Vent: The job site that made me ditch my old chipping hammer for good

I was working a boiler retube at a power plant outside Gary, Indiana back in March. The foreman handed me a beat-up 5lb chipping hammer that had a mushroomed head and a cracked handle. After 45 minutes of fighting slag on a tight tube sheet, the handle split clean in two and I took a chunk out of my knuckle. The safety guy just shrugged and said 'use the backup.' Has anyone else got stuck with junk tools on a big contract?

3 comments

3 Comments

roseb621mo ago

That "use the backup" line would've had me walking right off site.

vals381mo ago

Did the person actually say that to you, or was it more of a suggestion? Either way, that comment alone would've told me they don't trust the system to run properly without the backup. I'd have packed up my tools before they finished the sentence.

rayc381mo ago

Last year I was helping a friend set up some cameras at his warehouse and the boss kept saying "just reset it" every time something glitched. I told him that's a bandaid fix not a solution and he just shrugged. I packed up my gear and left him with the manual.