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Heard a new guy call the ladder 'the easy way up' and it got me thinking

We were on a job near Mobile last week, and this young kid on the crew pointed at the ladder going up to the operator's cab and said 'that's the easy way up, right?' I had to laugh, but it stuck with me. There's no easy way in this job. That ladder is 25 feet of wet, slick steel you climb a dozen times a day with tools in your hand, and you better have three points of contact every single time. I think some folks see the cab and think it's like driving a fancy truck, but they don't see the hours of checking pump pressures, listening for a change in the cutterhead sound, or knowing how the spoil changes color when you hit a different layer. It's all focus. What's one thing you wish people outside the cab understood about what we really do?
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2 Comments
thomas.piper
thomas.piper13d agoMost Upvoted
Right? The cab's just where the work starts. My foreman always says the machine talks to you if you know how to listen.
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sandrap40
sandrap4013d agoMost Upvoted
What's the hardest thing the machine has told you?
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