Seven Years in the Making

Five days before my crane comes down. Then maybe that's it for cranes for me (well at least for a year or two anyways, I'm actually hoping it's a lot longer than that. I'm sick of all the stupid hours and dumb-ass people in big construction. Everyone thinks they own/know everything (that they're god). I don't mind at all the wet days, when it's pissing down outside and I'm sitting here snug and warm sounds cranking and the heater warming my toes........

I've been doing this for seven years now. Wow SEVEN YEARS! I'm 27 now, have got a awesome missus, a lot to show for my seven years of being basically a company slut! A house, two bikes, the missus beamer my ute a great dog, but this so called "recession" has screwed the NZ economy for big construction, The main players: Towers, what use to be GT Rigging (North Shore Rigging) Phoenix Cranes etc are either just hanging in there or are already gone. Apparently it's going to be like this for at least 2 years, which sucks but what ya' gonna do a! Bloody American bankers huh.

The company I'm working for at the moment is going to shut up shop and move to Australia very soon, there use to be a lot of workers in the yard (I say a lot I mean about 10 max) but now there's 2. The owner of the company (American chap) owes Mega bucks, is in Chapter 7 back home, isn't allowed basically anything to do with his company but keeps 'stealing' stuff from the company in the states (he owes hundreds of millions). Honestly I hope he gets locked up, he's a proper druggie and 'loose unit'. Not the sort of bloke you need up a tower crane.

I've hated and loved my job over the last 7 years, as they say "lots of up's n down's, swing's n roundabouts. I've been sit up Cranes at 3am and still at work at 9 at night. There's no ruling on how long your allowed to operate for (like with truck drivers) but still driving a million odd dollar piece of machinery it's so easy to take your eyes off/or let your mind wander and look back and you might have landed a load on someone or something odd like that. No hazardous pay or anything of the like, starting rate is only about $15/hour, (minimum wages in NZ is $12.50).

Standard week is 50-60 hours, 6-7 days a week, and if you get sick your told to 'get your arse to work, don't be so F***ing soft'. Why is New Zealand so far behind the 8 ball when it comes to working. E.g: employee's work/life balance and safety and rights. (Employees rights in NZ ha. What a joke.) We had a few chap's come from Aussie to help us pull a crane down, it was proper raining, the aussies were wondering how long they would be staying on for because it was raining, we looked at them an laughed and said "dude you ain't gonna be staying any longer mate, it's raining so here's a rain coat!" Your not allowed to work in this sort of weather back home was the reply, because it's a safety hazard. Safety on big construction in NZ another joke, there are the odd exceptions eg: Fletchers, Multiplex basically the big big companies are pretty good at it.

As a Tower Crane operator in NZ you're basically a glorified labourer. Well that's how we're seen, even though we have to do NZQA stuff to get qualified to do it, but in saying that all you legally have to be to be a tower crane op in NZ is competent! Which is a joke because as I mentioned earlier you can easily kill someone.

There are rules to follow, pretty simple ones, don't do this don't do that etc etc, and the main one being don't drive after 72k winds, e.g: when the winds are too high to work safely, but damn man try and tell the foreman on site that it's too windy. You get a really irate chap on the radio yelling at you to not be such a p***y and get to it. Cause they're sitting there in their cozy little shed with the heater on, drinking their coffee, sending emails not to notice that it's raining outside and more to the point that at ground level not even a leaf is getting blown around, whereas up top 50m's up it's blowing 100k's ! The usual reply is, "Ok MATE, get in the man cage and I'll take you up whilst your holding a 1.2x2.4m sheet of ply an see what you think!!" The way I see it is that if a plane can't take off or land because of wind, because of the safety factor, what's the difference in safety onsite? I'm a Kiwi born an bred, but I have to say that our attitude the "she'll be right mate" attitude is what's wrong with this country.

Example being, in late September early October we (NZ) nearly lost the filming of 'The Hobbit' , half I see it due to the stupidity of some but also because we as kiwi's are willing to undercut ourselves, e.g: this came from a film industry person on talk back radio : in the states in the film industry , if a light bulb needs to be changed only the certain person (sparky one would presume) can change said light bulb because of contract's, union's, insurance etc etc, so the whole movie stops filming until you have got the guy that has the ladder , the guy to hold the ladder and the chap to actually change the light bulb . So that means that a sparky can charge a good rate and get paid that rate because he is the only person allowed to perform said role. But, here in NZ, our attitude says that if a light bulb needs changing we go to the cupboard get a light bulb and change it, thus no need for a sparky, making said sparky unneeded and out of the job, yes saving the boss money but putting other people out of business.

