I once worked on an 80+ condo with 12 units per building. The EC was a really small shop, low-balled the bid and then tried to make money by skimping on everything and fiddling the payroll. He got way behind and ending up subcontracting work out. Didn't insist on drug tests for subs. Have you ever tried to understand wiring put in by meth-heads after the drywall was up?
We could have wired it from scratch faster that repairing the aftermath.
His scrimping included having the teenager of his next door neighbor do the knockouts and cable clamps for the panelboards before delivering them onsite (paid him pizza or something).
He ran triplex as temp power to each building 120/240v. He had me install GFCIs and
ground rods at each building, the whole circuit fed by a 2-pole 50A GFCI (the only OCPD in the temp circuit). I told him this was not going to work. He told me he was a master IBEW electrician, and the boss. I said fine, but don't blame me when it fails. First good rain shunted some of the neutral current through the ground, pop goes the 50A CB. He hired a guy with a bucket truck to tape a 4th conductor along the 1000ft of triplex.
He precut, again offsite, any cable larger than 12-2. Although each building was supposed to be the same, we ended up needing more cable than if he had just brought in the reels.
Through all of this he made a major enemy of the inspector. It got so bad the town contracted the President of WV IAEI as an additional inspector. The General Contractor would not allow our boss in the site trailer nor to meetings.
On another job with this bozo (I only worked one summer) we were doing a chain rest. the specs called for fixture whips in MC, the rest of the wiring in EMT. He had me put in whips up to 24ft long rather than using EMT. Next week I ripped out all the MC and put in the EMT.
There has got to be some lessons in there, over and above "don't work for a bozo".
