Dumb Employee Stories ?

simplejack

While on the same job as mentioned above (Fox TV news studios) we found out that the painters had over sprayed almost the full inventory of Cadillacs from the dealer Lot next door, while painting the exterior of the building! we heard it was over a million dollar mistake!! LOL!! the painting contractor bought at least one of the cars and was bringing it to the job site! I'm sure the Insurance took care of the rest! LOL!!

simplejack

My buddy and co worker JIM was a fool, he'd have to go to the rest room every 30 min. this guy couldn't hold it. we were on a empty demoed out floor (commercial building) no rest room left and the freight elevator took forever! plus we were told to only use the rest rooms in the underground parking structure (very far)

Well after a while of 'snapping' down lay out lines, JIM had to go! so he decided to whiz down a drain pipe left sticking out of the slab floor by the demo crew. about 30 minutes later the building Engineer shows up and said that the dentist office in the floor below complained that a patent had 'water' drip on his/her from the ceiling while waiting!

The engineer never found the leaky pipe because JIM TOOK THE LEAK!!

Mud Master

That"s just nasty on so many levels!!!

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Resta

When you work for somebody you need to keep your mouth shut. I worked for a guy for two years and I knew he doesn’t like me. From the first time we saw each other. When economy was getting down, he decided to get rid of me and my buddy. He could simply say that he doesn’t need us and I’ll be fine with that. But he went other way. It was a job to put a custom made crown moldings on the suspended ceilings, 60 ft and 11 miters and white carrera marble on the walls. He said it is 4 hours job and if I don’t agree with him, he already has a guy who will do that in 4 hours. I told him it is 10 hour work. And we make a bet if his guy will made that in the day I’ll go, if guy doesn’t he’ll pay me for that day. He told for everyone in the company about this bet. At the bet day it came two guys and they don’t finished work per day, they need to come next day to do a miters. And few days latter somebody spend 1 day to fix everything. After two days I was free to go….Conclusion – keep your mouth shut, even if your boss is not right.

HomeGuard

we were installing some sand in a crawl that was having moisture issues. One of the guys brought his 17 yo son and 2 of the sons buddies to help. Well we were shoveling the sand into the vents and they were spreading it under the house. Some how they buried themselves into a corner and couldn't dig out because they were out of room. it took us 30 mins to realize that we hadn't seen them in awhile. They were screaming help but between the insulation and the sand no one could hear em.

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Milk was a bad choice

JumboJack

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in texas with framing and cornish people will do it for 3.00 a foot. What do yall think about that? Just laber

trptman

I like that one

trptman

This one's not a "screw up", but I thought it was probably appropriate for inclusion.
I'm laying some ceramic tile floor and the guy I've got doing some general labor type help asks me, "are those to hold the tiles down until they dry"?

He was pointing to the + shaped spacers at the corners of the tiles.

BMAN

about twenty years ago i was up painying a metal roof over a pool patio, climbrd up started painting and worked my way across till iwas in the opposite corner, opposite the ladder too. I painted myself into a corner!

Snobnd

Lets see.... Ok New guy shows up to help me install news doors at the job site we are on in NY. We do the first set of new doors - Closers, hinges, locks, kick plates I explain we have 20 sets of these to do He says I want to do my own doors! I know what I'm doing and it is not that hard.
OOOk here is the print and the door schedule go to it - ?? he now says "well you pick out the stuff I need Then I can do the install"...... (Hmm) ok here you go let me know if you need help ( I send him to the back of the building) You didn't think I was going to let him install an important door did ya - I go back to hanging (4 doors) and hardware The GC walks over to me shaking his head you better go check on your guy.........Oh crap .... I go check and as I'm walking over to him Im looking at the doors they are upside down and he is installing the kick plates (steel doors) well at least he didn't do the door closer........ Yup he did - ON the outside backwards the dam doors would only open 15 degrees! that was his last day on my job!
Oh by the way My boss didn't learn and sent him to a bigger door job Arnolds bakery in Greenwich ct where he installed 25 door closers and instead of installing to the inside of the room he installed them all to the hallway side because it was easer for him!

Todd M.

