25. Get A Load Of This Guy!
I was the manager at a local concrete plant. We hired a new yard man whose responsibilities were to drive the payloader, load the plant when needed, and keep the piles of sand and aggregate pushed up and clean. He had experience, but on a different style of loader, so I trained him for a few hours on the machine and then returned to my office.
A while later, I looked over the yard. What I saw made my blood run cold. The loader was sitting on top of the 3/4″ gravel pile at about a 45-degree angle, the bucket full and raised, motionless. I called him on the mobile radio and got no response. The piles were in the far back of the yard, and for the next few minutes, I called again and again, but my calls were unanswered.
Fearing a mechanical or, worse, a medical emergency, one of my dispatchers and I ran the 150 or so meters from the office through the yard to the loader. There he was, on his cell phone. I climbed the ladder and banged on the door. He responded in a rather loud voice, “HEY! I am on the phone”! I immediately told him to dump his bucket and come down off the pile.
At first, he ignored me, but after a second request, he complied but was visibly aggravated. He proceeded to ask me what my problem was, to which I responded, “My problem is, as of right now, I need to hire someone to drive this loader. Get off the property”. He was very sour about it, and as the three of us walked back to the office, I radioed the owner, who had his termination slip ready when we got there.