Lazarus wrote:The "good" old days brinny.
In the early 80s I was working for mob who specialised in rollers, I'm getting sleepy just thinking about it, but that was the days of A rates for when the machine was working and B rates when it wasn't.
B wasn't significantly lower so the owner actually preferred it if I didn't turn a wheel.
It was a smooth drum working with a patching crew, last machine on the job so most days I'd get my docket for the day before signed at 7am and curl up in the car and go to sleep.
I was doing so little, I got a job driving cabs at night.
Eventually they moved the machine to one of the Hume bypass jobs and I had to do an honest day in the noisy bastard.
It was a 15t Dynapac with a big air cooled 2-stroke Deutz with the loudest fan I've ever heard on a machine.
Yeah mate....they were the good old days.....
a spade was a spade back then.....and everybody knew where they stood....
Didnt have to get dressed up like bobo the clown.....and things were as straight forward as they come ....unlike now where people in the office like to complicate the simplest things, to a degree where you need a university degree to understand them.......
Can remember the very first scraper i learned to operate was a Wabco 222A self elevating....it was electric steering and elevators.....bloody great 871 gm two stroke sitting right in front of you and a massive generator underneath you to power the electrics....had to be full noise all the time to generate power to work things.....
Was in a cut one day, over 100 degrees, and the accalerator peddle was getting that hot it was melting my boots, so i had to get a bit of 4x2 and put on top of the peddle.....foot had blisters on it....No cab, or roof......no rops....not even thought of in those days.....pair of boots and shorts and that was it.....burnt to a crisp but the dust did protect us to a point.....be as black as black from the dust at the end of the day.....
Yeah....the good old days......