Crane Operator

It's 8 a.m., and you've just arrived at your new job site. For the next week you will be working at a construction site where a new natural gas plant is being built. Since the plant sits beside a railway line, the equipment is being shipped by rail. You will need to unload the equipment from railway cars before setting it up.

One of the pieces of equipment you must lift is a gas contactor. Gas plants use contactors to make changes to the natural gas before it is sent out to customers through the gas pipeline. The contactor is an enormous piece of equipment, nearly 100 feet tall and weighing close to 400,000 pounds.

This is a big job, and the construction company that hired you has come prepared. Along with another crane operator, you'll be using two all-terrain cranes that can each lift nearly one million pounds. In order to balance the natural tendency of the cranes to twist when lifting a weight, there is a counterweight of nearly 300,000 pounds on the end of each crane. The two of you will be lifting the contactor simultaneously.

To transport the cranes, you had to disassemble them. You spent all day Friday reassembling them and went home for the weekend. Everything was set to start work on Monday.

You arrive on the job site this morning to find the other crane operator wandering around the site and shaking his head. A freak storm dropped three inches of snow on the area during the weekend. Everywhere you walk, the ground is wet and muddy.

The other crane operator thinks the wet conditions make it too dangerous to proceed. He wants to postpone the job for a few days while the ground dries.

When the foreman hears this, he starts yelling. This is a very expensive job. Even a minor delay will cost the company a great deal of money.

The other operator turns to you for moral support. You're uncertain what to do. There's no doubt that the ground is unsafe. Operating a crane on ground that is too soft could cause the crane to tip over. On the other hand, angering the foreman is a sure way to prevent yourself from ever being hired by this particular construction company again.

What do you do?

Agree with the other crane operatorSuggest that you work together to find another solution