Know where your fingers are---

[skyline1]

But I once stopped an "electrical engineer" from poking a neon voltage detecting screwdriver towards a live 18kV busbar...

Now there is one thing that SHOULD be banned. Those neon screwdrivers, they are highly dangerous and frowned upon at 240V but at 18 kV they are suicidal.

Get anywhere near that busbar with one of those and you are dead, or rather what's left of you is, you don't have to actually touch it. Good job you stopped him ! He should have known better but we all have moments of stupidity.

Best Regards Mark

 

[Richard Hed]

So that is why I was never promoted....!#@""%£!
Thanks for that one.
Advice to anyone else reading my posts.
It seems I have spent my lifetime proving I am incompetent - according to the Peter Principle - so please enjoy, but do not follow my advice.
Cheers!
K2

The peter principle is not the ONLY reason you may not have been promoted. THere are several others including: you might be competition to someone (a narcissist/psychopath) who can stop you from being promoted as long as they are above you in the corporate line; you may be "perfect" where you are--that is, management doesn't care that the fact may be that you would or could contribute even MORE if you were promoted--they need someone where you are and they are not likely to get anyone as good as you in THAT POSITION (we bend over BACKWARDS for our employees--ever seen anyone bend over backwards--looks obscene?);

There are two things in life that never fail to make your heart go thumpity thump. One is to saw a 1" thick block of aluminum on a carbide tipped table saw and have it kick back at you at 300 miles an hour. The other is to be machining a piece of pipe on the lathe without any support at the tailstock end, have the tool dig in, the pipe then pulling out of the chuck and chasing you around the room. I lived thru both of those exciting things, the only direct effect being a change of underwear. I don't do those things anymore!!

WHAT? You don't change your underwear anymore? That's disgusting. I change MINE once a month religiously.

 

[Steamchick]

Cheers Richard.
Maybe I didn't want to be included in the crowd of idiot "Yes-men" who were ranked above me.... If you don't respect the ability of the individuals above it deters promotion....
Personally I preferred "the proper job done properly", that I think I did. I trained 4 people to take on all the tasks I did. 2 Graduate "engineers", and 2 regular guys who each took on what they considered to be a half an engineers job. No-one appreciated what I did till I was leaving! The "Manager" publicly said I did the work of 2 1/2 engineers, on my leaving day.... based on the resources he had to use to replace me. Tough for him? With 2 engineers (ex-grads) joining the section when I retired, plus all the extra overtime for the other 2, they planned to recruit another engineer, just to do all my work. So the manager increased the section from 7 to 9 people as I left!
Now I'm retired, being a pain-in-the-butt to you lot! Ha! Ha!
K2

 

[ajoeiam]

Cheers Richard.
Maybe I didn't want to be included in the crowd of idiot "Yes-men" who were ranked above me.... If you don't respect the ability of the individuals above it deters promotion....
Personally I preferred "the proper job done properly", that I think I did. I trained 4 people to take on all the tasks I did. 2 Graduate "engineers", and 2 regular guys who each took on what they considered to be a half an engineers job. No-one appreciated what I did till I was leaving! The "Manager" publicly said I did the work of 2 1/2 engineers, on my leaving day.... based on the resources he had to use to replace me. Tough for him? With 2 engineers (ex-grads) joining the section when I retired, plus all the extra overtime for the other 2, they planned to recruit another engineer, just to do all my work. So the manager increased the section from 7 to 9 people as I left!
Now I'm retired, being a pain-in-the-butt to you lot! Ha! Ha!
K2

(Tongue firmly in cheek! - - - LOL)
Speaking for myself - - - - - loving every minute of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (LOL)

 

[ShopShoe]

"So the manager increased the section from 7 to 9 people as I left!"

The other thing I have seen multiple times is the person leaving spent their time asking for tools, workspace, budget, etc. and the company adds all those in order to recruit the new person. This especially happens after multiple new hires find a better job before they even show up for their first day.

 

[ChazzC]

When I was first setting up a home machine shop, my first purchase was my venerable 12.5" x 30" Cincinnati TrayTop lathe. "Only" 1800 lbs, child's play to the experienced machinist who helped me assess it and then move it. It needed a good bit of work, both cleaning and repairing, so at first it stayed on the rather dubious wheeled supports that it was on when I bought it. By this point, my machinist friend had showed me how easy it was to jack up an end with a plain old bottle jack in order to put cribbing under it.

I failed to consider two things: first was that what he showed me involved very small vertical movements at a time, followed by the cribbing, before another incremental movement. Second was that, when he was helping me move it around, we had removed the motor, which hangs out off the back.

So when I was moving the lathe into final position, I attempted to jack it up enough to remove the wheeled base all at once. No problem on the tailstock end, so my confidence was high as I started on the headstock end. Only to see the lathe begin to tilt backward as it was a bit unbalanced on the bottle jack. As I was starting to scramble to get away -- I was not well-positioned for a quick exit, which was a point of learning of its own! -- it came to rest, with the knob that adjusts the taper fixture punching through the drywall, but coming to rest on the outside wall. After I recovered from sheer terror, I thought very, very carefully about whether I could safely redeem the situation. I decided to give it a try, and carefully pulled - and the lathe tilted back upright as easy as pie. I got very, very lucky - it was right at the point of balance. Any further, and it would have been a goner, and/or I might have been caught in the fall.

About 25 years ago I was working as a consultant and needed a rigger to move some equipment. There were several in the immediate vicinity, but I chose a family run business who had good industrial references. We were discussing the estimated time required for my job and they told me about a job they had recently completed. The maintenance crew at a nearby nuclear reactor facility had attempted to relocate a 12" x 48" (or there about) lathe across their shop and had managed to tip it against the wall much as you had. Management not trusting the crew to get themselves out of trouble, they reached out to the riggers, who were located about a mile away, to set things right. After about five hours of security checks, safety & radiation indoctrination, suiting up in approved coveralls, etc., they were allowed into the shop where with their proper equipment and experience they safely righted the lathe and moved it across the shop in about a half hour. The one bright spot was that now they were cleared for work within the facility and got numerous jobs afterwards. The moral of this story is that you need to carefully evaluate the job at hand and bring in the pros when necessary.

I have been fortunate in that I have always had access to professionals who were willing to share knowledge and offer guidance on things I wasn't sure of. Thus I was able to get the right equipment for a task and also to realize when something was beyond my ability.

 

[gartof]

About 25 years ago I was working as a consultant and needed a rigger to move some equipment. There were several in the immediate vicinity, but I chose a family run business who had good industrial references. We were discussing the estimated time required for my job and they told me about a job they had recently completed. The maintenance crew at a nearby nuclear reactor facility had attempted to relocate a 12" x 48" (or there about) lathe across their shop and had managed to tip it against the wall much as you had. Management not trusting the crew to get themselves out of trouble, they reached out to the riggers, who were located about a mile away, to set things right. After about five hours of security checks, safety & radiation indoctrination, suiting up in approved coveralls, etc., they were allowed into the shop where with their proper equipment and experience they safely righted the lathe and moved it across the shop in about a half hour. The one bright spot was that now they were cleared for work within the facility and got numerous jobs afterwards. The moral of this story is that you need to carefully evaluate the job at hand and bring in the pros when necessary.

I have been fortunate in that I have always had access to professionals who were willing to share knowledge and offer guidance on things I wasn't sure of. Thus I was able to get the right equipment for a task and also to realize when something was beyond my ability.

The sign of a well planned job is that nothing exciting happens.