I am new to this site but had to share my own little tidbit of employee nightmare. I was doing an apartment complex exterior trim replacement and had 5 guys on site. I hired a new guy who supposedly had experience in facility maintenance and was a pick-up guy for a tract builder. I paired him up with one of my guys to work together to see how he did. I go by the job site at the end of the day to my foreman groaning about the new guy. He starts out by telling me how he cut a couple pieces of fascia too short, as I am rolling my eyes, he then proceeds to inform me that the guy started to use the new 12" miter saw (Just bought 2 days earlier for them on this job), put the blade on a bevel but forgot to flip up the fence and started to cut through the fence. Then for the icing on the cake, he strung his tape out to measure the fascia he was going to cut and ended up cutting through the board and the tape measure. At least his board was cut to the right measurement that time. lol I laugh now but sent him packing that day. I keep telling myself "I am not a employer, I am a daycare provider"

Todd

wyoming 1

OK I got three short ones
1 We were setting up to pour a concrete slab for a steel building pea gravel under the slab and we were putting down some plastic over it and the plumbers helper say "you guys are doing that so the concrete doesn't stick to the gravel"? I said "yep they may want to move it one day"
2 I had a somewhat new guy putting on cabinet hardware and I was finishing some other stuff and all the sudden I hear are these handles different sizes I donot know what happened but he had three doors drilled about an inch different than all the others.
3 Last year I bought a 99 one ton to make a new dump out of (Like new only 30000 miles) new guy hauled a load of trash to the dump and I gave him my card to stop and fill it up and I get a call "is this gas or diesel?" gas "oh ah ah I put some diesel in it" how much "not much" ten gallons so I show up and he says "I thought something wasn't right the nozzel wouldn't fit in fill neck" I said that was your first clue the second is right above the fill neck where it says unleaded gas only.

ChainsawCharlie

*cue Yakity Sax (Benny Hill theme)*

trptman

This was something stupid I did.
I was scraping some soffit on a one story structure to get ready to re paint it. I set up one section of pipe scaffold with wheels on it and I placed the planks on the very top which allowed me to reach, but left me with no safety rails or anything. I was thinking "I'm careful and have worked off of scaffolding countless hours, I don't need to put anything else on here-it'll just make it heavier to move around, I'm not that high..etc.." (famous last words).

Sure enough later, I was scraping overhead not looking at my feet and I walked straight off the scaffolding. Luckily other than a couple of scrapes, I didnt' get hurt. Probably pretty funny to watch if anyone saw.
...I don't work off scaffolding like that anymore

stacker

not so much a dumb employee but dumber employer story.
was working in kansas and talking to this carpenter about getting guys to fall for things.you know,like sending them for a box of head joints,or block stretchers....anyway,the carpenter told of a guy he sent to town(about 2 miles)for a board stretcher one day.the guy left and came back an hour later,telling his boss he couldnt find one.the next day they sent him for something else,same results.they did this about 4 or 5 times until one day the boss sent him for something and followed the guy.instead of searching for whatever his boss had sent him for,he went straight to the bar,and sat there drinking beer for an hour before heading back to work.needless to say,he wasnt sent out anymore.

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life is short,do your masonry naked!!
http://ok.local.yahoo.biz/knabemasonry/index.html

Mud Master

Have you posted that story before here? That sounds so familiar, like I have heard that almost word for word.

Still just as funny second time around though.

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ChainsawCharlie

Can't really blame the guy. Nothing wrong with pranking the pranksters.

Except for the drinking part. I would have been at the beach watching the bikinis.

ecooke21

when i was 18 a friend of mine started installing satellites.. he was swamped so i decided to help in one Saturday.... he handed me a 24" 3/8 spade bit and told me to drill a hole behind the tv... easy right? wrong! i ended up drilling "through" the carpet and catching one of the fibers.!!! i pulled a 15' (foot) strand right from the middle of the room! i almost sh!t my pants.. there was no hiding it..the homeowner came in and was fine about it.... they had new carpet on order, it was getting delivered the next weekend...Whew! i have never drilled on top of carpet again

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A bunch of little rabbit turds banding together usually just makes one bigger piece of crap. -Mike Finley

woodworkbykirk

[quote=EPD;614750]id imagine your idea cost your boss money,

it was on a golf course, in the pro shop, we put up 2 walls to seperate the actual shop from what was going to be the new storage room. on one wall there was a 2' recess for a counter for a coffee machine, i said why have a 2' by 2' section of dead space on the outside corner drywalled in, eliminate a section on wall and install shelving, for coffee cups and baked good which they were going to sell, my idea was a go, 2 weeks later i was looking for a new job. when i got the new job afterwords, the project i worked on was one of the highest profile renos in the section of the city, it made it to the homes section of the local paper and i got a ton of work on my own

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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