I'm going to go back to being a Chippie in the residential sector, 1. Because I'm sick of big construction(industrial) 2. Because that's the only place that I can get a job at the moment paying a decent amount rather than going to push trolleys at the supermarket. I mean even if I was to go to Aussie to be a crane driver (because Aus is booming at the moment) my NZQA qualification doesn't mean S**T, I would have to pay a few thousand dollars to resit an change to the Australian quals. As I see it another joke for NZ.

But oh well, now with this new career move/job it's 5 days a week, I know the boss and workers, the company is based out west where I live, the 'pros' just keep stacking up against the 'cons'. My god I'm going to have weekends again, weekends off! , man, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. (I might actually be able to get my race bike going again!)

As I said earlier though, there's been bloody good times driving cranes, one example being on a site down the bottom of town (an apartment complex) there was underground parking and the boy's onsite used this whilst building the complex. One Saturday morning everyone seemed to be in their cars and lined up along the road because some knob head had parked his car across the locked gate which was covering the entrance to the underground car park. So we asked the boss/foreman onsite if we could move it, got the ok and went along and picked said car up, trying very hard (not too hard though) to not bend the exhaust, we had a Wilson's car park building next door and were planning on putting the car up on the top floor of that building so as to mate the guy pay an extra 30 bucks to get his car out, but thought better off it when someone said we didn't want to make the news for flying cars round the place !! So instead we moved it alongside (drivers side) to the hording (fencing around the outside of the construction site) on the inside of the hording of course, folded the chaps wing mirror in an put it hard up against the hording, about 5 minutes later we had a truck load of scaffolding come in that we had to unload, now's when the fun began.

We unloaded the scaffolding around this guy's car, good and proper blocking this car in, front back and to the left (remembering the hording/fencing was hard up against the other (right hand) side). We knew the scaffolders and they said they weren't going to be unloading/moving their scaff' until late Saturday afternoon (which we thought was great). We left site that day at about 10am because there was nothing for us to do, this chap still hadn't come back for his car yet so we were having quite a laugh that he'd have to wait for the boy's to move the scaffolding (by hand too). On arrival of Monday morning we walked into the smoko shed to find the scaffolders having a good old laugh at what had happened post our departure on the previous Saturday. We were told that not even 15min's after we left the owner came back to get his car, it ended up he didn't even work on our site but one 10min's down the road, the boys weren't anywhere near ready to start moving their gears so man this guy was irate, he started throwing a wobbly, throwing the boys gears around, and was quickly told where to go!! He went an saw the site foreman asking/telling what the F*** you guys think your doing etc etc.... he was quickly told that his car was on his(foreman's) property an he was lucky we didn't get it towed and leave him with a bill!

The boys reckon they finished moving their scaff at about 4:30ish that afternoon where they witnessed a burnout and the bird from a really angry island boy who also said he was going to come back and tell the crane crew what for... He did come back on that Monday, but 1 of the other big island boys on the crane crew told him where to go, backed up by the sizeable scaffolder/body builder, and to which he moved along quite quickly. The only bummer was that it was before the days of everybody's phone had a camera installed so we didn't get a picture, because we did take it up a fair few floors before putting it back down.

And the photo's that I've taken over the years not to mention the video's from in the man-cage. I've taken some stunning sun rises and sets over the last 7 years. The tallest crane I've been in would be free standing 80m's to the cab, which at the time was the tallest free standing in the southern hemisphere (not to say it is the tallest free standing ever, just at the time). Driving that crane in itself was a big enough feat.
I remember climbing her for the first time and normally you have little cage like thing around the back of the ladders, but for some reason 50m and up had no cages just plain old ladders. It's not that I'm scared of heights, I don't like jumping off high things but am pretty good with heights in general, but this crane right on the waterfront of downtown Auckland made me get goose bump's the first couple of times I climbed it, just like riding a bike really a, scary as first but then you get over it!

The fun part was picking up the test weights, only 8 tons but still was a 45m jib an we had to take the test weights out to I think 35 or 40m's, the crane was a 280 Liebherr hammerhead. So as you started to take the weight of the 8 ton you just watched the skyline disappear under the jib, (as the crane was basically bending over) which I might add it's suppose to do. Tis an eerie feeling though, listening to all the little ping's an creeks as the steal stretches, and yes you do have to odd moment when you think 'if something went wrong and the crane fell over ...'
But really you just have to ignore those little guys on your shoulder and get on with what you're doing.

