Just realized nobody checks the load chart anymore

Was at a job site yesterday in Riverside and watched a younger operator try to lift a 12,000 lb concrete panel with the boom at 65 feet. I asked him what his chart said and he just stared at me. When did we stop teaching guys to verify their radius before picking anything? I learned that lesson the hard way 15 years ago when I nearly tipped a 50 ton Grove on a soft pad. Any of you old-timers seeing this trend too?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray_hernandez15d ago

Good point, Robin. I've seen plenty of old-timers eyeball a pick and just guess, they just got lucky or have enough feel to not tip it over. That kid in Riverside probably froze cause he knew he messed up, not cause he didn't know better.

the_robin16d ago

Actually I'll push back on this a bit. My buddy runs a crew down in San Diego and he told me his young guys can pull up load charts on their phones faster than I could ever flip through a binder. The problem isn't that nobody checks, it's that the old paper charts were a pain and now everyone expects digital to be perfect. That guy in Riverside probably just froze because he didn't want to admit he forgot his phone in the truck lol. I've seen plenty of graybeards skip the radius check too, they just hide it better with experience.

emery_young1316d ago

Oh man, that's funny you mention forgetting the phone. My cousin's kid works in a yard up in Portland and last month he showed up to do a pick and the battery on his phone was dead. He tried to borrow the foreman's phone but the foreman's load chart app was some old version from 2019. They ended up having to call the dispatcher who had to read the chart over the radio. Took them 20 minutes just to set up a simple pick. Sometimes the old binders don't look so bad when the tech fails you at the worst possible moment.