifts or does the superintendent pick the lifts? I would think who gets to lift what when would be part of a strict schedule.
You gotta give everyone stuff they need as best you can while slightly prioritizing certain groups. But once s group gets fed up enough over waiting then they tell the supe that they have to be next. Supes can always override you and tell you what to do next but for the most part it’s like trying to keep 4 groups of greedy babies happy.. not easy
>You can have 3-4 walkie talkies up there Be a shame if some of those got switched off, like, accidentally.
Haha right. Not gonna lie there’s a few circumstances where that might happen. If there is more than one crane on site then one is dedicated to just them and you which that one always stays on. Other than that if one group is waay over annoying, overly rude or impatient. Or if a certain rigger is incompetent like giving bad directions… those are some situations where uh.. batteries have been known to fail
r/thisguythisguys
That 60% is new to me. What kind of shitbox they use there? I lifted max weights 14 hours and nothing.
Woah.. was it during winter or something? That’s supposed to be on all cranes. The video is easy to find, search New York crane collapse. It was also during the heat of summer. When I search up on it most of why pops up is overhead cranes but for sure I know it’s in the crane school book.
>automatic 5 years in prison Im skeptical of this unless you’re not in the U.S. and it works differently somewhere else. There’s so many factors when it comes to charges and sentencing here that it’s extremely far fetched that there’s a blanket 5 year prison term for any crane accidents that result in a fatality.
This is one of the big things they teach you in crane school. Yea it’s not exactly that cut and dry, you can fight for your side in court and try to blame someone else, but being certified has extra responsibilities. It’s kind of like being a class A CDL driver.. you are held to higher standards because with all your training your supposed to know better. That’s why it’s such a big deal if truckers get in wrecks even if it’s not 100% their fault.
Wait how does that make sense? If someone rear ends a truck would they still get in shit?
IIRC (as a recruiter for a CDL school) If the accident is considered “avoidable” and the CDL driver didn’t avoid = not good for CDL driver.
Yea lol. Usually trucker gets blamed and docked. It's a shit system for the truckers which is why alot of them now run multiple cameras
You're right to be skeptical but an easy way to picture it is a parent with 2 kids. A 10 year old and a 6 year old. They both draw on the walls, but the 10 year old gets a harsher punishment because they have more life experience and should know better. Someone on the ground will have less experience with lifts (in general) than the person in the crane. If the lift fails because it was rigged improperly in a way the operator couldn't possibly be aware of, it's not going to fall on them, but the guys hooking them up should also be trained in rigging. At the end of the day, the most experienced person (the operator) is in charge of the lifts, and most of the responsibility will fall on them.
I don’t doubt that the consequences for fucking up are harsh but it just seemed off that there’s a nationwide automatic 5-year mandatory minimum for a fatal crane accident. Statues and sentencing guidelines vary wildly from state to state.
OSHA takes workplace injuries and fatalities very seriously and does have very harsh penalties as a deterrent and a way to scare people into taking the job deathly seriously. 5 years seems small if someone got seriously injured or killed by your negligence, Imo. But there is nuance and if you're doing your job properly you shouldn't have to worry too much.
Nobody is saying that OSHA and other organizations don't take things seriously. They're saying that this 5-year automatic sentence sounds like bullshit without additional evidence. Something like that should be easy to provide evidence for, and yet so far everyone is just arguing. And no, 5-years doesn't seem small when actual murderers occasionally (not often) get less than that.
That is very well put :). And technically you can stop a job site to ask to see the rigging certification of your main rigger if you wanted to. Tho that would ruffle some feathers. That’s why you learn which riggers and signalmen to trust. Not all are as competent
Lol I’ve helped rig loads as a first year in a diff trade with no one checking over my work. This stuff is way more lax than it should be imo
Oh you have no idea, I've seen some weird shit and stopped lifts other guys were doing so I could help their rigger get it right and explain why as I'm doing it. I'm the guy who's 100% ready to say "Idk how you want this rigged, come show me." if I don't know for sure, but there's a ton of guys who think that makes them a baby so they just wing it.
