Tales of an Escaped Tiger.

I sat down at my desk and instantly knew I was ready to take on the task of running Blue Dog Cranes… ha ha jokes. I was, however, 100% invested in starting my journey within a new industry (or industries when it comes to cranes). I had been searching for a role for some time, which would enable me to really give it my all. 

Ben had been encouraging and supportive of me being involved, but whether I was ready to take on the daily control of over $2m of assets was questionable to us both! To hunt some work, we promptly let our customers know we had a LTM1060 joining the fleet. In the weeks leading up to the delivery of the crane, we had been cross-hiring a number of jobs, so it became abundantly clear there was an appetite for us to move out of the “small crane, tight site market”, and start imagining bigger. 

New crane day was very special to us as a family. Ben’s Dad drove Ben, Pacey and me to Liebherr in Dandenong to pick up the new wheels. Ben and I drove it back to the yard together – it was such a special moment for the two of us. Together, we had been in business for 18 months.  We had initially struggled to get funding for the business purchase, so to be in a position to finance a basically new LTM1060 was a massive accomplishment. 

We knew we were doing something right… 

As a condition of our recent purchase, Liebherr came to our factory to train the team in the use of the big machine. We made a Saturday of it, building both knowledge and morale amongst our team.  As Ben mentioned in the Instagram post “it was an expensive decision for us to bring everyone out for the 60T training in double bubble. But, it afforded us a chance to put on a BBQ and not be in a rush for once. It was a great learning experience and it provided an opportunity to have the team together and thank them for the huge effort this month (year).” 

Victoria was well and truly still in lockdown in June. 

Earlier in the year, I had enrolled Pacey in childcare for two days a week.  This enabled me to better concentrate on running Blue Dog Cranes, having only Chloe by my side. However, the covid numbers continued to rise and in an attempt to keep our business and family safe, I removed Pacey from childcare. I firmly believe we made the right decision, but it definitely wasn’t an easy one.  

I remember having a conversation with one of our good customers early in this transition. He said “Sammy, you have to make sure you look after yourself.  There are a lot of people relying on you and they are counting on you staying well in order to be successful.”   He went on to say “I know from experience… it may not be in the first few months of living with a newborn, but years later, when the pressure builds up, it can leave you in a bad state.” 

I’ll be forever grateful for this conversation.  It has been a constant reminder to check in with myself. I doubt this customer would have any idea the impact this conversation had on me – and my future awareness and importance of self-care.  In my previous role as an Event Manager, I had overworked myself (resulting in a severe case of Bells Palsy), so I was keen to avoid walking the same path – as I may not have recovered as quickly, or at all.

I found most days challenging. I worked from home (like most Victorians) with two kids by my side. My days were structured mostly like this… the kids and I would have breakfast, I’d take phone calls, the kids and I would play in our front garden or walk up the back paddock, I’d take phone calls, the kids and I would have lunch, I’d take phone calls, the kids (Pacey) would watch TV, I’d take phone calls, the kids and I would collect firewood or play in the back garden, I’d take phone calls… by the back garden part of the day I’d probably have a wine in my hand too… no wonder my anxiety flared up. I was incredibly grateful and fortunate that I had amazing neighbours. I’d been in lockdown a long time, it was about 30-days before our “official” lockdown began in March 2020. I was pregnant with Chloe at the time and the unknown of Covid was something I was keen to stay away from.  My neighbours would deliver me milk (wine, snacks, DVDs and other essentials), we would have fenceline parties, we’d cry about our situation, deliberate the vaccinations, plus a whole heap…  I ordered Coles in  weekly and my Local green grocers delivered my fruit, veg, bread and meat. The Pacey, Chloe and Mum unit became pretty self sufficient during the longest lockdown in the world. The challenge laid in the “Groundhog Day” like proceedings, with no end in sight. 

