A life lesson you learned from a job

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

Let me start us off.

I was in high school working construction in the summer, really as a go-fer more than anything else. But it gave me exposure to how a house is built as well as how a small business is run.

One day I was hammering nails as we were putting up drywall. All of us had a nail apron around our waist, hammer in hand. (This was way before nail guns.) I still have the hammer, seen here. Occasionally I would drop a nail and, of course, pick it up. After a time the owner came over to me and said, "I am not paying you to pick up nails. If you drop it just get another out of your apron."

That little comment translates to many aspects of life. One way to generalize it is:

"Know where your time is best spent."

 

[Dobric]

I work on a tanker vessel
First and most important lesson is, be honest and direct, also be safe, if you F up something say as soon as possible, so somebody can fix it.
I've seen so many people who hate eachother being profesionals when something happens, because we all are in that together, if ship goes down, we all go down.
Now Inpractice that in life, some people think I'm crazy, some think they can use me, but they are all wrong

 

[taffy]

When I started off as an apprentice years ago my boss said to me on my first day
You are just starting off on the long road of employment so always remember that you work to live but don't live for work.

 

[TheBurgh]

One might best learn about integrity by working for someone who has none.

 

[Ron R]

Not sure why I'm bringing this story up from many other stories during my work place career.
I remember when I was working at a pulp mill that was in start up phase after construction and some heavy lathe equipment that was ordered had not arrived and was being shipped from England to the pulp mill(It took longer to build than the pulp mill). I was designated to the machine shop and another senior person, we had a experimental heavy lifting spreader bar that was under designed for what we lifting, 20 ton rolls that where to be precision ground. I had worked in small and large oilfield shops and my senior machinist worked in large pulp & paper mills.
I had seen some very close dangerous lifting accidents prior in other industries and brought my concern to my foreman who in my opinion was a greenhorn from others who worked with him(that's another story).
So I explained to my foreman how the swivel spreader was weak and was lifting full load off the bearings(no center pin axle) and that the bearing housing was not strong enough and he assured me that it had been tested and there was no engineering stamp of even the company's name who made it...... So I told the boss I would refuse to use it (almost lost my job(My life was more important).
Myself and co worker removed that large lathe parts off the convoy of trucks in our lifting bay and that was the end of lifting job for this project and we where not going to do lift parts in place lots of 90 degree corners to move around. The lathe alone weighed over 50 tons but it was in segments but our overhead cranes could lift 100 tons easily . So then we uncrated the parts and left them in the lifting bay for professional rigging contractors that I suggested to move the heavy parts in place.
Our Greenhorn foreman took it apon himself to save a few dollars and started lifting the heaviest part with this under designed swivel lifting spreader bar and I was grinding some parts near by and my co-worker hid himself far way so not to see what was going to happen when lifting started.
When the lift started I was cussing at him but he was not in sight and while I'm doing my job all I could hear where the bolts holding the bearing top cap shearing and popping and where hitting the roof like like a gun going off so I ran over to warn him and yelled & pointed finger downwards 3 times "down" down down and he was as white as a ghost and some other co-workers ran for our lives and then we heard the crash and stopped running and looked at one another and ran back to see our foreman clutching the overhead crane controls with this 4 ton spreader bar 12 inches from taking his leg off (white as a ghost & shaking).
So no one got killed (thank god) and the rest of the story was a nightmare of follow up meetings and court cases and insurance claims and lawsuits and ............. the person who designed the spreader bar was sued and chased for money owing to the insurance company into the nut house (asylum). They had to build another new lathe bed because prior lathe bed was damaged from falling)
The strangest thing to end this story was our company ended up contracting out the lift (like wanted in the first place) to have it moved in place and with in 8 hours it was where it was suppose to be with no drama and the contractors made some easy money.(I left out some other details but you get the jest of the story of being legally binding to incompetent lifting practices and not listening to fellow workers who tried to avoid problems & drama and lives where unfortunately changed for the worse)!
I had chances of being foreman at the mill a few times and refused because of unknowns & problems that are out of your hands most of the times and being boss has a large responsibility in industrial setting workplace when the ....... hits the fan you need lawyers to help in dealing with insurance company's and government work place & safety personal who are investigating accidents......!

 

[martym]

Don’t worry about the mule going blind; just load the wagon.

 

[oc_in_fw]

From when Will worked retail management in the late 80s- if one of your cashiers says something like “this cake is making my butt big” do not rely at all (of course, I said “looks okay from here”. In my defense, it did. )

 

[luvmysuper]

I'm sure I have posted this here somewhere, but an old Skipper of mine used to stress how important it was to teach others what you do, and how you do it. He would say "Put your hand in a bucket of water, and pull it out quickly. The hole that's left should be equal to the hole that's left when you leave your job."

