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Why does nobody talk about foremen pushing us to ignore scaffold rules?
I'm on a house job where the boss is constantly rushing us. He said to just use ladders instead of building proper scaffolds for the top floor trim. Now a guy twisted his ankle bad, and it was totally preventable. This stuff happens all the time, and it makes the whole crew nervous.
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the_piper3mo ago
Ugh, why do bosses always think speed is more important than safety? It never pays off in the end, just costs more.
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gibson.morgan2mo ago
Last summer at my store, we had a manager who kept pushing us to skip cleaning the floor buffer after closing to save twenty minutes. I finally showed him the repair invoice from when the old motor burned out from sawdust buildup, which cost way more than the time we "saved." @the_piper, you're totally right that it costs more later. Now I just do the full clean routine every time, even if it takes longer, because breaking the machine again would be a huge hassle. It's a small thing, but it proves the point.
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shane_hayes3mo ago
On a big building job in Denver, our foreman made us use stacked pallets instead of scaffolds for roof work. He said it would save two days, but it just made everyone shaky and slow. I've seen this on three different sites now, always because some boss wants to cut corners. It leads to dumb accidents, like that twisted ankle, or worse, falls from height (which is why I always check the setup myself now, but not everyone can). The rush never seems worth it when someone gets hurt.
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the_ben3mo ago
This rush to finish fast over doing things right shows up in way too many places. You see it in kitchens where someone doesn't follow food temps to save time, or when a mechanic skips a torque check. It always creates more problems later, usually when someone gets hurt or something breaks. That short term gain just isn't worth the long term risk, but people keep making the same bad call.
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