zlacker

I've almost f'd up myself using a portal crane indoors. I lifted a relatively light rotor of a windmill onto the stator only to find out that the magnetic field of the rotor was strong enough to lift the entire assembly, including a 500 pound welding table clear off the ground when it came close enough. Seconds prior my fingers were in the airgap between them (still quite large). I had to take a long break after that before going back in, the surprise factor really got me, I absolutely never saw that one coming and a very large part of working safely is to be able to predict the failure modes. I hadn't counted on 'anti-gravity'.

Roughly halfway into your sentence about the concrete slab my mental kinetics prediction model already declared a zone described by the pendulum at maximum extension (hanging from one remaining strap) as no-go area. And depending on the state of the crane and how far debris could have been shot out from a falling slab that area may well have had to be much larger still. People that don't understand such dangers should not be in management positions, which is one of the reason why I'm always happy to see industrial companies that promote people from the ranks to management rather than to bring in outsiders with only theoretical knowledge.

>>jacque+(OP)
Yeah, "only theoretical knowledge" is exactly how I would describe this guy. He was complaining later that the unions had intimidated him, that they were a gang, and they were economic terrorists besides. I was there for the whole interaction, the only reason he felt intimidated was because he was a spineless coward trying to argue with people who knew what was going on while he knew nothing. He felt bad because he was dumb and in charge and he blamed that feeling on those under him.

>>lucubr+8n2
People actually die because of characters like that. It's interesting that right here in this thread there are people arguing that industrial workers can't be pressured because of OHSA but in fact the opposite is true: short of a shutdown OHSA doesn't really do much that scares employers, they might issue some minor fine (a few thousand bucks at most in almost all cases for injuries and sometimes even death) so they feel just fine about putting the screws on employees and in states where you can be fired for anything people will definitely cut corners if they believe their employment is in danger if they don't take risk.