Hello,
I've always been curious as to what you people to do to pay the bills at the end of the month and I always find it interesting to know people that have potentially very interesting jobs.
I'll start;
I am a dock worker, I load and unload boats with all kinds of cargo, usually by crane. I am a true blue collar worker and I always work outside facing all the elements.
I'll post some pictures of what I do and give some explanation as to what you're looking at;
This is my playground, the port of Antwerp; every single day I can potentially work in any of the purple or orange areas, it's one of the largest ports of Europe and being able to work some place else every day with entirely different people every single day is what makes it fun for me because this way you get to know a lot of different types of people and the bosses 'dont mean shit' because if you fuck up it doesn't matter, you can just go work some place else.
Everyday I can get contracted for a single day of work by any firm located in the Harbour of Antwerp. The law in my country makes it so that any Harbour work must be done by certified dock workers recognized by the state.
We pick and choose which type of job we can do through a digitalized recruitment platform called "Het Kot"
There employers can pick certified dock workers they want to fill the job offer they have, as seen in the picture below.
Because there is only a limited pool of recognized certified dockworkers it can happen that upon certain days, there are more people logged into the recruitment platform than there are available job offers.
When this happens for instance; There are 30 jobs / 90 people. the 60 people unable to work will get to stay at home with pay albeit less than an actual work day.
Every 6 months we get a quota of "gewerkte taken" or "worked days" we have had to meet for that quarter. during corona the year 2020, the first quarter was 13 days we actually had to work from 1/1/2020 - 1/6/2020 and 22 days from 1/6/2020 - 31/12/2020. It is ussually the case that you always get your required worked days but the possibility exists that there just isn't enough work.
currently I am working 7/7 and sometimes 16 hour days, hence why I only post in the early afternoon or late at night because I fall in the shift that starts at 14:00 untill 22:00.
The work I perform varies every day and I can show you some examples;
This is pretty straight forward; A large container ship docks in the port and the employer wants the ship loaded or discharged, the only thing we as dockworkers have to really do is engage or disengage the twists locks at the bottom of the container pockets.
A twist lock looks like this but you have many varying models and sizes of them.
We attach them so that the freight stays in place and is seaworthy, they weigh about 10 to 15 kilograms each and in one shift of eight hours we ussually move 200 containers on or off board. on a container terminal we always work in a team of 2 dockworkers, 1 crane man, 1 foreman and 3 stradle carrier drivers.
A 40' feet container having 4 pockets means we each have to carry two of these twist locks each time a container is moved. You can also have 2, smaller 20' feet containers togheter as twins which means we have to carry four twist locks each which can round up to about 40 kilograms of weight we carry each container.
And sometimes they even use two crane spreaders (The attachment the crane utilises to grab ahold of the containers) to discharge a ship meaning we have to carry 8 twist locks each, you can do the math. we call this method "In tandem"
Ussually this work is looked at as the more easy and less intense work.
I can share some videos if you like;
Here you can see the "In tandem" discharge of a large container ship and even a stradle carrier pulling away a container. The frame we are sitting on has a bin for the disengaged twist locks.
It also entails your ussual warehouse stuff you're used to. only in these it's specialized to only harbour imported or exported goods.
This particular warehouse specialized in random shit, going from lamps to TV's to even solar panels. There are others that specialize in fruit which are cooled warehouses where a constant 5° celcius is required by law.
I dread it and I hate it every time I have to go to one of these. Imagine it being 30°+ outside with the sun shining on the container and you're inside hauling 50kg boxes ontop of a pallet within the container.
Generally the more fun and thought invoking work around the port. It is always done in a team of 6 dockworkers, 2 on land and 4 within the ship loading bay. It entails the loading or discharge of loose large pieces of metal most of the time but it can also be large crates or other pieces like large crane parts or other equipment. Ussually done with a gottwald crane.
Our work here is to lay the foundation of these pieces which is ussually done on either bars of wood or planks of wood and make sure the pieces are secure with callage. big triangular pieces of wood like these.
This is done so that obviously the cargo doesn't move. The image at the top of this section are wirerods they are loaded by crane with strong textile bands. other pieces require different pieces of material to pick up the pieces.
This kind of work is considered the more dangerous because most fatalities happen in this field of work.
I remember the first time I was loading packets of large iron plates which weighed 20 tons each and each packet had to pass over top our heads within the loading bay and I remember thinking to myself "If this stuff falls down, I am dead."
In this video I am within a loading bay of a ship loading packets of profile iron weighing 25 tons per packet, I have to position it correctly and make sure it's secure so that the ship is seaworthy. Lots of pulling and pushing is required.
Oh and you also might wonder how we get inside of these ships. Well that's pretty simple; We get lifted in through a cage attached onto the crane ( being afraid of heights isn't something you want. )
There are many other types of jobs but listing them all would take up too much time, if you have questions. Please ask me :grinning:.
