WWOD (What Would OSHA Do?)

Living in a big city, the random noises and sirens is an every day phenomenon and most of the time something to just ignore or it will drive you insane. So this is exactly what I did when I got home on Thursday and sirens were blaring. It was only after my friend Sarah called to ask how to get to my house because Jiangsu lu was closed off all the way up to the intersection where my apartment was that I decided to looked out the window. I realized, hmmm, there is half a giant crane hanging off the side of the ~20 story “office building in progress” that we have been watching for the last 7 months.

I have always wondered how they get those giant cranes up and down off the top of those buildings and now I have witnessed one way to do it – albeit – not the safest way. It took about 24 hours and another huge crane from the ground as well as a brave soul to use a cutting torch to slowly cut what was hanging off the side of the building into pieces so it could be lowered down “safely” this time. I did not see any carnage thank goodness and I thank God that I didn’t actually see it fall. In doing a quick poll of friends of ours, the scary thing is – none of us were surprised that this happened – in fact, we were more surprised that it doesn’t happen more often. We’re so jaded.

BTW – If any of you are considering office space in Shanghai, I think I might know of a place that just *dropped* their rates. ;) I mean why not trust the guys that make less than a dollar an hour, have no education, hand mix their cement for each floor and let a crane fall from atop of a 20 story building. And no, I really don't want to know it was probably the same group of guys that built our apartment complex 3 years ago.