Better Safe than Sorry

Everyone has been in a situation where they feel like a question is stupid but sometimes, stupid questions need to be asked. Asking questions can sometimes be hard especially when you don’t know how the person will respond, “will they make fun of me, will they think I’m stupid?” are things that everyone has felt. No matter the circumstances it is better to ask than to not.

In the Summer I work for a logging company, where my main job was to run the skidder and wood processor, but I shortly found out there was a lot left out of the job description. Whenever something broke or something needed to be replaced I was the one thrown in for the dirty work. One scorching hot day last summer, I was boucing around in the skidder like usual when the skidder overheated. I let this beast idol until it came down to a temperature I could at least drive it out of the woods. I then drove no more than 50 feet when it overheated the second time. I managed to get it out of the woods with it overheating 2 or 3 more times. Once I got back to the loading area I hopped out and talked to the boss. We came to and agreement that it was most likely a bad thermostat. Like usual when something broke we ran downtown to track down a store that has the part we need.

We got back to the work site I was instructed to go over to the skidder and start pulling apart to replace this part. The boss telling me what to do from the outside, I was under this metal monster rolling around in mud and gallons of anti-freeze and hydrophilic fluid. Struggling the whole time I managed to get the thermostat replaced, the boss then asked me “you think you can put it together yourself” thinking he meant it sarcastically I reply “yea” I soon found out he was serious and before I knew it he was already gone started to work again. I banged knuckles and got dirt in my eyes the whole time but I was able to finagle this project back together. No major problems along the way besides one hose went in tough, and I debated with myself if I should interrupt his work for a question, I decided that I would sound incompetent and it bite me in the end.

I called the boss up examining to him that I was able to put it back together, he told me to wait for him to get there before starting it up. He examined my work, giving me the okay I start it up, so I turned it over. IT STARTED! For a second and then a moment after that a hose blew off and that sent a freshly topped of 25 gallons of hydrophilic fluid on the forest floor. The hose that went on hard was revers thread, I had turned it the wrong way the whole time stripping the threads out of it. When it started the hydrophilic got power and blew the hose right out. If i had just called this would have never happened.

“logs” by This.Usually.Works is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.