wow what a day ...i asked one of my mechanics to come in today to help me disasemble the 88 gt i picked up this weekend all was going well we got the whole car stiped down to litterly nothing .well now comes time for me to get those 11inc brakes from the front to put in my 87 cougar...i told him to remove every thing except the sway bar and endlinks as to keep preasure on the spring..a few min go by and he tells me there ready to come out.i walk over and grab the strut to pull the assmbly out and ...wabam it felt like being hit the face with a concreat block at 20mph....the idiot removed the end link and when i pulled the strut out the sping let go sending the strut into my face so now after a skent and brused chin 4 stiches in my upper lip and knocking 2 teeth loose should i fire this guy or repremend him and doc his pay the $255.00 hospital bill.i mean 4 more inches up and this could have killed me...luckily my teeth will be fine it dosent look bad from the pic but the half inch laseration on my lip is where the strut bolt olmost went all the what through my lip ...what would you guys do
Nah don't fire him, but a good repremand and don't dock his pay. Actually since you already knew it was this dangerous you should have taken the moment to look yourself to see that it was ok to pull the strut. Just my 2cents you have to share part of the blame in this.
BTW why is your mustache GREEN?:D
if your in a position with hire/fire authority
and.....
have to come to a car web site to seek an answer
then,,,,,,
you might want to think long and hard about the power you have as well as your capacity to execute it in a manner that is not going to put you in an awkward situation later.
Your throwing a tantrum, your the supervisor. Supervisors dont assume all is well. They assume the worst and inspect for the best. You issued a task and the task was not per your spec. Ill bet if you look back on it,you will probably realize you didnt explain what you wanted clearly enough and perhaps hes been trying to point that out. Training isnt pointing a few bolts and such then walking away. Working with someone side by side is best if infact this guy is still a rather green pea.
I wouldnt doc pay or any of that , your young and you'll grow a new one:D
btw, they make tools for this sort of stuff but here is what i used. If you dont have this tool or something along the lines of this, you might wanna consider it a safety device. Others could have been hurt as well as the mechanic of yours. Unfortunately, if the mechanic got hurt, that bill would have been on you.
Considering this ordeal prob'ly scared the shiznit out of him. I think if you sit him down and calmly explain to him the importance of paying attention and thinking things through, this sort of thing is not likely to happen again.
How old is he,and how long has he been a mechanic?I've seen a lot of guys who do this stuff for a living and are still learning things every day.You'll heal up fine.
You walked away and assumed he knew exactly what you wanted....I hate to say it, but that in itself was mistake #1. Mistake #2 was not inspecting his work before tearing into something potentially dangerous.
Get well soon.
you gotta chalk this one up as both your faults. i dont know the age of your mechanic, his experience level, nor yours for that matter, but i will tell you both this: an endlink is NOT a limiting device for a loaded coil spring. period.
most especially not a ~20yo endlink with unknown history. ALWAYS use some form of positive location on the lower control arm(jack, jack stand, etc.) or a spring compressor, to contain the pressure of the spring.
in your position, you should be glad you didnt get hit with a part directly moved by the spring, or the spring itself. also be glad it wasnt your mechanic who got hurt.
for $255 and 4 stitches, you got off cheap. lesson learned, i hope.
X2... get well soon man.... think of it this way.... Many people that have had the samething happen to them in there back yard.... Arent around anymore to talk about it... Im not religious, but... SOMEBODY was sitting on your shoulders at that point. Take care man
Is this a trend with this guy? Does he have great potential or is he maxed out on potential? His history should play into your decision.
the people working for you are only as good as your ability to check in on them and making sure they are do what they are supposed the way they are supposed to do it. sucks that you got hurt but it is as much your fault as his.
Humm, you nailed it right there cause thats what really matters long term.
Hope your ok.
In my line of work I never trust anyone to do the same quality work as me, and also goes for safety. Even if I know the person will get the job done, I always go through the steps with them to be sure no one will get hurt or die.
yup, you should have doublechecked first. you could can him but you have zero right to dock his pay. you do that and you might need another few stitches. if his work sucks or he is lazy or slow or whatever and or his performance otherwise has sucked in the past he should probably go. if this is more of a first offense than its "excusable" as it doesnt necessarily mean this guys a liability. you probably should have had spring compressors on them or taken some sort of precaution. i know a kid that cought a spring in the face that way and needed surgurys to get his face back into shape.
every one of you are exactly right ...after the meds kicked in and i sat down and thought about it ...it was my fault all in all first thing is there are such tools in my shop to prevent this ...hince they were not used and should have been ...iv decided to keep him and not dock his pay he is an awsome ford tech ..i guess we both just had a bowl of stupid for brekfest yesterday..i think that the though of himknowing it could have killed me is enough ..also we both understand at this point to take the extra few minuts to provide a safe working envirment....thanks guys also im ok just a little ugly'r than i was on sat
this couldn't be more true. i've been a restaurant manager for the past 6 years and have come to realize that you ALWAYS double check your subservients work. double checking has saved me from some serious trouble in the past and i continue to and will always continue to do it. regardless what you decide to do in with this, you should definitely use this as a learning experience.
Shame on you for not putting a jack under the control arm or at least verifying there was one in place, duh!
The proper way to do this is to have a jack supporting the control arm. Then remove the sway bar end links and strut bolts and then slowly and carefully lower the jack. After that you would have to take a LONG bar to CAREFULLY pry down to "pop" the spring out because there will still be tension on the spring. Of course you would want to be standing off to the side while prying not in front of the spring.
I dont think the employee should be fired or docked any pay. It's kind of your own fault for not knowing what you were doing in a dangerous situation. Sorry for being harsh but this sounds like a case of the blind leading the blind here.
I'd write you both up for being stupid! LOL!
i think everyone's done made their point, but i'm glad you got off that easy on this. good thing you had that incredible hulk beard thing going on. :P
Yeah, at least youre *already* ugly! ;)
Stand where you want. The chain that you looped around the frame and through the spring will keep it from flying out.... you DO have several chains (even cheap bicycle lock-up types) lying around for just that purpose, right?
I would suggest not using bike lock-up cables/chains, considering I had a bike stolen just by someone yanking on it and snapping the lock pin. I surely wouldn't trust it to hold the spring. As long as the control arm has been lowered down properly, it doesn't have any dangerous amount of force left in it. A real chain and bolt/padlock would still be a great idea though.
Hey, what did ever come of that situation.
As long as the guy does good work most of the time and shows up for work on time or when you need then don't fire him just have a short talk with him over a few things.
i had a talk with him and thats all he still works for me and is a kick ass ford tech...he just had an off day ..well we both did i didnt mention we were drinking that day
:punchballs: :punchballs: :punchballs:
Drinking and calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
If I had remembered that in college for Calc IV I would've done better than a C+......