While you can certainly have friends in the workplace, it is important to keep in mind that everyone is competing for the best positions.

What would you do if someone you worked with kissed up to the boss and ended up taking your position?

That is what happened to the crane rigger in this story, so he let the guy do the job until it caused a huge problem and he got demoted.

I love you bud, but I’m cutting your throat.

I’m a millwright who specializes in rebuilding natural gas turbines.

I run with a very top caliber crew where everyone has a role to fill.

My role is overseeing anything that’s lifted with a crane.

My technical title is “rigger”.

If a load falls, it’s my fault.

If someone gets hurt while I’m in control of a lift, it’s my fault.

If equipment is damaged while I’m in control of a lift, it’s my fault.

The incident in question happened about 2 years ago, but we’ll need to go back a couple years farther to get the backstory.

I was a fresh member of the crew and had demonstrated competency in rigging, so after roughly 6 months with this group, my superintendent put me in charge of all rigging.

I wasn’t the fastest rigger, but I was safety focused and insisted on doing it right every time even if it took a little longer.

He sounds perfect for the job.

This meant that my superintendent didn’t have to watch over every rigging task and could go relax because I had it under control.

Another Millwright joined the crew about the same time I did.

I will call him Larry.

We didn’t get along at first, but after a few months we became friends.

Larry was the “act now think later” type.

Much like the superintendent I travel under.

Larry was prone to making mistakes because of that attitude, but he was VERY FAST and worked like a mule at all times, and I respected that.

He wasn’t especially skilled in any one area, so he had no special position.

That meant sometimes he’d get put on less glamorous work and I soon learned he was VERY jealous of my position as the rigger.

At times, he would make comments like “I’m gonna take your job”.

Not in getting me fired, but bumping me down a rung and him taking my spot as rigger.

He come up behind me while I was looking over my checklists to point out something I may not have checked yet.

If supervision was near, he’d make sure he was heard.

At this point I should mention this.

I stick out like a sore thumb on this crew.

I was raised in a very strict Christian cult, but in my mid twenties I realized what was going on and left, at great cost.

Losing my family and friends because of strict shunning rules the cult practices.

Some of the stricter things stuck with me.

These types of traits can really benefit you.

Like I’ve never been intoxicated.

I don’t use tobacco.

No recreational drugs.

I speak professionally, without slang or colloquialisms for the most part.

These traits stick out from a crew of men that travel the road and work in harsh environments away from home for months on end.

But Larry, he fits right in.

Larry QUICKLY became the superintendent’s puppy.

Bringing him gifts of his favorite alcohol, staying out late after work with him, even rooming with him on the road.

I on the other hand, leave work, hit the gym, cook my food for the next day and make sure I get at least 6 hours of sleep so I can perform the next day.

I realize that puts me at a disadvantage socially in the workplace, but I prefer to let my work speak for itself.

Anyways. Fast forward about 18 months.

We’re starting a project just before covid hits.

About two weeks into the job, I have to attend a mandatory class through my union.

It’s a 40 hour class and in a different state, so I’ll be gone for pretty much an entire week with travel time.

I get permission from supervision and leave, with Larry rigging in my absence.

A few days later, I’m laying in bed stressing out about the final test I have to take the next morning.

If the test isn’t passed, the entire week is wasted.

I always psych myself out before a test, but in reality, I don’t have anything to worry about as I’m a good student and test well.

My phone goes off.

Wow, Larry is kind of a jerk about this.

It’s a text from Larry. “I love you bud, but I’m cutting your throat.”

I reply “what are you talking about?”

“When you get back, I’ll be the rigger. You can do the grunt work from now on”

I’m not proud of the response I came back with…but it’s how I truly felt in the moment.

‘Be careful about cutting the throat of someone smarter than you.”

I’m far from the smartest person you’ll ever meet, but I do enjoy reading, studying, and learning.

And being smarter than Larry wasn’t an accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination.

The next morning I passed the test and headed back to the job.

Where Larry had in fact usurped my position as rigger, and was lording it over me as a went about doing the tasks he normally would do.

To be completely honest, it was kind of like a vacation at first.

Get paid nearly $40 an hour to clean parts or torque flanges with no stress?

Sign me up.

But I was upset.

I was upset because I knew I did my job better than he would.

I knew that he got along better with the superintendent because of their similar personalities, but i didn’t feel that I should loose my position simply because because Larry had more in common with our superintendent than I did.

Regardless of that, I was now dealt these cards, and I had to play them.

Just 3 days after I got back from class though, the job was shut down.

Covid-19 was just now sweeping the country.

Out of an abundance of caution, the plant shut the project down until further notice.

We were sent home for about 3 days and then called out to an emergency shutdown where a turbine had “crashed”.

We role out and are on the job 48 hours later, in the middle of nowhere Alabama.

We get right to work.

On this particular unit, you pull the entire roof off in two sections with a crane to open the enclosure.

Compared to many things we lift in a project like this, the roof weighs very little.