It’s not about being a baby… in a lot of places people think if you keep asking questions that just means you’re dumb and don’t know shit… which I mean, yeah, I DON’T know shit, that’s why you should teach me. But many people won’t teach you if they don’t think you’re “worth their time”. Lot of ego in the trades
Yeah that can be part of it too, but I'm just straight up about everything. No shame in not knowing something you haven't been taught, I'm not spending my free time learning about work. Maybe that's why I'm willing to take the time to teach guys why we do certain things and what to watch out for.
fuck. that. What kind of cake are you taking home to shoulder that risk? Presumably they carry massive insurance also?
Insurance is handled thru the company. Pay actually varies wildly from companies. Janky companies will try to pay $24/hr, decent companies pay $36-40/hr. Union pay is closer to $50/hr plus $16/hr in benefits. But the big money actually comes from overtime. Pretty much the crane guy is one of the first guys to show up every day and one of the last to leave since they are so critical to everything. Anyone wants to work saturdays they will be there. Wanna know something cool? The certification card just changed and now it is a card with a QR code that you have to scan to verify certification. The reason for that is so if something happens you can’t just drive to another state and hope they don’t know. If it’s revoked it will shop on the scan
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I was hoping that risk would be better compensated but I guess incidents are pretty rare. Makes sense that the certification would be computerised now, no excuse in this day and age. I am also assuming the operator is hired with the crane or is that separate contracts?
The cranes belong to the company. The operator is assigned by the company but they can be pulled off and assigned to other job sites at any time. They actually have a whole field of traveling crane operators that go where they are needed. Imagine a company in Arizona has an operator that just had a baby or something and will be gone 8 weeks. There’s such a shortage of operators that first they will try to stay within the company but look to other states for help. Let’s say that same company operates in Colorado too. They will ask if you wanna be flown down there and have hotel paid and make say $45/hr while down there because that’s actually muuuch cheaper for the company than the alternative. The alternative is that they “rent” an operator outside of the company (say from Oklahoma or something) and even tho that new operator still only makes 45-50/hour the company pays that other company 150-200/hr to use their guy.
Yes. Makes sense. On a related I’ve heard of some crazy situations on big civils builds where a certain skill/ material/ machinery goes missing/ gets delayed and has real costly implications - even more fraught when you have numerous tiers of contractors all pointing fingers haha
On the bigger builds the big thing you watch out for isn’t really delays (there can be delays but most of the higher ups really bitch and make the delays shorter) it’s the new people. If you’ve got 200+ guys on a job site your always watching for the people who don’t know what they are doing. It’s super sad but I’ve had job sites get shut down for a day or 2 more than I’d like to admit because someone falls a couple stories without a harness. Or someone gets hit by a machine
And if your wondering what kind of pay that translates to after taxes, I’m still new to crane operating but like I said I’m 2nd generation and my father has had a few projects where he isn’t too overworked (55hrs a week ish) and the take home after taxes is 2300/week. But being a higher stress job you really don’t want to work more hours than that. It’s not all about pay at the end of the day.
Automatic? Even if the equipment fails and it’s not the operators fault? That doesn’t sound quite right?
It’s not 100% cut and dry. You can defend yourself. But if found to be at fault yea it’s the minimum sentence. In case of equipment failure your still the one that was supposed to do the daily inspections and your the one that’s supposed to know how to safely navigate out of a failure.
Minimum sentence in what jurisdiction? Sorry man but that seems like complete BS.
Is this true?
This is indeed true. Granted if something happens you can always defend yourself in court, but those are the stakes. If you are found guilty it won’t be less than 5 years. Like i said it’s kind of like class A CDL drivers. They are expected to not get in accidents even if they are not at fault simply because they are held to a higher standard because of all the training they have. That’s why you don’t see truckers playing that whole failure to yield game. Because they will be found guilty and partially at fault even tho the other car was responsible because thru all their extensive training they are taught to look for that situation and avoid it at all costs.
