That job on the 7th floor taught me to never trust a hand signal from the site super again

Last month at a commercial site in Austin, the site super gave me a thumbs up to lower a HVAC unit. I was 80 feet up and the load started swinging because he didn't account for the wind gap between buildings. I set it down hard and bent a bracket. Cost the company $400 in repairs. He got mad at me for not double checking. I told him respect goes both ways. Now I only take signals from my own spotter on the ground. Has anyone else had a super give bad signals and then blame you for it?

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joseph_hart1d agoMost Upvoted

Man, doesn't that just bleed into everything these days? I was organizing a neighborhood cleanup last weekend and asked a guy for a simple "yeah I'll grab that ladder" and he gave me the okay sign then just stood there. Like, people throw out the thumbs up or a nod without actually paying attention to what you're asking. It's like they're on autopilot, just giving a signal to move things along so they don't have to think. Makes you wonder how many little screw-ups happen every day just because nobody wants to pause and actually confirm what's being said.