The turbine rotor may weight over 100,000lbs, but the roof usually weighs around 7000lbs.

Light weight.

But it is large and there are critical parts around the roof that can be damaged if not lifted carefully.

Typical procedure is to be on top of the roof after it’s unbolted, be in a fullbody harness and tied off to an approved anchor point capable of holding at least 5,000lbs per OSHA regulations.

We then slowly take the weight of the roof with the crane until it’s floating and then climb down off of it and continue the lift until it’s set on the ground or on a truck to be moved.

The superintendent instructs me to go on the roof with Larry and assist him. “Do whatever Larry tells you to do”.

Okay boss.

I put on my harness and climb to the top and begin to assess the situation.

The rigging to lift the roof is 4, 5 ton chainfalls.

It’s capable of safely holding 20 tons.

Well over the weight of the roof.

The crane is also well over rated for this lift, even with the boom extended all the way out in order to clear another building on the way to the ground.

Larry has it all rigged up, but no tension on the wire rope slings.

And then I notice his crucial mistake.

He has forgot to account for boom deflection.

When a crane takes the weight of a load, the boom flexes down.

Depending on the crane setup and the weight of the load, it can mean that while your crane hook might be centered in your load with no weight on the hook, once you get the weight of the load on the crane, the crane hook could be anywhere from a few inches to a number of feet off center.

Which means that when the load come off the ground, it swings.

Swinging is bad.

Always.

Enough weight swinging could tip the crane, crash into equipment, crash into a person.

It’s very dangerous.

At this point, I start calculating.

Is this weight enough, even swinging, to tip this crane?

No. Not even close.

Is it enough to break a chainfall?

No. Not even close.

Are there any people working around us that could get hurt?

Nope. It’s just us.

Is there any equipment that could be damaged if it swings? Yes.

This is going to be a mess.

An electrical control panel, which has all power killed to it and has been disconnected is in the swing path.

I decide to let Larry hang himself.

He looks at me and asks what I think.

I tell him “this is your show boss”.

He asks what I mean.

I look him in the eye and draw my finger across my throat.

He gets nervous because he knows exactly what I mean.

Starts double checking everything.

He still doesn’t notice the boom deflection.

After a couple minutes, he decides I must be bluffing and proceeds with the lift.

I stop him, and remind him to tie off with his harness.

He doesn’t realize it, but we’re about to go for a ride.

Generally, when I’m rigging, I first find out what the thing I’m rigging to weighs.

It’s a vital piece of information.

If I know what it weighs, I can have the crane operator track how much weight he has on the crane and I’ll be able to know when the object should start to pickup.

If we get to over 10% more than the object should weigh, there may be something stopping it from moving and we need to stop and reassess the situation.

Rigging could fail, the object youre lifting could jump into the sky, all kinds of mayhem may ensue if a hidden bolt holding something together breaks because you used too much force to lift it.

I ask Larry if he knows how much the roof weighs.

He doesn’t.

I do, but don’t tell him.

He starts signaling the crane to slowly hoist up.

The operator complies and starts lifting.

He knows something is about to happen.

I’m watching the boom get pulled more and more off center.

We’re probably 2 feet from the center of the load at this point.

Meaning a swing that could travel nearly 4 feet.

I stop Larry and ask him to see how much weight is on the crane.

11,000lbs. 4000 more than what it should weigh.

This roof is in a bind because we’re not picking it straight up, but at an angle.

It’s either not going to move, or we’re about to fly.

I brace myself. “Hoist up, slowly” Larry calls over the radio.

BOOOOOM

The whole roof shoots a good 2 feet into the air, and swings wildly towards to control panel, Larry and I are riding it like pirates in the crow’s nest in a hurricane.

We crash into the control panel, bending it over at a 45 degree angle, destroying most of it’s components.

People start pouring out of the nearby trailers to see what the commotion is all about.

The crane operator is yelling over the radio asking what the hell just happened.

I’m smiling.

He knew he just lost that job.

Larry is shaking. He sees me smiling and knows that I knew.

We get the roof set on the ground and are met by our superintendent.

He’s chewing Larry out HARD.

He gets to me and asks why I let it happen.

I just say “I just did what Larry told me to do”.

The superintendent is no dummy.

He’s seen a thing or two and knows exactly what went down.

Larry is demoted and I’m reinstalled as rigger immediately.

And a few shifts later it’s all smoothed over.

Larry and I are actually good friends now.

We’ve been through a lot together and have each other’s backs these days.

He’s now the foreman on our crew, and let’s me do my thing.

Failing your way to the top is still a valid way of progressing in my field.

But I’m happy for him. He’s actually good at it.

He really shot himself in the foot there, but it is nice to see that the story has a happy ending.

Read on to see what other people have to think about it.

Safety first.

Yes, he tried to warn him.

Yeah, this is not a job I would want.

This person would never trust Larry again.

Very funny.

Larry got exactly what was coming to him.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.