Got a kick out of this.....

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daleuger

daleuger

Senior Member
Location
earth
What's the goofiest thing you've seen a greenie do?

This probably isn't the funniest one I've got but this is the one that made me think of this thread. Summer before last another guy and I were roughing in for about 30 light poles and they sent this helper out. I'd never met this guy, which wasn't too far out of the ordinary because our shop employed about 80-100 guys with new ones coming all the time. He walked up with some pretty old tools which made me assume....(yes, I know) that he at least had a year or two under his belt. That was until he opened his mouth. I'm finishing up tying in a pole and he walks up and asks me if I need to borrow his channel locks to put my PVC together.....huh:-? Then he asks me why am I lighting the pipe on fire. After a few minutes the other guy I was working on this with came around and told him to go find one of the stub outs for another base and about where it would be. He then decides that he is sick, but he doesn't have a car and wants to use someone's phone to call and get a ride. Somebody let him after a serious amount of ribbing. He never came back to our job.

Some time later I found out through some other people that he also put a 2'x4' light in upside down in a drop ceiling because....."I figured you guys needed to see what you were doing up there." Also, one day when he came into the shop to work service with somebody looking like a deer in the headlights the owner told him that maybe he should come in a bit early to look at the tickets, see who he's going with, etc. He asks, "How early is early?"

Needless to say he didn't last long.
 
480sparky

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
One story comes to mind.

Running a couple of 3" pvcs underground, we could only go so far due to other trades. So instead of just dead-ending the pipes and using some duct tape, the guy running the trencher just dry-fit a 90 and a stub onto one of the pipes so it stuck up above grade.

The next week, a cubbie shows up, and we're out there digging up the pvcs to continue trenching them in. The operator takes the bucket end of the trencher, digs the 90 up, clears some working space, and the cubbie and I jump in and start to work.

Next thing I know, this cubbie has the 90 in his hands, on hand on each end, and is pulling it against his knee. I ask him what he's doing. He says (and I'm not kidding here!), "I'm trying to straighten this out. We can still use it if I can get it straight again!"
 
JacksonburgFarmer

JacksonburgFarmer

Senior Member
Location
Butler County Ohio
I once told a Apprentice to get the bandsaw....it was laying next the 1/2" electric drill....I was about 10 feet from these tools, and sent him to get the Band SAW -read SAW- he came back with the drill and said " I know this is a drill, and you wanted a somekinda saw, but I didnt know what the other thing was over there...so I brought this" Clueless I say....Clueless....
 
daleuger

daleuger

Senior Member
Location
earth
Geez even with no clue what a band saw is and you know this is a drill.....holy process of elimination, Batman. :smile:
 
Mr. Wizard

Mr. Wizard

Senior Member
Location
Texas
Saw a greenie pull wire out of a panel with five conduits. Nothing special about that, except in one conduit he had red wire, the next conduit was black wire, the next was blue, the next was white, and finally green. After nearly passing out at the sight of it, I asked why? "That way we can keep the colors separated". We aren't washing clothes here. Those conduits went up to a large pull box nearby, so it wasn't too bad of a fix.
 
S

SEO

Senior Member
Location
Michigan
I made a rough electrical inspection of a house that two engineers owned and pulled a homeowners permit. The Mrs. was an electrical engineer and the Mr. was a mechanical engineer. They had a lot of interesting things going on with their wiring but the one thing that I'll never forget is the installation of a wraparound fan box. They had ceilings with open beams and wanted to install fans. Looking up I noticed a wraparound fan box secured to the bottom of a beam with the wraparound part facing down. The Mr. was there when I made the inspection and when I asked him how in the world he thought that he could hang a fan on the box he said he questioned his wife (electrical engineer) she said it was a listed fan box and that it had to be installed that way because the beam was to wide for the box to straddle and a fan box was required.
 