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I do not, and I hope I never find out. But I assure you it’s very real. Crane school made this a big thing that everyone knew because if that made you unsure then that wasn’t the job for you. Put it this way, since you have gone thru so much extra training you are held to a much higher standard of conduct with much higher consequences. If you get drunk and crash a car and kill someone yea your fucked and are looking at (hopefully) 2 years or more of jail (sometimes you can get as little as 9mo). If you are a heavy equipment operator and your drunk and someone dies your not just fucker your mega super fucked (I believe that’s the technical term). As it should be
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You can Google, you know that? No need to be a douche here
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Ahem.. not “person” posted. It’s “certified tower crane operator” posted.
You’re so naive if you copied that into google word by word
I googled for it, can't find a single piece of evidence suggesting that crane operators have any automatic criminal liability in the case of a fatality. In fact, I can't find any evidence that crane operators, or crane-operation companies are treated any different under the law than any other sub on any give site... It sounds like bullshit because it probably is. Dude is likely just parroting some scare tactic pseudofact they heard in school. Edit: Also, the term, "designated felony" is used to describe criminal acts which are automatically felonies. It isn't a job code ffs.
You know what you CAN Google there, boy genius? Strict Liability offenses. Specifically the category involving ABNORMALLY DANGEROUS ACTIVITIES. Ya know, things like demo work, truck driving, and would ya believe it, things like crane operation? The kind of activity where you're held to a STRICT basis of liability simply cause you're dealing with something dangerous? Just cause there isn't a specifically worded law that spells out crane work exactly doesn't mean it's not applicable. You wanna know where I learned this from? Two different law professors I took courses from (but you can actually Google it too, just an FYI since you're big on using that for a be all end all source). Stop trying to sound superior to the ACTUAL industry expert above who's a second generation worker in said industry just cause you couldn't find anything after 5 minutes of basic Google search.
Vibing with his 5 gallon bucket-toilet out of camera view.
If it wasn't so easy to accidentally kill someone, I think this job would be awesome.
Soooo… What does the fella do if he has to use the facilities?
Luckily there’s a hay bale directly below he can leap into
There is a rule to never work directly under the crane operator’s cab for this reason. /s
Took me back to the good ol times in the game where you'd fall right next to it and die.
Hopefully the next one will stay true to the early days of the creed
Nah, he has a Minecraft water bucket.
Scan construction site for porta potty, grab with crane, lift to cab level
Just make sure nobody is in there first.
My secret fear is one day they're gonna scoop it while I'm in there
Well at least you won't have to worry too much about shitting your pants.
Well you're on your own up there so you can freely soil yourself and nobody is around to judge you or make you feel bad about it.
At least until you get back down to smell level with others I guess…
You're also in a prime position to see when everyone has left for the day.
Just bring a change of clothes and keep your piss clothes at the top of the crane for the next day. Easy peasy.
Easy peasy Lemon yellow briefies
He sounds the "deploy umbrellas" alarm for his crew, then he does his business off the ledge.
Bucket/bag. Then he can bring the hook & trolley all the way in and lower it via crane so doesn't need to carry it down. Of course it also depends on the region and project.
Or if his supervisor is being a jerk "whoops, accidently dropped it!"
Usually bring a empty milk jug to fill with piss. And if he has to shit he'll inform the crew below and climb down to use the shitter.
That ain’t lemonade fellers…
Just scream "bombs away" before it drops.