So - Knowledge is not like Gold, where every time you give some away, you have less.
Knowledge is like a communicable disease.
You can give it to everyone you meet and it doesn't lessen what you have in any way!

 

[BudgetShaverGuy]

if any task has a duration of X always plan for it to take 2X! I always do this on my projects and am rarely late due to any unexpected issues.

 

[Whisky]

From a career of working in EMS- always know where the exit is and don’t hesitate to use it if your gut tells you to go.

We’d get dispatched to OD’s, psych calls, and the all encompassing “unknown problem” that really should have had Law enforcement on scene either first or at least at the same time.

 

[luvmysuper]

if any task has a duration of X always plan for it to take 2X! I always do this on my projects and am rarely late due to any unexpected issues.

Ahhh yes, the Montgomery Scott rule of work estimation.
If you say it will take 1 day to do a job, and it takes 2 - you're a lazy jerk.
If you say it will take 4 days to do a job, and it takes 2 - you're an amazing miracle worker!

 

[oc_in_fw]

Ahhh yes, the Montgomery Scott rule of work estimation.
If you say it will take 1 day to do a job, and it takes 2 - you're a lazy jerk.
If you say it will take 4 days to do a job, and it takes 2 - you're an amazing miracle worker!

That had served me well. Always overstate how long a repair will take.

 

[bberg100]

That had served me well. Always overstate how long a repair will take.

Under promise, over deliver.

 

[Rosseforp]

That had served me well. Always overstate how long a repair will take.

From Commander Scott to Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge.

~doug~

 

[redrako]

I fondly look back at an early job at a 350 patient hospital kitchen. One of the Supervisors was a retired WW2 Warrant Office who had been on USS Texas.

He took it upon himself to show the "right way" of doing every thing. Mopping a floor with a string mop, using a figure eight pattern, ringing out the mop in the galvanized steel bucket and the drying the mopped area with said dryed mop.

Kids who followed Tony's way, were trusted to do their jobs. Kids who veered from Tony's way would learn of Tony's irritation. He was a great guy, at a young age, I learned much from him.

 

[Hms123]

I worked at McDonalds during college. The manager was ex-military and knew something about leadership. He would never ask us to do the worst task unless he was willing to do it himself.

This paid off for me when I had administrative positions at a big university. By taking on the worst tasks myself from time to time, I showed the staff that what they did was important enough that I was also willing to do them.

 

[SparkyLB]

In construction they call it "bird dogging." Know that when someone is watching you and quickly loses interest, you're doing very well. When that same person won't go away, he's tacitly telling you "you need to find something else to do for a living."

 

[OkieStubble]

From a career of working in EMS- always know where the exit is and don’t hesitate to use it if your gut tells you to go.

We’d get dispatched to OD’s, psych calls, and the all encompassing “unknown problem” that really should have had Law enforcement on scene either first or at least at the same time.

I can really relate to this.

I responded to an apartment fire many years ago and was the first one to arrive by quite a few minutes. As I got out of my unit, a young mother of an 9 year old boy, ran up to me screaming hysterically, telling me her son was trapped in an upstairs bedroom of the two story townhome.

As I ran inside and made entry into the front door, I was only about 6 or 8 feet inside and the dark green and black smoke was so thick it immediately dropped me to my knees and I felt like I was going to immediately pass out from smoke inhalation. I could tell by the way the fire was rolling across the downstairs ceiling and up the stairs and also the way the electrical outlets were exploding, that the fire was already very well established inside of the walls and the upstairs was pretty much already engulfed.

All I could do, was to crawl back out the way I came in. My eyes were watering, my nose was profusely running and I was choking and coughing up snot. Fire department rolled up like 3 minutes later. Several guys jumped off the fire engine, so I screamed at them thru my choking that a young boy was upstairs!

A couple of them had oxygen tanks on and axe’s in their hands. Without even putting their face masks on, they walked into that townhome which by now, looked pretty much engulfed where the flames had already blew out the upstair windows and was jumping up towards the roof.

Those two guys had to be inside for 5 minutes or more! Other firefighters were on the roof with a chainsaw venting the roof. I began to really worry those guys were not going to come back out of that house, but the other firefighters seemed so chill?
Those two guys eventually came back out looking all chill also like a couple of studs, and said there was nobody else in the house?

I found out later, her 9 year old son, was at his 10 year old friends house visiting; and they had been playing with a cigarette lighter and unknowingly started a fire on the edge of a bedspread and then left to go to his friends house. His mom had come back from visiting a neighbor, thinking he was still inside.

