Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I am exceptionally pleased that I only have 6 weeks left on site, the last 3 weeks have proved to be incredibly frustrating for me and keeping my opinions to myself is proving difficult.  Those of you that I have talked to in person will be aware of how annoyed I have been at various points during my attachment but here are some of the highlights from the recent past:

• Yesterday I witnessed an incident with 2 of the tower cranes which could only have been described as dangerous.  On bringing it to the attention of the project managers I was told to go and get the sub contractor to fill out the near miss report and after some discussion instruct them to remove the crane driver at fault; a message I duly delivered.  This decision was reversed by the PMs after shortly thereafter, doing nothing for the company credibility nor mine.
• Last week I have having serious issues with the council highways dept and couldn’t get the desired answer back, so I asked the PM for his help in dealing with it, request ignored, Monday morning we receive instructions from an irate highways supervisor to return the road closure to 2 way traffic immediately 4 days earlier than planned, at the point at which they looked for someone to blame, I walked out.
• I chair the sub-contractors coord meeting on a weekly basis, which means I receive the sub-cons concerns and plans for the next week do my best to deconflict at the meeting and take the points that can’t be fixed then and there to people who can work on them in slow time.  Often I have requests for more storage space on site, which doesn’t really exist but that is a story for another time, AER 3 probably.  There had been some safety concerns raised over the over head working where we have formwork being struck above mast climbers or people working below, there was a suggestion of a daily briefing that would deconflict space and time for overhead activities.  I included in the minutes and put it to the PMs who seemed underwhelmed and at that time more interested in patresses (a subject which has dominated conversation over the last 2 weeks at the highest level of the project) nobody else seemed that bothered, I tried again, ignored again.  Last Thursday we had a RIDDOR reportable accident when some plywood being struck from a slab fell on a cladder in a mast climber and broke his shoulder blade, suddenly interest appeared in deconflicting people woking overhead.

A complete whinge today, sorry, but my only real sounding board on site was an agency site manager who they’ve got rid of in order to bring in their own websters blokes.