Back when we had oilers

[Longboom]

This is kind of a long (True story) but rather funny. Many years ago, I had an oiler. His name was whimpy. Whimpy was an albino, I mean, white hair & pink eye's n all. He was wild as a sprayed roach. One day he was flaging me with a radio from the 12 floor of the building. He said Randy, there are 2 women on there ballcony ?sp? on the 9th floor of the building next to us, in bathing suits with there tops untied and there facing down on there lawn chairs. He said when we get done with this concrete, if there still there I'll get on the headach ball and you swing me over so I can just... peek over the edge of there floor. I said OK. Good Idea. LOL we did this except when he got there he was the same level as they were, as if he were sitting in a chair visiting. What ever they were drinking or had available, they hit him with. LOL he was flagging me cable down cable down, I waved and said hows that?? Is that where you wanted to go??? He was soaked and wet when he got to the ground. 15 minutes later the cop's showed up. They didn't take us to jail, but did explaine how fast we would find ourselves there if it happened again. LOL
Ol'whimpy was a sport. This story did happen in 1979.

 

[Longboom]

Dang,..... Am I that old that none of you remember having an oiler

 

[guyinthesky]

Dang,..... Am I that old that none of you remember having an oiler

Oiler?!?!? whats an Oiler?!?!

ok I'm being a smartass, I know what an oiler is...but...*looks behind shoulder and around the crane and site* I see no one!

 

[qball]

man, come to chicago.all crawlers and any hydro over 3 axles gets an oiler. clean cranes and well fed operators

 

[Dualie]

i have an oiler. but he also does duty as an owner, operator, and a million other things.

but thats a funny story none the less

 

[cat 385]

i was on oiler on a manitowoc 4100 for one winter,i cleaned and painted the eng,also sprayed diesel on the car body daily to keep it shiny,you can have that walking the boom thing though. things were slow that winter so they put me over as an oiler on one of the rigs,that is the only time i got up close and personel with one of those beast.i have a lot of respect for what you crane operators do, a lot of responsibility.:notworthy

 

[Dualie]

I just read an article today about the lack of oilers in the industry. They went on to state that the lack of oilers was directly related to the amount of crane accidents that were happing.

A good oiler is a second set of eyes that knows what the machine can, cant, and Shouldn't, do. Also serves as a QUALIFIED AND PROPER signal person, is another line of defense between the operator and poor rigging. machines were better maintained and cared for, less likely to be improperly setup or banged around on jobsite's. Also back in YE OLDERN DAY the way you became an operator is you were an oiler for several years before you got to operate. Now you just get rushed into service and bam your an operator.

Just thoughts to ponder

 

[Longboom]

Amen

Yes Dualie, I must agree. I oiled for about 4 years before elevating my book to operator. I have told my boss now, that he needs to hire at least one oiler and that way he could spend a week oiling on one machine, get some seat time, then next week he goes to another machine, get some seat time and in a year or so you have an operator. It's not something you can learn in 15 minutes. I do believe that the lack of oilers does have alot to do with all the crashes lately. I always said the idea of no oilers was nothing more than pure greed. With out oilers you cut your pool of possible operators to less than half. :usa