Over at Daily Timewaster is a post on tanks in trouble.
https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2020/12/tanks-in-trouble_19.html
It provoked a memory of some friends who had their new bulldozer paid for in full one summer by the US Forest Service.
They were doing various works and one Forest Ranger wanted them to move to a different location. It was early springtime and the place he wanted them to move required crossing a wetland. They declined, stating their bulldozer would get stuck.
After some heated negotiations, they agreed to attempt crossing but only after receiving a written work order that provided they would be paid their hourly rate if the bulldozer became stuck until it was unstuck. As in 24/7.
The USFS was able to extract the bulldozer that fall after the wetland dried out.
My friends didn’t say what happened to the Forest Ranger. My guess, showing that unique incompetency, he was on the promotion fast track.
9 comments:
I'm sure the in-laws here could tell me plenty of stories like that.
The guy who makes those decisions (likely a 5 1/4 hat size), has the makings of a Washington Bureaucrat. I'm sure that they kicked him upstairs.
drjim
There is a factory producing them down the street from you.
LL
Spot on!
Ouch... At least it didn't SINK like the one left on the side of US 90 down in South Louisiana years ago... :-)
OldNFO
My friends were quite pleased with the outcome. Drained all the fluids after winching it on a trailer and taking it back to their shop. Fresh lube and diesel, fired right up, and they are still using it.
They say promotion rewards incompetence. You don't see that in the Church, ever.
LSP
Show me as skeptical.
My first MOS, (military job) was as a tanker.
As such, I heard stories of guys in Germany who were on maneuvers in areas where there were peat bogs. You could drive a tank onto them, but you need to continue until you were completely off, or the tank would sink into them like quicksand.
Interesting, trying to figure out who was responsible for the million dollar loss~
GB
Tankers! Our float bridge company had a standard briefing. "Don't lock your tracks on the bridge. It bends the grid work and we spend hours with crowbars getting it straight. Yeah, I see some of you grinning. Just remember when you do fording exercises we are the ones in the safety boats, and we have long memories".
What was the real challenge were the tank retrievers. We had a class 50 bridge and they were a Class 58 load. Can you say, "slow and carefully?"
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