What's the biggest thing you ever wrecked?

[swede]

I worked summers at Bergstrom Paper Company in Neenah when I was in college. (FWIW-Fuzzy Thurston's kid worked there also. Nice guy.) We were always buzzing around the place in giant fork lifts.

One blazing hot day everyone was having a bad day at the office with breakdowns and whatnot so the foreman--who already pissed about something else--screamed at me to start feeding stock pulp into the beater under the finish end of the paper machine.

While I was busy with my back turned, a crew of about 10 millwrights were moving in behind me carefully rolling in a giant shaft that functioned as a kind of main axle in the high-speed paper rewinder. With the foreman's screaming still ringing in my ears I jumped onto the fork lift and threw it into reverse in order to get a fresh load of pulp stock. Oh yeah...I backed right into a 20 foot long rewind shaft specially designed and manufactured to spin at high rpm without vibrating. It was so screwed up they had to put the old shaft back in. Cost the company about $20,000 to get another new one. There went my shot at employee-of-the-month.

So...anyone here ever burn down a garage or sink a nice big boat? It would make me feel better to know that someone out there has done more damage to things than me.

[SkinBasket]

I haven't, but my brother turned a dump truck on it's side a few years back. It takes a some heavy equipment to pull one of those back onto it's wheels. He switched to semi driving after that.

My wife deals with employment law, so I get to hear stories about people fucking up all the time and costing their companies 10s and 100s of thousands of dollars. Don't worry man, you are definitely not alone.

[Patler]

Re: What's the biggest thing you ever wrecked?

I worked summers at Bergstrom Paper Company in Neenah when I was in college. (FWIW-Fuzzy Thurston's kid worked there also. Nice guy.) We were always buzzing around the place in giant fork lifts.

One blazing hot day everyone was having a bad day at the office with breakdowns and whatnot so the foreman--who already pissed about something else--screamed at me to start feeding stock pulp into the beater under the finish end of the paper machine.

While I was busy with my back turned, a crew of about 10 millwrights were moving in behind me carefully rolling in a giant shaft that functioned as a kind of main axle in the high-speed paper rewinder. With the foreman's screaming still ringing in my ears I jumped onto the fork lift and threw it into reverse in order to get a fresh load of pulp stock. Oh yeah...I backed right into a 20 foot long rewind shaft specially designed and manufactured to spin at high rpm without vibrating. It was so screwed up they had to put the old shaft back in. Cost the company about $20,000 to get another new one. There went my shot at employee-of-the-month.

So...anyone here ever burn down a garage or sink a nice big boat? It would make me feel better to know that someone out there has done more damage to things than me.

Must have been a long time ago if a take-up spool for a rewinder only cost $20,000!

[sheepshead]

My Marriage...

[Harlan Huckleby]

Re: What's the biggest thing you ever wrecked?

So...anyone here ever burn down a garage or sink a nice big boat?.

I came close to destroying a ship, probably killing about 300 people aboard. Close, no cigar. I misread a pressure meter in an engine room, fucker wasn't too far from blowing up.

The next item far down on my list of achievements falls all the way to my dad's 72 Mercury. Not a terribly interesting story, just a fender bender on an icy hill with a stop sign at the bottom. My dad arrived at the scene of the accident and screamed at me. That man should have been a 911 phone operator.

[hoosier]

I crashed and burnt a plane. It was a German Messerschmidt that my aunt got me for Xmas at the local hobby shop. The plastic gave off a thick, smelly cloud of smoke and lots of little sticky fibers as it burned.

[oregonpackfan]

I wrecked both the family station wagon and my SAT scores on the same morning.

On a cold, icy December Saturday morning, I was headed to take my SAT's in the family car. My car was stopped at a four way stop intersection. A car came barreling up behind me and couldn't stop in time on the icy roads. She plowed into the back of my car.

We exchanged drivers license and phone #'s and I headed off to the test center.

Though the accident clearly was not my fault, I was overwhelmed with guilt(the result probably from attending a Catholic grade school with strict nuns!

My SAT scores came back poor though I was still accepted by Marquette and Madison.

[LL2]

I was working for a rental car company. I damaged a rental car and got one of the trucks used for towing cars stuck in a car wash and damaged a front tire. That jobs wasn't my calling.

[MadtownPacker]

I was doing 55-60 on a road outside of town at night when some drunk bitch in a Mercury TOpaz reversed out of her driveway right in front of me. I tried to swerve around her and actually made the truck lean up on 2 wheels before it slid into the car. Like always the drunk didnt get hurt just me when my head smash the front windshield.

[swede]

Re: What's the biggest thing you ever wrecked?

Cost the company about $20,000 to get another new one. There went my shot at employee-of-the-month.

Must have been a long time ago if a take-up spool for a rewinder only cost $20,000!

This happened around 1979. The "good" foreman called me into his office a few days later and went through the exercise of rubbing my face in it. For whatever reason I came out of his office thinking the cost was in the $20 k range.

I'm just glad the damage was limited to the company's bottom line and no one was hurt.

That paper mill was a dangerous place and was only a tiny bit safer when I left manufacturing for good in 1980. It's one thing when Tom and Jerry have trouble with an anvil. Huge things were spinning, cutting, pressing, stamping, and grinding away at maniac speeds in the paper mill, and the machines were mercilessly oblivious to something soft and human getting in the way.

What would a rewind spool cost these days Patler?

[Freak Out]

I've never destroyed/crashed anything myself but I've destroyed some serious shit for Uncle Sam while in the Military.

[Iron Mike]

I've never destroyed/crashed anything myself but I've destroyed some serious shit for Uncle Sam while in the Military.

<==flashes back to summers at Ft. Hood, where the 49th Armored Division/ Texas National Guard Unit used to show up for training and wreck just about every piece of equipment that they had.

[Harlan Huckleby]

I crashed and burnt a plane.

wow!

It was a German Messerschmidt that my aunt got me for Xmas at the local hobby shop.

I blew up tons of tanks and forts with my plastic army men. The carnage was incredible.

[Patler]

Re: What's the biggest thing you ever wrecked?

This happened around 1979. The "good" foreman called me into his office a few days later and went through the exercise of rubbing my face in it. For whatever reason I came out of his office thinking the cost was in the $20 k range.

I'm just glad the damage was limited to the company's bottom line and no one was hurt.

That paper mill was a dangerous place and was only a tiny bit safer when I left manufacturing for good in 1980. It's one thing when Tom and Jerry have trouble with an anvil. Huge things were spinning, cutting, pressing, stamping, and grinding away at maniac speeds in the paper mill, and the machines were mercilessly oblivious to something soft and human getting in the way.

What would a rewind spool cost these days Patler?

I don't know about today, it has been a long time since I was in a papermill myself, but I think it would have been a lot more even 15-20 years ago for a 240" spool.

You are very right, a papermill is one those places where injuries can be of the horrendous types, and death can occur in the blink of an eye. The risk is when workers become complacent.

[Badgerinmaine]

I crashed and burnt a plane. It was a German Messerschmidt that my aunt got me for Xmas at the local hobby shop. The plastic gave off a thick, smelly cloud of smoke and lots of little sticky fibers as it burned.

Did Snoopy shoot it down? :P