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I don't know
about you, but to me any kind of construction project is a
powerful magnet. Unless I am already late for something really
important, the telltale signs - the sound of heavy equipment,
the smell of freshly worked dirt, the presence of barricades
and safety warnings - will reach out and grab me, compelling
me to find a vantage point from which I can watch what's
going on.
I don't recall
ever starting out to see a particular aspect of a construction
project; rather, I'm content to let the whole scene
wash over me until after a while I find myself drawn to one
aspect or another.
Thus, during lunchtime
this past Tuesday, I allowed myself to be drawn to the site
of a recently demolished hotel - a landmark retirement
home dating back to the mid-1920s when its predecessor, along
with most of the town, was sundered by a 6.3 earthquake. Last
weekend, I gather, a demotion crew took down the three-story
building with a wrecking ball and lots of brute force, but
even though the major excitement was over, by the time I arrived,
a crowd of 50 or so onlookers had gathered to watch a half
dozen separate crews tackle a variety of below-street-level
tasks.
At one end of the
street-corner plot - the entire construction site taking
up an area no more than an acre, including the curbside lane
of one of the intersecting roads - an excavator with a
breaker attachment crunched away at the last remaining pieces
of the previous foundation. “Take that … and that
… and that,” the systematic pounding seemed to
say as 3-foot-square slabs of concrete fell to the assault.
At the opposite end of the lot, a survey crew concentrated
on setting stakes for finish grading of the newly dug - and
20-foot-deeper-than-before - subfloor. Between these bookends
of activity, other individual crews busied themselves digging
trenches, marking significant features, staging materials,
and otherwise carrying out the subtasks of what was obviously
an elaborate and carefully scripted plan.
In the midst of
all of the activity - right there on center stage, so
it seemed - sat an excavator, like the ringmaster of the
whole show, gouging out great gobs of dirt and rock as it
chomped its way down to the new elevation, dipping, biting,
rotating, positioning, and dumping its mouthful of freshly
minted material into a waiting truck before repeating the
sequence in inexorable strides.
Each evolution
involved four loads culminating in a honk that launched the
target truck on its outbound run, simultaneously summoning
its successor to the vacated position. As if controlled by
this bit of musical chairs, another truck would seem to magically
materialize to join the queue, allowing the process to proceed
in a seamless manner through all of its separate activities.
For all that was happening in and around the construction
site, it was the ceaseless cycle of the excavator that set
the pace, a metronome to the workings of an intricately choreographed
system.
For what was probably
a quarter of an hour, I watched the action without conscious
focus, but gradually I found myself concentrating not so much
on the excavator in its precise adjustments to the ever-changing
working face but on the barely perceptible actions of the
operator who sat inside a glassed-in cab, isolated from all
the noise, dust, and frenetic activity going on around him.
Increasingly I became engrossed in the rhythmic coordination
and almost casual movements of his feet, fingers, and eyes
that supplied the will behind the force of this amazing machine.
And
it struck me that while this magnificent excavator with all
of its engineering and technological excellence stands at
the pinnacle of our civilization's technical achievement and
ingenuity, it is a cold and sterile assemblage of parts without
the care and skill of its operator - someone like the man
who in all the time I watched made not one discernable bobble
in the control of his bucket. It was a sober vision for one
who spends much of his time evaluating and extolling the virtues
of machinery.
Yes, the machines
are terrific, as are the attachments and productivity enhancements.
I am constantly amazed when I realize how much better today's
equipment is than that of a decade ago or that the rate of
improvement continues to accelerate rather than stagnate.
But it is at moments like these that I am once again drawn
to the realization that production begins, proceeds, and ends
with the person in the cab, and no matter how wonderful the
machinery is or will ever become, that's where it will
always remain.
Send
John an Email
GEC
- May/June 2004
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