A Ticket Isn't Competency

A ticket is not a personality. It is not a guarantee. It is a record that someone sat a course, passed an exam, or holds a trade credential. That matters. It is also the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.

On a lift, nobody is asking whether the rigger once passed a written test. They are asking whether this person can look at this load, this hardware, this crane and this exclusion zone — and make a decision that holds.

A ticket tells you what someone has been trained to do. Competency tells you whether they can actually do it.

WHAT A TICKET IS FOR

Tickets keep people who have never been trained off the hook. They give a client, a prime contractor and a supervisor a first filter. A rigger without the paper the work requires does not take the hook. That is the floor.

The mistake is treating the floor as the building. Two people can hold the same ticket and not be interchangeable. One has spent years on steel and knows when a sling is lying to you. The other passed the course last spring and has not yet been in a bad setup.

WHAT COMPETENCY LOOKS LIKE

Competency is specific. It is this machine class, this kind of load, this site condition. A person can be competent on a mobile crane and not ready for a tower. They can be a good rigger on precast and lost on a pick that needs engineered lifting points.

• They ask for the weight before they touch the gear.
• They inspect hardware as if they own the consequence.
• They will say no when the information is missing.
• They can explain the rigging in a sentence a supervisor can check.
• They do not fill silence with guessing.

None of that is printed on a ticket. You find it by asking what they have actually done, by watching how they set up, and by putting them with people who will not cover for a bad lift.

THE STANDARD

Qualifications are verified first. Then experience against the work. Then the brief. If the person cannot be stood behind for this lift, they do not take the hook. A name and a photocopy of a ticket is not the same as competency.

If you are supervising a crew, ask what was checked besides the ticket. If the answer is nothing, competency was not checked. Paper was.

11 — TRAINING + COMPETENCY →

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