Sounds like your typical small business owner with problems to me. But like Burky said, why do it? If a company wants you to break the law, refuse to do it. In December of last year my old employer wanted me to make an unsafe lift with a crane. It came down to a screaming match. I refused to make the lift and quit a few days later. In January 3rd of this year my ex boss tried to make the lift and turned the crane over and did about $1,000,000 in damage. He was so lucky not to have killed himself or anyone else.

Here are the pictures
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I really don't hate my ex boss. I kinda feel bad for him. He is in way over his head and struggling. I know it can happen to the best of us.

cool photos, to bad they are so large when i click onto each and every one of them. anyhow, glad to hear that nobody was killed or injured. best part (i think) about it is, those cars are "Jersey" cars, so no big loss at all. at least, i was able to "see" Jersey plates on one of the "victims", so, i'm surmising this was done in Jersey..............?? there should have been more Jersey cars involved, would've made my day.....................

Yeah it happened about 1/2 mile from the Lincoln tunnel on the Jersey side In Weehawken.

He is so lucky no one got hurt or killed.

That's unfortunate this dimwit went and upset your boom truck, on top of somebody's car too. That's gonna cost him.

What did he try to lift?

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Z-Lady's devoted hubby.

Wow this is like watching Jerry Springer. The only way it could get better is if one of them is a crossdresser lol.

Oh by the way Mack, My boss was lifting that blue sissor lift when he turned the crane over.

Well....it isn't "I" that is the "cross-dresser", but I cannot speak for the 'other party'.


LOL

Is it just me, or was that a rather large scissorlift to be lifting with that particular crane? Did he sling it from the forklift slots? Or did it have lifting lugs?

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Z-Lady's devoted hubby.

I had it by the lifting lugs when I had it on the hook. I assume he had it slung the same way when he turned it over. The crane is rated 47,000 up close but where that lift had to be picked it was only good for about 18,000. I think the lift weighed about 23,000. The contractor lied about the weight and told me it weighed 17,000 (contractors always lie). As soon as I picked it up I knew it was too heavy and sat it down and refused to make the lift. I called my boss and we got into a big fight. He went up there a couple of days later and lifted one of the sissor lifts up (there were 2) when he tried to make the 2nd lift he turned the crane over. You can only get lucky so many times.

I trust nobody minds the discussion between Joe and I in this otherwise interesting thread.

To require a 3-part line to lift it, I'd say the lift was every bit of 23k if not more. Most manner of heavy equipment has a plate riveted somewhere on it telling you how much it weighs, along with some other specs. Whether your scissorlift had one of those doesn't matter. There are other ways to find that out, such as heavy equpment spec books. Every outfit that deals with that sort of thing should have a multitude of these on hand.

The man (your former boss) apparently is one who places the "needs" of customers above the safety and well being of others, or his equipment, and they are the ones who wind up killing someone eventually. Thankfully, it appears that didn't happen here.

You're right. Contractors do lie, but I hope he's not taking their word for equipment specs. That catches up to everyone sooner or later.

As far as lucky, it's not a matter of luck. It's a matter of simply checking the load charts for your crane, and if the man who signs the paychecks can't even do that, then I'd say you were very smart to tell him goodbye. If that incident doesn't put him out of business, I wouldn't want to see what happens next.

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Z-Lady's devoted hubby.

Mack,

I think the single line rating for that crane was 9,600. So for a 3 part line it would be 28.800 at best, and that dosen't allow for detuctions for friction in the blocks.

It was one of those jobs where the foreman for the contractor was a spaz and was freaking out when I was looking for a plate and mesureing the radius of the lift. The funny thing is he called our office and and left a message on my phone saying that we better send someone out that knew how to run that crane because I was an idiot. What he didn't know was that when he called the receptionest put him through to my phone because I was the VP of the company.