Dumb Employee Stories ?

strathd

Anyone have any dumb employee stories ? I've got a doozy.
I'll post after I see what comes up.

Heritage

If he's making me money and doing quality work he's not dumb.

If he's not making me money or not doing quality work he's dumb.

I forgive all else.

That doesn't really answer your question does it?

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jciotti7

Had a guy come to work with a hangover while we were building a block foundation. Well he got sick on the scaffold and his false teeth ended up 6 courses down inside the block. Quess how he spent the afternoon?

Forry

Kinda dumb. I was making a surprise visit to a job site, fifth floor office. Elevator door opened to two of my employees in the elevator talking sh!t about me. Talk about surprise! I wasn't surprised, but they were. I left and they didn't last long.

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i've got all ten
smashed a lot of them stupidly before
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bwalley

This is going to be a long thread.

atnas

Had a young worker once check to see if the forklift gas tank was full with a Bic lighter! Luckily another worker was close and swatted the lighter away from the tank.

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Nail It

New guy here, post #1, looks like a great thread to begin posting

Lets see, where do I begin.

Could it be the time when a two year employee filled the hydraulic tank on my NEW Case skid loader with diesel.

Or the time when my veteran lead man loaded a skid loader on a trailer, without first checking to see if the trailer was secured on the ball. It wouldn't have been too bad if the truck/trailer wasn't pointing down hill.

Or the time when I was being nice to a newish employee and said "sure you can take one of the trucks for the night so you can move to another apartment" He dropped it off Saturday morning, I asked how the move went, he said everything went just fine. I walked around the truck later after he'd left, the whole drivers side of the truck was smashed in.

Or the time..........

I could go on and on, employees are great!

jcalvin

I have a similar one. Loading up a tractor on a trailer, ball secured well, emergency brake set, and truck pointing downhill also. Problem is, on a long trailer, the wheels act similar to the fulcrum on a seesaw. Everybody has rode a seesaw. Only when your ball is secured well, the back of the trailer goes down so the fulcrum (wheels) transfer the motion making the front of the trailer go up. Fun isn't this!!! Remember the ball is secured and the front of the trailer is heading up and so does the back end of the truck. Everyone knows the parking brakes on a truck on the back tires and when they are in the air, there is nothing to keep the truck still since it is pointing down the hill. The next thing was lots of screaming, running, dodging, and ducking. Can't remember who did what except for when everything was still and calm again, everyone was standing around shaking white faced and bug eyed with the tractor on the truck with nothing bent broke or other wise damaged.

We called it a day.

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Cal


You hired WHO

woodworkbykirk

nearly got fired for coming up with an idea that the client absolutely loved, boss was pissed he didnt think of it

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putting down subfloor with glue and screws, well i saw dr. smith and the robot too , i had a martian burger and a sonic shake

loneframer

Had a guy one time who went with me at lunch time to get some 12' 2x4s. Had to park on other side of street from site. He got halfway across the road, remembered his smokes, and turned around took several strides and walked dead into the end of the stack. Left about a 2" gash on his cheek. Damn cigarettes.

dubz

never mind. can't get vid to embed.

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EPD

id imagine your idea cost your boss money,

i was using my cordless paslode doing backers in a bathroom and i keep hearing, let me try it ... "never used a nail gun before 25 year old"
i turn around for a split second to grab whatever i was grabbing and i hear bam and "yelp" sure enough he shot two fingers together

classic! told him where to find the electrical tape....

woodbutchr

We were doing some concrete forming one day & I had this high school kid screwing down the plywood & he had problems getting the screw to start (WTH)

I told him to spit on the screw & they would go in better. He laughed at me & said something like you're full of chit or something.

Anyway, I walked off & looked back after gettin' about 75 yards from him & guess what he was doing?

LOL, spitin' on the screws!!

This same kid also stuck a hoe in the mixer while it was running! I need not say any more about what happened there.
He was an easy one to send after the board strechers & shy hooks.

BreyerConstruct

instead of buying 12 - 2x4x8's they bought 8 2x4x12's...
(Wonder why they're so long???)

Just finished up raining, and they get to the jobsite to meet the delivery driver, on a job we've sat them down to clearly explain that the HO is high strung (engineer) and extra care must be taken...

So my guys convince (against his wishes- I checked) the delivery driver to drive across the yard with the materials.

Mind you, we just finished telling them to be careful, and we sent extra guys along to help hand walk the materials, and plywood to create a walkway across the yard.

This then leads us into a fun story about inspectors... but I think that one is already in another thread!
~Matt


Or the time several of your guys try to do a job they can't handle, that falls in your company's abilities and area, they operate without a license or insurance, and call you up for advice... Oh yea, that non-compete they signed??? ~Sigh~

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firemike

Hired a younger guy that said he had lots of experiance on a skidsteer. Installing 15" storm sewer, about an hour and a half into the day he backed it into the trench. Well. no one got hurt, he had his mistake and let it go at that. Got the hoe and lifted it back on the wheels and got it going again, less that 15 minutes later he backed it into the same trench. Adios Skippy!

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Warren

Hired a kid fresh out of high school. First thing I have him do is move a stack of precuts.Upon explaining where I want them. he pipes up with "Ya know,if we all carried them it would get done faster. OK, strike one. Later in the day Im sticking in part of the roof and I get this feeling somebody is watchin me. Yep, kid leaning out window smokin a cig and staring.I ask him if he finished with the hurricane clips he was doin and he says, Nah, Im gonna finish em tomorrow. Mind you its still about 45 minutes until quitting time. He got two strikes with that one.He never got to finish them hurricane clips.

dubz

Last spring I get to the job and see a set of my pretty new folding metal horses are crumpled in the woods. They were the good steel ones with adjustable legs too, not the cheap tin things. My guy stacked rafter stock on them until they folded apparently.

Last fall, I went over a shower mud job pour, and the need to leave enough room for tile thickness when the drain is all the way un-threaded. We don't do much tile ourselves, but the same guy poured it too thick a few years ago and it was a problem.

Afterward, I asked him if he left enough and he said yes. We struggle through the tile work (which I should have subbed anyway) and of, course when we are ready to do the floor, I go to unscrew it, and it's out of thread.

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maverick17

The only real "dumb employee" story was more of a "lazy employee" story, like some of the others.

We had started early and it was around 4pm. Louie wanted to call it a day, I told him we were close to done, why have to come back tomorrow. It was a weekday so I know he had nothing else better to do, (not that he did on the weekend) but he said his "brain was fried" and he would wait for me in the truck.

What am I supposed to do then? Take the bitch home, cry, yell, or just finish the job. It took me about 3-4 more hours, and when I came out, he was laying in the back of the bed with his shirt as a pillow. I told him I was done, and he should help me get my tools, he just grumbled like I used to when my mom would wake me up for school in the third grade.

I got my stuff, and we left. He made some joke about how rough his day was, I didnt laugh, just said, "make sure you put your hours in," As a joke back to him.

I had him putting his hours on a google apps spreadsheet, so I could forward it to my payroll company.

I see his hours for the day... He was fired that evening.

dirt diggler

I had this one guy and we were forming (for concrete)

He was terrible at math and got a measurement wrong.


I said (kinda tired and pissy) "what is one quarter inch plus one quarter inch?"


he said "two quarter inches"






I actually needed a laugh that day

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loneframer

I just remembered a new guy named Kevin, we sent him to the lumberyard to get some 44D hooter clips. When they said they didn't have any, he started asking contractors in the parking lot where to get them. The guys at the yard got so used to us sending in the new guys for stuff like this, they would play along for the laugh.