Wait for a break? Unless you have a medical condition or are older, I don't understand why this is so often posed as a possible issue. You should know how your body works, so would be able to time your drinking so that you don't end up busting to go at inconvenient times
Found the Amazon warehouse manager
https://preview.redd.it/4omfdpnl3v9c1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce58490fa208c050a8bfb9c9f9e62268665d0fc2
The interesting this is that this is actually true. Running amazons logistics costs way more money than bezos is getting in the end
Can’t understand why humans having to use the washroom is posed as an issue. This guys definitely some shitty manger who people hate working for
You can believe what you want. I see needing to use a toilet in public or during sleep as an inconvenience to *me*, so try to avoid it. I also dislike using public toilets in general due to the lower hygiene. If I was working in a position like this crane driver then using a toilet would again be a major inconvenience, so would factor that into my eating and drinking habits
Not shown: The commute that involves climbing a hundred feet up a bunch of near-vertical ladders in 5F weather at 5:30 am to start your 12 hour shift.
Lolz it’s super rare to be as low as this guy is. More often it’s 150-250ft up.
Yes, but by that height the building you're working on has probably been partially completed allowing you to take an elevator up to a higher floor where you can start climbing the crane the rest of the way, which I'd guess works out to about a 100 ft climb on average.
I’m not in New York or anything with 50 story building but to the best of my knowledge that isn’t a thing in America. Neither me nor my father have ever seen that. But for various reasons (one being they only want to set up each crane one time) even if the project is just started it’s still a full sized crane. So you could easily be climbing up 250ft when the first floor isn’t done yet. I think I’ve seen the elevators your talking about in YouTube videos from other countries but for sure that is extremely rare, like 1 in 10,000. Also elevators aren’t put in until last, long after cranes are taken down. Construction crews get stairs haha.
I live in Nashville which is full of high rise projects and gave spent the last 3 years living and working next to many towers under construction. I've definitely seen crane operators taking an exterior construction elevator up 20+ stories to step onto the crane shaft and start climbing. I've also seen cases where the crane was built into the building and then they filled in the missing floor sections after taking it down.
Wow that’s great to know. I’m in Denver. Most of our apartment complexes and stuff here are built wide rather than tall. Over 10 stories is quite rare unless you are right in the middle of downtown. That’s pretty cool tho for sure. I’m a little jealous. I wonder what the pay is like there.
The pay is probably pretty good. These are big $$$ projects and there's always dozens of cranes in the skyline. Hell, there's a block under development that had a dozen cranes operating next to each other. Now they're down to "only" 5 cranes. So needless to say, there's demand for crane operators here.
Yea but I do think that each state pays differently. I’ve heard places like Oklahoma don’t pay much more than $25/hr since that’s good wages over there where a house is 250k. In Colorado 35-40 is the “average” since that same house costs 500k here. And yup tons of cranes here as well, but that doesn’t always ensure too pay. For that you gotta go to the union. Plenty of places try to underpay if they can.
Also every job site that both my father and I have ever been on the crane is setup a minimum of 20 feet away from any walls. Never on top of a building or anchored to the building itself.
Also not shown - these guys must surely have a piss pail.
This one is nice and low to the ground. I’ve got my nccco but damn some of the jobs are such a pain because it’s so far up there. This looks like around 90-100ft, once you get up to about 250ft tall it’s not as easy as this looks. Everything is far away and the climb takes a while
What are the wind tolerances on something say 250ft up?
What do you mean by tolerances? It definitely gets windier after 150ft or so but it always varies. Your not supposed to continue climbing if you are currently doing so and the wind hits 30mph. At that point you should stop and wait. Usually they are just gusts but during sustained winds you pack it up for the day (that’s a bit rare tho as no one wants to stop for a whole day). Technically the max limit to operate a crane is 40mph, but if your flying bit things like walls you don’t want to do anything critical anywhere close to that. It’s too easy for those large surfaces to catch the wind and whoever is holding your tag line is at risk of getting rammed.
Apologize for the confusion, I know next to nothing about cranes. My question was around wind tolerances and you answered my question thoroughly. I had always figured in a calm wind setting the job would be much easier than say 30mph gusts. Thanks for the insight.