Long story I know, but I learned a valuable lesson that day. There is nothing wrong with trying to be a hero, as long as you’re not trying to be a young stupid hero.

Several of the firefighters admonished me, telling me, “what are you thinking? You could have died! Next time, wait on us.”

 

[Whisky]

I can really relate to this.

I responded to an apartment fire many years ago and was the first one to arrive by quite a few minutes. As I got out of my unit, a young mother of an 9 year old boy, ran up to me screaming hysterically, telling me her son was trapped in an upstairs bedroom of the two story townhome.

As I ran inside and made entry into the front door, I was only about 6 or 8 feet inside and the dark green and black smoke was so thick it immediately dropped me to my knees and I felt like I was going to immediately pass out from smoke inhalation. I could tell by the way the fire was rolling across the downstairs ceiling and up the stairs and also the way the electrical outlets were exploding, that the fire was already very well established inside of the walls and the upstairs was pretty much already engulfed.

All I could do, was to crawl back out the way I came in. My eyes were watering, my nose was profusely running and I was choking and coughing up snot. Fire department rolled up like 3 minutes later. Several guys jumped off the fire engine, so I screamed at them thru my choking that a young boy was upstairs!

A couple of them had oxygen tanks on and axe’s in their hands. Without even putting their face masks on, they walked into that townhome which by now, looked pretty much engulfed where the flames had already blew out the upstair windows and was jumping up towards the roof.

Those two guys had to be inside for 5 minutes or more! Other firefighters were on the roof with a chainsaw venting the roof. I began to really worry those guys were not going to come back out of that house, but the other firefighters seemed so chill?
Those two guys eventually came back out looking all chill also like a couple of studs, and said there was nobody else in the house?

I found out later, her 9 year old son, was at his 10 year old friends house visiting; and they had been playing with a cigarette lighter and unknowingly started a fire on the edge of a bedspread and then left to go to his friends house. His mom had come back from visiting a neighbor, thinking he was still inside.

Long story I know, but I learned a valuable lesson that day. There is nothing wrong with trying to be a hero, as long as you’re not trying to be a young stupid hero.

Several of the firefighters admonished me, telling me, “what are you thinking? You could have died! Next time, wait on us.”

When I first started out as a firefighter we had a couple of old guys that everyone called smoke eaters. They’d started their careers in the late 60’s and 70’s when SCBA technology wasn’t mandatory. Those guys would walk into a burning building and come out again 5-10min later with soot covered faces, snot pouring from their nose, tears streaming from their eyes, and immediately start patting their bunker gear pockets looking for their cigarettes. You knew a fire was bad when they gave the “surround and drown” order and wouldn’t let any fire suppression happen inside the house. One thing about having a hose line in the house, if the fire/smoke got too bad you can drop to the floor put that hose line between your hands and use is a guide to get back to the ingress/egress point.

 

[OkieStubble]

When I first started out as a firefighter we had a couple of old guys that everyone called smoke eaters. They’d started their carters in the late 60’s and 70’s when SCBA technology wasn’t mandatory. Those guys would walk into a burning building and come out again 5-10min later with soot covered faces, snot pouring from their nose, tears streaming from their eyes, and immediately start patting their bunker gear pockets looking for their cigarettes. You knew a fire was bad when they gave the “surround and drown” order and wouldn’t let any fire suppression happen inside the house. One thing about having a hose line in the house, if the fire/smoke got too bad you can drop to the floor put that hose line between your hands and use is a guide to get back to the ingress/egress point.

They are true, living, breathing heroes imo.

I was driving to work one day a few years back, and I drove up on a huge grass fire in the country suburbs of where I lived. Fire was already a 100 ft in the air and jumping the road from one side to another.
I was sitting there, waiting for some officers from my department to wave me and some other vehicles thru, when the first engine and brush pumper pulled up. I looked down into that field that was a blazed and engulfed with fire and I could see about 50 yards down in there from the road, a small white farm house. A small group of firefighters about 5 or 6 of them, started walking straight down into the burning inferno! The officer’s waved us thru, and I continued on to work. I was a 2nd shift commander at the time so I got off work about 1 am and was driving home the same way. As I drove by again, I shined the light from my patrol unit, down towards the field, thinking That White House would be totally gone.

Well, everything around it, trees, field, yard? We’re all black and burned, but for a small patch of green grass around that White House, it was perfectly untouched!

That totally blew my mind! Firefighters are total studs and are the best of the best when it comes to what they do!

I’ll still call ya a ‘hose dragger!

And thank you for your service @Whisky