I've always been curious as to what you people to do to pay the bills at the end of the month and I always find it interesting to know people that have potentially very interesting jobs.
I'll start;
I am a dock worker, I load and unload boats with all kinds of cargo, usually by crane. I am a true blue collar worker and I always work outside facing all the elements.
I'll post some pictures of what I do and give some explanation as to what you're looking at;
Everyday I can get contracted for a single day of work by any firm located in the Harbour of Antwerp. The law in my country makes it so that any Harbour work must be done by certified dock workers recognized by the state.
We pick and choose which type of job we can do through a digitalized recruitment platform called "Het Kot"
There employers can pick certified dock workers they want to fill the job offer they have, as seen in the picture below.
Because there is only a limited pool of recognized certified dockworkers it can happen that upon certain days, there are more people logged into the recruitment platform than there are available job offers.
When this happens for instance; There are 30 jobs / 90 people. the 60 people unable to work will get to stay at home with pay albeit less than an actual work day.
Every 6 months we get a quota of "gewerkte taken" or "worked days" we have had to meet for that quarter. during corona the year 2020, the first quarter was 13 days we actually had to work from 1/1/2020 - 1/6/2020 and 22 days from 1/6/2020 - 31/12/2020. It is ussually the case that you always get your required worked days but the possibility exists that there just isn't enough work.
currently I am working 7/7 and sometimes 16 hour days, hence why I only post in the early afternoon or late at night because I fall in the shift that starts at 14:00 untill 22:00.
The work I perform varies every day and I can show you some examples;
CONTAINERS;
This is pretty straight forward; A large container ship docks in the port and the employer wants the ship loaded or discharged, the only thing we as dockworkers have to really do is engage or disengage the twists locks at the bottom of the container pockets.
A twist lock looks like this but you have many varying models and sizes of them.
We attach them so that the freight stays in place and is seaworthy, they weigh about 10 to 15 kilograms each and in one shift of eight hours we ussually move 200 containers on or off board. on a container terminal we always work in a team of 2 dockworkers, 1 crane man, 1 foreman and 3 stradle carrier drivers.
A 40' feet container having 4 pockets means we each have to carry two of these twist locks each time a container is moved. You can also have 2, smaller 20' feet containers togheter as twins which means we have to carry four twist locks each which can round up to about 40 kilograms of weight we carry each container.
And sometimes they even use two crane spreaders (The attachment the crane utilises to grab ahold of the containers) to discharge a ship meaning we have to carry 8 twist locks each, you can do the math. we call this method "In tandem"
Ussually this work is looked at as the more easy and less intense work.
I can share some videos if you like;
Here you can see the "In tandem" discharge of a large container ship and even a stradle carrier pulling away a container. The frame we are sitting on has a bin for the disengaged twist locks.
WAREHOUSES
I absolutely despise warehouse jobs, it's ussually a mix of 50% forklift work and 50% manual work but it's very tiresome. Most of the time it entails discharging cargo of containers, and ussually that means they're filled with fucking huge heavy boxes with all kinds of shit. Just look at the contrast between the person inside this container and the box, it's almost bigger than him. They weigh a lot and a container is ussually filled with around 600 pieces of 50 kg weighing boxes, we then stack them onto pallets and put them in a designated place within the warehouse for shipping to some random customer.
It also entails your ussual warehouse stuff you're used to. only in these it's specialized to only harbour imported or exported goods.
This particular warehouse specialized in random shit, going from lamps to TV's to even solar panels. There are others that specialize in fruit which are cooled warehouses where a constant 5° celcius is required by law.
I dread it and I hate it every time I have to go to one of these. Imagine it being 30°+ outside with the sun shining on the container and you're inside hauling 50kg boxes ontop of a pallet within the container.
GENERAL CARGO
Generally the more fun and thought invoking work around the port. It is always done in a team of 6 dockworkers, 2 on land and 4 within the ship loading bay. It entails the loading or discharge of loose large pieces of metal most of the time but it can also be large crates or other pieces like large crane parts or other equipment. Ussually done with a gottwald crane.
Our work here is to lay the foundation of these pieces which is ussually done on either bars of wood or planks of wood and make sure the pieces are secure with callage. big triangular pieces of wood like these.
This kind of work is considered the more dangerous because most fatalities happen in this field of work.
I remember the first time I was loading packets of large iron plates which weighed 20 tons each and each packet had to pass over top our heads within the loading bay and I remember thinking to myself "If this stuff falls down, I am dead."
In this video I am within a loading bay of a ship loading packets of profile iron weighing 25 tons per packet, I have to position it correctly and make sure it's secure so that the ship is seaworthy. Lots of pulling and pushing is required.
Oh and you also might wonder how we get inside of these ships. Well that's pretty simple; We get lifted in through a cage attached onto the crane ( being afraid of heights isn't something you want. )
There are many other types of jobs but listing them all would take up too much time, if you have questions. Please ask me :grinning:.
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