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Rant: a boilermaker in Gary asked why I still hand signal everything, and now I can't decide if he's got a point
I was sitting in my truck outside the mill in Gary, Indiana last Thursday when a boilermaker I've worked with for 12 years asked me a simple question: why do I still run hand signals when the radio is clipped to my chest anyway. He said two of his rigs had near misses in the past 6 months because guys were staring at their phones between picks and never heard the call come through. But my side is that radios cut out behind the beam stacks, and 1 dead spot can mean 40 tons swinging the wrong way while you repeat yourself. I've run both ways and honestly I still feel more locked in when the signalman is looking right at me. So which is it, is radio the new standard and hand signals just stubborn tradition, or are we giving up something we shouldn't.
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angelas7822d ago
Something that helped us was making the guy on the ground call every pick out loud on the radio AND point at the same time, so even if the radio dies mid swing your eyes are already on his hands.
Takes like a week to get used to but nobody zones out on their phone when they know the hands are coming too.
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