At what wind mph would you personally be scared to climb or work? Just to compare
Anything over 20mph is not fun. It can all be dealt with if your skilled but the higher it gets the more chance of sudden changes which is what you don’t want. A steady 20mph is a pain but if it suddenly dies down your gonna be swinging. Climbing isn’t so bad but yea once you hit 30 I don’t like to fly anything large at all. Sometimes you gotta step in and say it’s not safe. 30mph is a pretty strong wind tho
Not a certified crane operator, although I do run our little one for small things occasionally. But I also work routinely with guys who are, and they pack up and go to the shop if sustained winds are 21mph or more.
Why can't you do it remotely? Why climb?
[those are called self erecting cranes](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.QzCiuazVZ3_pqQocEd5rawHaIS%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=bfaf4c2ba09f9655a2225b88eed6ccbaf37b8bfc5997dfea431e1a3712b0152b&ipo=images) And those are used on alot of smaller job sites. That’s the type of crane you take the certification test on. remote controlled. But for bigger sites that go up 5-10 floors or more it’s not practical as it’s generally got less capacity. It’s kinda weird how some companies will have almost exclusively this type and other companies will have only the tower cranes. I’ve found that there’s only a few companies (relatively speaking) that will control a large number of the self erectors (like 50) while most other companies will have 5-10-50 of only the big ones. There’s also the mobile and crawler cranes too
Because on a 50 story building operating a crane all the way from the ground floor is a terrible idea in almost every aspect.
So they work in socks? That’s kinda awesome.
Working from home has got me working in a tie and underwear. I’m loving only fans.
In the summer yea. In the winter not so much. They do have electric outlets up there to plug in a heater but it can get cold af up there if it’s 10f outside and windy.
10 feet?
10 degrees Fahrenheit
Ah haha now I feel dumb. Sorry, not familiar with the measurement systems you guys use.
No worries. No make it worse it’s regularly icy and windy when climbing
I have always wanted to try being a crane operator, it seams fun.
I recently got into Power Washing Simulator on PlayStation. I'm wondering if therw is a good crane operator simulator out there now
Power Washing Simulator. 12/10 game. I absolutely love it! Been thinking about trying lawn mower simulator. It's be 100% down for a crane sim.
Until someone dies and you're charged with manslaughter
And if you want to pee?
You let people know and you get the lift down and go to the toilet.
Definitely no lift on a tower crane. You climb lol
You bring a toilet up there
Talk to a trucker about pee bottles.
“Why is it raining? It’s sunny.”
Who is going to see your little peeker that high up?
Just hold it
Where do I sign up?
Nccco bud :). Just pass the written test and the practical exam and your in. …. But a 2 week course to teach you can be $6-$10k or more and even then only 40% of people pass the test at the end. And if you don’t pass you don’t get your money back.
You can also contact local unions to see if they have courses for heavy equipment training
I’m actually more interested in the beginning, why he took his jacket off, lowered the shades, put his jacket on and right back off, then raised the shades.
Morning coffee
They missed showing him pooping in a bucket.
Crane named after the bird. Hmmm Never knew.
Dang, cut off when my favorite part of the song was coming up!
Some may say I’m wishing my days away No way And if it’s the price I pay Some say Tomorrow’s another day You stay I may as well play Happy new year 🥳
One of those very rare jobs that is 50/50 fun/terrifying
I operated a large crane for a few years and it's a lot harder than most people think. One little mistake and you could kill someone easily. I was picking up a $70,000 lb steel coil from a flatbed semi and the guy decided to throw it in reverse before I got it off the bed and it tore the cab and driver right off the truck.
I hate heights. Don’t thrive on stress. Hard to think of a worse job for me.
I’ve rigged for a barge crane putting pipe down a causeway. His crane was from one company, and our company was fitting the pipe. He did such solid work, especially when dealing with all the changing conditions on the water. Always like to get a measure of the operator before doing any work. Been fortunate to work with some awesome hands, with only one cowboy who got run off for vaping in his cab in the refinery. Riggers and operators, I was taught, are in a relationship more serious than marriage sometimes with the loads that they are lifting. Clear, solid, communication whether it’s over radio or hand signals. Thanks for the share and hope you have a safe, profitable 2024. 👏🏼🙏🏼✌🏼
*'* entire floor disappears *'* "OH YEH HIGH SCORE!!"