B

big john

Senior Member
Location
Portland, ME
I'm pretty sure I've told all these on here at one point, but I love these stories:
  • The time I asked a helper to go get a fish tape. "What's that?" he asks. "It's bright orange, and shaped like a donut with a black handle, and it's hanging on the back door of the van." He leaves... time passes I start wondering where he went. Finally shows back up and without a word, he hands me a tree branch. I was so confused about how we went from "fish tape" to "tree branch" I didn't even know how to correct him.
  • The kid who got up one winter morning, spent 45 minutes shoveling his car out of the snow, drove 45 minutes out to the job site, walked up to me and my foreman while we're getting ready to go start work, and tells the foreman: "I feel sick, so I won't be coming in to work today." Then he turned around went back to his car and drove 45 minutes back home.
  • Because I was super-green too, once: The mechanic I was working with told me to go get the dozen 2x4s we were going to be installing in this hallway. I spent the next half-hour scrounging up 2x4 pieces of lumber and laying them out in the hallway wondering what the heck we were gonna be doing with them.
-John
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
big john said:
The kid who got up one winter morning, spent 45 minutes shoveling his car out of the snow, drove 45 minutes out to the job site, walked up to me and my foreman while we're getting ready to go start work, and tells the foreman: "I feel sick, so I won't be coming in to work today." Then he turned around went back to his car and drove 45 minutes back home.
Click to expand...
Well, you can't say he was lazy. :roll:
 
peter d

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
My best one yet was using a vaccuum to suck a mouse and string through in a run of EMT. I'm running the vaccum and it seems like it's taking forever...and ever...and ever. I keep calling the boss to see if it's even moving. Finally, he comes down to check on what's going on. There's an open 4" square in the run 6 feet above my head!!!! DOH!!!

Turns out the vacuum method was useless anyway. The steel couplings caused too much air leakage. :mad:
 
daleuger

daleuger

Senior Member
Location
earth
big john said:
I'm pretty sure I've told all these on here at one point, but I love these stories:
The time I asked a helper to go get a fish tape. "What's that?" he asks. "It's bright orange, and shaped like a donut with a black handle, and it's hanging on the back door of the van." He leaves... time passes I start wondering where he went. Finally shows back up and without a word, he hands me a tree branch. I was so confused about how we went from "fish tape" to "tree branch" I didn't even know how to correct him.
Click to expand...

I just have to ask. Is he still around?
 
daleuger

daleuger

Senior Member
Location
earth
I didn't get to see this one (thankfully because there's no WAY I could have kept a straight face) but I was on the same job and saw all the aftermath. J'man told this kid to take a stick of 1" EMT and cut it in half. The kid puts it on a chain vice and starts to cut the middle of the end with a hacksaw. He somehow managed to cut a good foot or two that way and they somehow managed to let him go that long without stopping him. We had that stick of pipe around as a running joke for some time.
 
480sparky

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
Had a new guy show up on a job where we needed to run a trench between two buildings. They were about 40' apart, and the trencher just would have been too big to use, so the foreman set Barry (the new guy) to work digging the trench.

"I want a 4-foot trench from here to here," he told him.

After a couple hours, Barry comes in and tells the foreman he's done. We go out and look, and we were totally surprised. Barry said, "Well, you didn't say if you wanted it 4-feet wide or 4-foot deep, so I made it both!"
 
peter d

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
480sparky said:
Had a new guy show up on a job where we needed to run a trench between two buildings. They were about 40' apart, and the trencher just would have been too big to use, so the foreman set Barry (the new guy) to work digging the trench.

"I want a 4-foot trench from here to here," he told him.

After a couple hours, Barry comes in and tells the foreman he's done. We go out and look, and we were totally surprised. Barry said, "Well, you didn't say if you wanted it 4-feet wide or 4-foot deep, so I made it both!"
Click to expand...

:confused:

4'X4'x40' in a couple hours?
 
daleuger

daleuger

Senior Member
Location
earth
480sparky said:
Had a new guy show up on a job where we needed to run a trench between two buildings. They were about 40' apart, and the trencher just would have been too big to use, so the foreman set Barry (the new guy) to work digging the trench.

"I want a 4-foot trench from here to here," he told him.

After a couple hours, Barry comes in and tells the foreman he's done. We go out and look, and we were totally surprised. Barry said, "Well, you didn't say if you wanted it 4-feet wide or 4-foot deep, so I made it both!"
Click to expand...

You don't need a ditch witch. He IS the ditch witch. Did you ask him if he was ever a marine?
 
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