Finally got my ground crew on the same page with radio codes

We had fewer mistakes and delays during the last big lift.

3 comments

3 Comments

Getting everyone on the same page with the codes is huge. I remember when our crew's codes were a mess, we once had a guy start lowering because "swing left" meant something totally different to him. Another time we almost put a pallet through a window because my "all clear" was his "proceed with caution." It’s amazing how much smoother it goes when you all finally agree that "Charlie" means the load and not the crane.

nathan_johnson541mo ago

Yeah that "all clear" versus "proceed with caution" thing hits home. We had a similar mess with "behind" and "corner" calls in a kitchen. The fix was stupid simple but it worked. We just stopped one busy shift and wrote every single call on a whiteboard with one clear meaning next to it. Then we drilled it for a week until it was muscle memory. It feels like a waste of time until you realize you're not almost dumping a hot pan on someone anymore. Getting everyone to agree on the words is half the battle, the other half is just not letting new people guess what they mean.

richardh441mo ago

Man isn't it wild how much of life is just agreeing on what words mean? We do this whole dance at work with "urgent" vs "important" and it's the same thing. You can have the best plan in the world but if two people hear "soon" and think different times, everything falls apart. It's like we all need a whiteboard for basic talk sometimes lol.