I’ll say straight up that it’s a good place to work, the moneys good and the bosses are some of the best I’ve had in my years in construction…but this is frustrating when management looses sight of their own goals just for cash.
I work in the rail industry in NSW, Australia. We operate the the excavators that generally do the heavy work for the blokes on the ground. They end up with some fancy gear on them, tilt-rotator hitches, various hydraulic powered attachments and the Hirail running gear to work on the tracks…you end up at $200k+ for a small machine and $600k+ for a big machine and the gear to go to work, but the the return is upto $600ph rate on weekends and it’s never that slow for work.
To operate the machines in the rail corridor it takes a dozen or so tickets and a fair bit of experience just to get on and years to get really efficient and safe.
In recent years, the company has decided that going the cheaper options on machines can save them some money.
They started over 15 years, quite small with only half dozen operators, including the bosses. They might not have always had the best gear, but it was well researched and looked after, and the experienced guys knew that they could rely on the gear to do the job.
Now in the last few years, instead of listening to the experienced guys telling them what works and what doesn’t, what makes the job easier, safer, faster. (Look up Engcon grippers and EC-oil and you’ll understand). What machines work well and what don’t (it’s a lot to do with hydraulic power and the different configurations machines come with)…all for the sake of a few thousand dollars. Yes a few thousand is a lot but when a machine is $650k for the good one, or $630K for the one that you’ve been told is inferior and WILL BREAK OFTEN.
So as of last week, the 2 best and most experienced operators, the kind you watch and go “wow, how did they do that”, and the ones that clients ask for by name have given notice, and I’m sure there will be others sooner than later,
if things don’t turn around.
Just sad to what greed will do to a good company, just to save a buck.