Doing demolition by the book
Mark Anthony
Founder at DemolitionNews.com, Demolition Insider and Diggers and Dozers; owner and host of The Break Fast Show; demolition industry ghost writer.
In a speech in 1948, Winston Churchill famously said:?“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.??Quite how he found the time to run a country and win a world war between coining iconic phrases remains a mystery.??But that’s a discussion for another day.
The fact is that, in all walks of life, the past helps shape both the present and the future.??In politics, in business and in our everyday lives, we look to our forebears for guidance on what to do and what not to do.??Or at least we used to.
Without making mistakes, there won't be lessons learned. Without getting hurt, there won't be knowledge gained. The only way we grow is by learning from the past.
Kemi Sogunle
Gaz Evans (profiled in our Model Maker video) echoed this point on Friday’s episode of The Break Fast Show while talking about how the demolition sector USED to be.??An industry veteran, Evans says:?
“We learned from the older guys who have done demo jobs 100 different ways and out of the 100 ways picked the best few ways to do certain jobs, and passed the knowledge to us young guys.??But now we are not even asked our opinion on jobs, just told this is the way the book says it is done and that is it.”
And there’s the rub.??Demolition cannot be done by the book because that book has never been written.??It could not be written (trust me; I do it for a living).??The subject is too broad and too diverse.??It is constantly changing and continually evolving.??(It is a cliché to say that no two demolition jobs are ever the same; but I have never shied away from a cliché before and I don’t intend to start now.)
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“Examination of our past is never time-wasting. Reverberations from the past provide learning rubrics for living today.”
Kilroy J. Oldster
It is like trying to tell Pele, Bobby Moore, Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo how to play football.??It is impossible.??There are too many variables.??Those that truly excel are those blessed with the ability to adapt to the situation in front of them; those that can draw upon a mix of experience and natural ability and aptitude; those that are empowered to express themselves and to respond accordingly.
The chances are that the man (or woman) sat in the seat of a demolition excavator has a greater understanding and insight than many of those in management positions.??And while I have nothing but respect for true demolition engineers, there is often a disconnect between the theory on how buildings behave during demolition, and how they react here in the real world.
We ignore the opinion and experience of industry veterans at our peril; and we allow them to leave the industry before they impart their wisdom at potentially enormous cost.
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Mark Anthony is the founder of DemolitionNews.com.
Old Man Booth!
2 年If that's what you see in a country more focused on education and history than the U.S., I would hate to see beneath the surface here. Beautifully stated as always, Mark.
So true Mark. I'm a specialist demolition engineer who has engineered some of the largest and most complex projects in Australia since 2005. I always seek advice and opinions from the men on site, mostly the demolition supervisors who have all come through the ranks and are still hands-on. There's a special man called Wayne Walker, at Liberty Industrial. I've worked closely with him for about 17 years and I've learned a lot from him. Of course we've learned from each other. The important point is that we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and if we know our weaknesses as much as we know our strengths, and we acknowledge our limitations, we end up with open minds willing to learn from those with runs on the board. And yes, although a lot of structures have huge similarities, they are never exactly the same and we continuously need to learn and improve. I'm not against guidelines for how to do things, but they cannot be that rigid that an experienced competent person is not allowed to innovate, improve or vary the basic concept.