On the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel fortunate. It’s funny how the pandemic made me feel fortunate for the simplest of things. I was working in construction so I was able to get assistance with the children, my Mum, my parents-in-law and my neighbour were my saving grace. Ben and I worked harder than we ever had in our lives, we spent less time together in our whole relationship. He was out frantically getting our business going and I was scheduling, customer servicing, looking after our kids and trying to keep the household together. My neighbour lent me this book (I still have it): https://www.amazon.com.au/Little-Miss-Busy-Surviving-Motherhood/dp/140528871X

I felt fortunate because amongst all this craziness we were still able to work. Since we all got our freedom back post pandemic I’ve had many conversations with people about who won the “iso game”. We had people that couldn’t work, who were confined to their homes, who were in constant “stay-cay holiday mode”. And, we had people who worked around the clock, because we could but became significantly burnt out because we couldn’t go for a beer at the pub with our mates, or take an overnight to the country. We just got more and more and more burnt out.

I was very excited when the Government announced the 2-week construction lock down in September. Finally we were going to get a break! 

The news came about 10pm on a Monday night and my Mum was having the kids on her usual Tuesday. I dropped them off with her at 9am, I drove home, I laid on the couch and I don’t think I moved for 7-hours. My phone would have rung about 3 times that day, I was ecstatic that I was able to get a break…. It hasn’t happened since. 

In October, my son had a bad accident, he spent 4-days in ICU and about 2-weeks in hospital. Of all pandemic downfalls, general illness/hospital stays were the hardest things, it was a lonely time to have a baby and it was a lonely time to be in a hospital for an extended period of time, both of which I experienced. In the moment I loved that I was able to spend 4-days uninterrupted with Chloe in the hospital when she was born but in reflection I would have loved to have experienced that excitement for Pacey to come meet us. When Pacey was in hospital after his accident  I would have welcomed to have the grandparents in to sit by his side to give me a break, but at the same time he was very sick and I did not want to compromise his health in anyway. It was just lonely for us. We Facetimed the family a lot during this time, to continue to keep our spirits up. We petitioned to allow one grandparent in so I could have a break for a few hours, but the hospital wouldn’t allow it. I hadn’t had my second vaccination by this time, so I couldn’t grab a beer at the pub, or a quiet meal in a restaurant… I spoke kindly with the nurses and they found me a vaccination time slot one afternoon after the hospital knew nobody else was coming in to get their jab. I was thankful that I had one less thing to worry about. 

Despite how challenging life was Blue Dog Cranes continued to kick goals and reach milestones. By the end of 2021 we had grown from three cranes to six, and the arrival of our seventh crane, the LTC1050 wasn’t far away in 2022. At the close of the year we were in a position to give our full-time workers large bonus cheques, $10K, I hand delivered them in a Dog Costume… obviously he was wearing a Blue Dog Cranes T-Shirt.

Most of my network here know me as Samantha Charlton, the Events and Project Manager. However, a heap has changed in the last three years so I thought that I would re-introduce myself as Samantha Ind, General Manager (Bawss Dawg) at Blue Dog Cranes.

My husband Ben and I started Blue Dog Cranes in November 2019. We were excited to be stepping out into the crane industry (an industry that Ben had many years experience, and I had none :-)). Ben had an idea to not be another crane company, to do things differently and do what we say we are going to do. Little did we know in a short couple of months the world was going to be turned upside down with the hit of a pandemic, we’d just taken the biggest leap in our life and there was so much uncertainty ahead of us.

I started within the business as an admin support role, I had a strong logistics and organisation background but my knowledge of cranes and lifting was light on. I was searching for my new professional purpose after having my son a year earlier. I wanted to go back to work but my past life as an event manager wasn’t going to work with our new life. So I started as admin support for Blue Dog Cranes.

I worked really hard to learn the industry and learn about the cranes.

In June 2021 Ben handed over the reigns to me so he could concentrate on growing the business and operating the new LTM1060. I’m proud of what we have achieved as a couple, and as a family. All of which wouldn’t be possible without our mini army.

I’m looking forward to sharing more about my journey with you.

“You do you, we’ll do cranes.”