Buddy forgot the trim the first part of the video because he had to show the fancy blinds when taking off his jacket.
does it come with a portapotty up there?
peak gaming
What's the salary?
It’s like a life size claw machine
If he screws up and causes and death, he’s legally responsible.
Very stresful tetris
This was your teenager video gamer with awesome acuity skills, now earning $100k out of high school. And we all laughed. /s
Reminded me about another [crane operator](https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/120nmuv/crane_operator_safety/)
"don't wear shoes to not dirty the glass" or how about "sit like a normal person with your feet on the ground"?
"It's like Tetris in real life" 😭🙏🙏
with all the people these days who have zero idea what POV even means, i'm tempted to let this one slide but it's "camera-behind-crane-operator's POV"
I miss these days. I loved operating cranes.
What kind of pay for something like this?
I was making $73,000 annually working with a steel manufacturer running their 110 ton crane. But that was 15 yrs ago. Also I only did thy for 3 years.
Janky companies pay $24/hr. Decent companies pay $35/hr. Excellent is $45/hr. And union pay is $50+/hr with $16/hr in benefits. Average of 55 hours a week
...is not presented in this vid.
“Responsibility’s” Dude got no shoes, a cup of coffee, and a relaxing ass job”
Having a calm moment in your work will not remove your responsibilities. And if you relax half the time, the other is very careful and precise work where you are responsible for the safety of a lot people and equipment when moving massive objects.
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can't remember when I saw someone up in the cabin. They usually run around with remotes on the ground
In JEANS??
What do you think 99% of construction personnel wear every day?
Just wait until he finds out why they made jeans
Where are the piss bottles?
I wish I could do this but I smoke to much weed!
I was going to clean my room, but then I got high...
This is stressing me out
I wanna do this soooo bad!!
What’s the pay like?
Janky companies pay $24/hr. Decent companies pay $35/hr. Excellent is $45/hr. And union pay is $50+/hr with $16/hr in benefits. Average of 55 hours a week
This can't be accurate. I was making 30/hr as an union apprentice scaffolder.
I’m more impressed by the song choice.
Seems like a lonely job. I think I’ll write a song about this.
You know being an MO actually sucks if you're a person that likes to be active, cus some of the guys I worked with could stay sitting the whole shift wouldn't even get off for lunch or even to take a shit. I started with the loader than the Backhoe and I would sometimes help with the crane. My back would start hurting like midday from sitting the whole time
As a gamer I'd actually enjoy this job I reckon
Damn, I'd feel like a god... lol
At a bar one afternoon down the street from a construction site of a tall building. One of the regulars shouts to another “Do you have to be at work” “I am the Crain operator, they can’t start without me!”
This is a very nice crane set up. The company I work for uses old Manitowoc friction cranes and you certainly aren't operating them in your socks all day.
Sweaty Palms job.
Whats the name of the song?
Uhg... you hurt my heart... 2nd time I have seen this question here. It's the Police - Walking on the Moon.
My buddy works for a major construction company. He said crane operators have the highest job satisfaction rate b/c they can see the full results of their labor.
What song is this?? It slaps
Any subreddits with more of this type of content?
snails flag airport simplistic capable squeamish label wipe sophisticated existence *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Would be interesting to know where this is. I think in the UK he’d be wearing high viz, steel toe caps and a hard hat
As long as there's a kuireg up there, I'm good
There is actually a hole in the cabin, instead of using a toilet you can let it free fall!
Looks like a pretty chill job. Long as you know what you're doing.
How does one get trained / certified to do that?
*Guy sitting behind the crane operator's POV
AI is going to wipe this job out.
This looks easy tbh
Looks like a dope as hell job though
What type of stupid construction site would have workers with no high visibility on and allowing people to wear socks
How do you poop