So we've go 8 ton on the hook and I'm pushing the trolley out and already the jib has gone from being above Rangitoto Island to level with it and there's still 5 odd metres to go on the trolley ....just sitting there listening and watching, the jib continues to fall going past the water line on the horizon, very very interesting stuff I tell ya, but that's what there made to do and as I was told when I first started if they don't bend over an stretch they'd snap and fall!! A very unsatisfying answer to the question of how far will she go?

Trust. That is I think the most important part of craning. Well trust and faith, a very thin line between the two. Because you need to trust the other person has done their job right and you have to hope like hell that they've done it right. Because the end result off it not being done right or not following the plan or rules can be deadly, not just to the workers co-worker and friends on site but to the public. A Crane falls over the general rule is that people die. And it happens in an instant, bugger all time to react or even think about what's happening.

When working in the blind e.g: the operator can't see what's going on because there is a building in the way. You have to have complete trust in the dogman/banksman (the guy on the ground with the radio directing you) and vis versa. Because he's your eyes, he's telling you what to do and you have to do it with out question cause you can't see what's going on, and also that chap on the ground has to trust that you (the operator) is going to follow those instructions to the letter.

As I've previously noted there's been good and bad time's in my seven years in the Cranes. One of said bad times was one of the worst moment's in my life. I don't wish this upon anyone either in my seat or on the receiving end.

I was operating the crane at said time and we were working in the blind inside the building down a hole, say 3x3 metre's wide. Like any story it was a lovely summer's day blue sky to boot and not a breath of air. Picturesque day. I don't blame the dogman and neither does the poor chap who was on the receiving end but he did something that was a wee bit dodge, a short cut really, short part to that is that he hooked a load up wrong. Every now and then as an operator you get told to "be nice with that one" meaning the loads a little rough, so you do just that drive it like you were to be having sex for the first time, slow an safe ! Don't wanna be loosing ya load to early now a!!

But this time I didn't have the slightest clue as to what was going on because there was no call to be nice etc etc. We had to move 5 fire doors (about 100kg's each) from 1 hole to another. Simple enough task, hook the load up, bring it out of one hole and down into another. But as we brought the load (bear in mind all in the blind) down into the second hole the load caught on one end on a scaffold tube that just happen to be sticking out enough to grab our load, now because the chap who hooked to the load up took a short cut...he didn't put the pivot point of the load where it would under any normal lift would be, which is at the main block, where all the chains start from, instead the pivot point was about 200mm above the load then we had our 6m chain go up from there. So imagine a big door and then you pick it up from the exact middle, as soon as you put any sort of weight upwards or downwards at the end of the door it's going to want to flip/role over. And that's exactly what happened. As I was being told to come down on the hook (lower the load) I had maybe 800kg's on the hook at this point, (being the weight of the doors and my chains) the chains, my block, and the hoist rope all did a little dance an the radio went quiet, so as soon as my brain clicked a second or so I stopped the hook and noted that all I had on my weight gauge was 200 odd kgs - we lost the doors!

1st thing I did was get on the radio and ask the bro "what's going on I've lost all the weight." The reply was....silence....

I sat in the crane for about 2 more minutes before the reply came.....

"Call an ambulance" and then silence....

I got on the radio and told the other chap on the radio to get on the phone now an dial 111 (NZ emergency number) and got the reply of "what the f*** are you on about". By this time the foreman was on his radio asking me what was happening, to which I replied "we've lost a load and I think someone's hurt and we need an ambo."

So that was all I was told for the next what felt like a life time (but must of only been ten minutes) That for me was the scariest part, sitting in my crane all alone, not being told anything, honestly not knowing whether we'd killed a chap or not, because no one was answering me on the radio due to they were dealing with this chap on the floor.

What had happened was that when the fire doors touched/hit the scaffold tube one end went up and then all bar 1 door (4) came out of the slings and just slid down and there was a guy standing waiting for the load (not the dogman he was 1 floor up guiding the load through the hole) So rules are you not allowed to be standing under loads. And it just happens to be this guy wasn't standing under the load but off to the side and the top 4 doors just slid down at a 45° angle and collected the poor chap head first with the top door then down his body with the rest, there were others standing there but he was just the closest to the doors at the time, and thankfully his mates, 1 of them caught him as he fell and the others stopped the rest of the door's from completely dealing to him.

