I Tested Viral Slab Bending

Here’s the fix needed: An apology video to Sam.

EDIT: The video has been edited to cutout all the parts where John digs into Sam and edits removed dunking on him. I'm glad the changes were made. I wish it was acknowledged in some way, but I'm glad. Thanks to the team 👍 Sam getting dunked on the whole video sucks. Especially digging into him for not catching a 300lb slab getting married to gravity. Damn.

Editing the video to remove the abusive comments towards Sam (as well as when John basically asked Sam to kill himself, in what was the worse shop safety I've ever seen) without an apology comes across as an attempt to hide it. This way there is no evidence of the abuse and John can easily brush it under the rug instead of actually doing better. This is what serial abusers do. You can bet the Sam is still getting yelled at and dunked on, you just won't see it now. The reactions from John aren't jokes, that's pretty clear. You don't edit out a bunch of "jokes" like this. When someone gets called out and they hide what they are being called out over, it's not progress. You can't be a better wordworker John unless you fix your mistakes, instead of just hiding them all the time. The biggest mistake you made in this project was having no fucking plan. You clearly had not sat down with the team to go through the steps of the slab. That's what the guys in the video you watched do, not just scream at people when they can't read your mind. 90 percent of running a good shop is planning. You're not running a good shop.

I am an example of what happens when the person "catches it." (and this was thought out in advance by the boss but poorly)Two of use were taking directions from my boss (coincidentally named Jon) at the time at a popular children's museum in CA. I was new at the time so I didn't know much about the boss and trusted him. We were unloading an exhibit from a concrete loading dock and he said he would tip it over and the two of us could catch it because it was "light". The two of us could not tell either way by looking at it. When the Boss tipped it over it was so heavy that it slipped through the hands of the other guy across from me who was in his 60's. I was younger and stronger and managed to get ahold of it. Long story short It jerked me down to the floor and jammed 3 of my vertibrae together grinding part of them away and pinching nerves in the process. It turned out the exhibit weighed almost 450 lbs because they had put lead bricks(yes they exist) inside to weight it at the bottom. IN this case he blamed me for deciding to catch it when it slipped through the other guys hands. Over the next 2 months I lost the feeling in 2 of my fingers in my dominant hand, had severe neck pain and it heavily effected everything from my work to how I slept at night. Yes there was physical therapy and medical covered by the jobs but I will have pain for the rest of my life and there are chunks missing from 2 vertibrae and permanent nerve damage. Even as I type this one of my fingertips can't feel it when it hits the keys. 6 mos later I was fired for failing to meet work performance reviews. I went back to working for myself and have been happier ever since. When someone else is in charge of your safety they need understand what this means. Don't be a John or a Jon.

My grandad passed in 1985 sadly and a few years earlier he gave me some advice that's lived with me ever since. He said, "if you drop something let it drop, you can do more harm by trying to stop it!" Wise words from a wise man. I'm sorry John but the health and wellbeing of your employees is paramount over anything else!!

As someone who has run teams from five or six to over a hundred people in the past, I agree with the comments that you need to apologise to Sam, and not just for the bit about stopping the slab, when your immediate reaction should have been "Are you OK? I'm glad you didn't do anything stupid like trying to catch it". In fact, you should have planned for something like this and told your guys quite clearly "if it starts to go, just get the hell out of the way". You should also avoid throwing tantrums like that in front of your staff. Obviously what happened was heartbreaking, but as the leader you suck it up, make sure everyone else is OK, then throw a fit in private, not in front of your team. I appreciate it might be good content, but it's not good for you as a leader or for your team. A good manager always puts the welfare and wellbeing of their team first, especially in a potentially dangerous environment like a workshop and, quite honestly, Sam already looks like he's scared witless of you. I'm a big guy too, and we sometimes don't realise how imposing a large, confident man can be to those around them, and while you are probably just joking, it really doesn't look to me like Sam finds it funny. When you make people nervous and jumpy, that's when accidents happen, which is exactly what happened here. You constantly badgering your team to hurry up and mocking them for being slow lead to mistakes being made with the result seen in the video. You're former NFL, I'm former army, we spent a lot of time in environments where such "banter" is seen as normal and you give as well as you get, but a lot of "normal" people don't see it the same way and you really might want to consider that. It's entirely possible Sam's totally OK with it, but that is not the perception that your videos put across, and as a wise man once said, "it's not what you do that's important, but what you're seen to be doing" and, frankly, you're coming over as a bit of a bully. People don't quit bad jobs, they quit bad managers.

He edited out the douchebagery?? He was rude to Sam the entire video and then shouted at him for not catching it when it fell, and now all that has been edited out. That's really shady man

So, for those who are watching the video now and don't know why people are saying John should apologize to Sam: After the slab falls, by the end of the video, John says "didn't you even think of catching it" to Sam. The he throws a fit and doesn't say a word for two hours apparently. He cut off the part he said that after he got huge backlash in the comments.

I would have gotten mad at my employee if they had actually tried to get under that falling table

"I used to be an offensive lineman in the NFL". Now he's just offensive to his staff.

Piss poor planning. I feel bad for the guys trying their hardest to please boss man.

FYI: Editing the parts out where John was being a total asshole does not make John not an asshole. Hopefully John has learned to be a better person after the feedback from the original video, instead of just making sure the asshole parts are edited out in the future.

" You didn't even think to try and like stop it" ... I BEG YOUR PARDON?

Jhon being flattened in the comments harder than Sam would've been irl if he tried catching that table.

John, Im seeing the edited video but from the comments I gather you gave Sam hell for not thinking to catch the table. He definitely thought to catch it as you see his hand go out to grab it but smartly realized there was nothing he could actually do. You however are the one who dropped the table. The first time it was clamped up, the table was a bit higher and you stayed up there. This time, the table was lower and the split second you put your weight on the table is when the clamp shot out. You need to address Sam's good decision to let the table fall, safety first. As you said, you have 2 slabs. You only have 1 Sam.

John is good at finding ways to cover his mistakes. They edited the original video. So, I guess we can just all forget how he treated Sam. All good now john!

As the owner and boss of my company , I've learned a very important lesson watching this video , then reading everyone's comments. I have got to be a lot more careful with my attitude and planning. I typically do not care about falling objects versus employee health . Let it fall , I have insurance for that . But boy can I get worked up when my team is in a tight spot and we are in the super crunch type situation . I have got to be far more patient and develop my mentor attitude alot more . So to everyone who posted concerning that one situation , thank you. I'll take some lessons from it for my behavior , perspectives , and how and when I say things.

Seeing how he treats this Sam makes me wonder why the last Sam really left.

John had very little clue what he was doing and yet expected sam to know what to do.

Wow, he edited out bitching at Sam for not even "thinking" of catching that slab. You're a coward, John. Own up to your mistakes and make a public apology. Edit: He apologized in the next video on this channel. Good. I'm not rescinding my comment here, however, due to how it looked at the time.