Just realized I've been using the wrong hand signals for years after a close call on a job site in Denver

I've been operating for about 6 years now and always thought I had the hand signals down. Last week I was on a tight job near downtown Denver setting steel beams for a new office building. The ground guy gave me a signal that I thought meant boom up slow, so I did that, but he started waving his arms and yelling. Turns out he was giving the signal for boom down slow and I'd been mixing them up the whole time. Nobody ever corrected me because I guess I was just lucky nothing bad happened before. I felt like a total idiot and spent the next day studying the official signal chart. Has anyone else had a moment where they realized they'd been doing a basic thing wrong for years?

2 comments

2 Comments

charles50817d ago

Screwed up something similar myself a few years back. I was signaling for a swing left on a tight alleyway and the operator kept going right, almost took out a parked forklift. Turns out I had my left and right mixed up because I was facing him instead of facing the load like you're supposed to. Felt about two inches tall when the foreman pulled out the laminated card from his wallet and showed me in front of everyone. Still wake up sweating about that one sometimes.

the_lisa17d ago

Wait, @charles508, are you saying you're supposed to face the load instead of the operator?