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The day a squirrel shut down our tower crane
I was on a high rise project last week. A squirrel climbed into the operator's cab while I was on break. My partner tried to shoo it out, but it hit the controls. The crane arm swung wildly for a minute. We had to call animal control, and the whole site laughed.
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ivan7741mo ago
That squirrel's a better crane operator than me.
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rowan_wells301mo ago
That squirrel probably clocked in on time and has a better safety record than half the crew. In my experience, the local 303 rodent union is getting really strong. Honestly, it was just covering a shift, got a family of acorns to move and little beaks to feed. We should all be so dedicated to our jobs.
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reesej271mo ago
Come on, how much of a mess could it really have made. That crane arm swinging for a minute sounds wild, but if no one got hurt and nothing got smashed, it's just a funny story. They make it sound like a total shutdown, but a quick animal control call and some laughs doesn't exactly scream disaster. Honestly, the biggest danger was probably to the squirrel's pride.
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troy_price4d ago
Forget the cleanup, think about the paperwork. That's an OSHA recordable incident right there. Some safety guy is filling out a form for "wildlife incursion leading to unauthorized equipment activation." The squirrel's stunt just added a whole new line item to the site's risk assessment, probably triggered a mandatory safety stand-down meeting for everyone. That's hours of lost work right there, all over a nut.
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