As crane crew we're trained in I would say a mild first aid course, but as everyone says it's different when it actually happens in front of you. So after about 10 minutes the dogman comes on the radio tells me what has happened and I say don't move him, is he bleeding excessively from anywhere, is he breathing, all the while thinking that I'm dreaming, and just as this is all happening I see down in the driveway that the ambulance has just arrived and to my surprise the chaps from it get out stroll around, collect there gear and just walk on up (slowly I might add.)

I'm then asked to go grab the man-cage because they can't get this poor guy out of the building on a stretcher. So I oblige and then that is when the hardest part of it all hit me, I was bringing out a guy on a stretcher that we had just nailed with basically 5 fire doors, in the man-cage. There's never any training to see that, I was driving that crane as sweet an softly as I had ever done in my entire career, I was sweating and I might add shitting myself!

He was then taken into the hospital and a few days later we were told that he might not walk again, a frightening thought for him and sorry to say us. But ended up he had swelling in his neck and that he had a pinched nerve which was stopping the feeling to his arms an leg's, he has now since made a near full recovery, the loss off teeth and a little less movement in his neck are he tells me his only issues. First time I saw him I said how completely sorry I was that this had happened, and basically his reply was it wasn't your fault bro etc.

But still doesn't make it feel any better that I near killed a chap whilst at work. OSH came out the day of the incident took statements from everyone. And I think the dogman was charged over it.

Complacency can be a Killer.

But I do have to say there has been many more good times than bad!

People often ask me how I got into this industry, for some reason they think it must be some wild story, but the simple fact is that I was a chippie on a site being run by mates of mine that had a little self erector on it (a little crane that comes in on a truck trailer that gets craned off onto site and then as the name states erects itself, with the help of course of humans pushing buttons) and my mates asked if I'd like to drive it for them, basically being good at play station and the like helps when driving cranes, for instance the self erector has a little remote control that you walk around with and steer the crane with. Good Times ensued!!

And that was the start, I just moved onto bigger an better things and that was a little over 7 years ago.

Recession: that's another good one; down here they say that we're coming out of it, yeah right. Seems to just be starting, when the recession 1st hit, the company I was with went under, and they went under big time, into liquidation an all, leaving bills all round the place, I lost all my holiday pay but took equipment to recoup my loses, semi fair trade I think (nothing is as good as cash in hand though). But to say that it was all just the recession would be a lie, that company was pretty doomed anyways, the saying goes, 'don't go into business with family' and these two brothers showed that was correct, one of them stealing funds, couple hundred thousand dollars etc for his own personal use and the buying of all the flash Audi's and big American Ute's/Trucks and jet ski didn't help the fact. I guess it's a live and learn situation for everyone a.

I'm actually writing all this whilst up my crane a 160 Liebherr 2004 model. It's Monday 15\11\2010 my crane has only 4 more days to go before she's brought down which I will be doing as well, then after that who knows what I will be doing, weather it be back at the yard with my thumb up ma bum until they close the doors because the companies going off shore or if they will actually give me my notice and tell me to bugger off! (hopefully they tell me to bugger off an pay me out after a week or two back at the yard because then it will be time for xmas and the missus will be on holiday and I'll have my holiday pay to use for my 1st xmas off in I don't remember how many years but we'll see, only time will tell) Then to my new job in the new year!

Wow imagine that 3-4 weeks off work! Bugga me! I'll be bored s**tless! Tis gona be great! Sunshine, beer, the missus, the dog, more beer, and riding to the pub! Sounds like a fantastic holiday can't wait!

About 2 months ago in September a cameraman came and saw me, Tony was his name. He said he was making a coffee table book on crane drivers in Auckland. He asked me if I would take photos for him for his book with his camera of course, how could I say no. I love taking photos I just don't have the newest most expensive camera in the world, not to say it's no good it's actually a brilliant camera it's just not a Digital SLR. So I was left with a camera with interchangeable lenses for a week. I think I took 700 photo's that week, minus the bad ones of course, in the end I think I fine tuned it down to about 400? odd photo's. As I hear it Tony was over the moon and I also said that I would send him an email with more of my own photo's from over the years but I lost his card and hadn't heard from Tony in a while, so I thought I would write a little something for him an myself and also anyone else who finds this interesting.

Thanks