Jobs that went wrong for one reason or another

[Pebbs]

We all love a job that goes well, but its only the bad ones that really stick in my mind these days, and at the time they may have seemed bad, but they still give me the giggles years later. So confession time about some of the jobs that have gone bad for one reason or another....

Lesson Number 1 Beware of the CCTV cameras

Everyone loves a bit of night work in a big department store, good pay, less hours and the whole store to yourselves. So when we were working in a certain well known store in Knightsbridge everything was fine until one morning when I got a phone call to go in as there had been an incident.

As you know no smoking is allowed however one lad (well actually all of them) thought this didnt apply to them. Little known to them was the camera had caught one lad having a smoke, and then using a manequin to use as a cigarette holder whilst he was mixing up some adhesive. He then forgot to remove the offending cigarette out of her fingers. I dont know how I kept a straight face when they showed me the tape and slapped the cigarette butt in a plastic bag on the desk.... They kept us on after a lot of apologising but that was a close call.

However the same cant be said for a certain supermarket chain that caught the lads helping theirselves to the salad and fruit bar. They didnt accept the arguement that the goods shouldnt have been left out overnight and the contract was duly terminated. All I can say is its a bloody good job they didnt have the camera near the pick and mix section because it was cleared out nightly. Tut Tut.

 

[SandyFloor]

Years ago I had a squad of guys working nights doing repairs on a multi storey car park in Glasgow. The car park was scaffolded all round. It just happened to be situated where the hookers walked about at night looking for business. The big mouthed young guy ( every team has one ) followed his nature by gesturing and shouting abuse from the top of the car park. What he didn't expect was one of the hookers to hitch up her leopard print mini skirt and start climbing the scaffold to the upper level to get to him. as she got close he scarpered and wasn't seen again for about an hour. When he finally reappeared he put on a brave face but he was scared....really scared

 

[Time's Ran Out]

I was a contracts manager for a large tiling co. for 3 weeks:lol:
I was asked to oversee a team of cleaners 'attempting' to remove a coating of Vitrifying liquid that some bright tiling co. owner had decided to impregnate a matt finish tile to make it shiny in an up market car showroom.
They worked all night under supervision of a foreman on this floor and I was called to see the Managing Director of the car distributors the next morning.
As I walked in the showroom the stainless steel handrails,fire extinguishers and anything chrome were turning to rust in front of my eyes from the acid fumes they had used:yikes:
Fortunately all the cars had been removed prior to any work being done, but I believe the cleaning co. had a big bill to sort out.

 

[tfs]

I used to renovate old sash windows in Edinburgh and on most jobs there was a small team of us (two or three guys). One of the guys always went to get the lunch as he liked nothing better than a *** and a good skive. On this day he said 'right lads, what do you want from greggs' so we gave him our orders and he started taking notes. He was leaning on the wall writting this all down and when he removes the paper from against the wall and in his messy writing you can see everything we ordered scored onto the freshly decorated lining paper

Cheese and ham baguette
suasage roll
pizza baguette
etc, etc

The customers house had just been fully refurbished, walls all lined and painted floors sanded and varnished etc.

To make it worse he got a rubber to try and remove it(I dont understand to this day why as it was an indentation on the wall and not actual pencil lead)

By the time he was finnished the wall was a right mess and the boss had to get his painter to repaint the wall at his expense.

Not the funniest of stories but its the first one that came to mind without giving you all a luagh at my expense:lol:

 

[Olz]

The only one that springs to mind was when I got a bad feeling from a customer on a large job, two bathrooms, kitchen, hallway and conservatory, and some laminate in a couple of rooms and some plastering. The job went smoothly until the customers cheque bounced, then excuses, then she tried to claim the job was not up to scratch. It was spot on and I ended up taking her to court and getting almost double the invoiced amount by the time the court had added on compensation etc.

I had a gut feeling when I quoted the job that it she was bad news but I ignored them, this is the only thing I regret, not listening to my gut instinct.

It all worked out in the end and I still have the court file I prepared, I read through it every so often and it makes me smile, its got all the letters exchanged between us, the solicitors and the court papers, and copies of the bounced cheques and the cheque from the baliff firm.

 

[doug boardley]

I had a ufh job go wrong last year.....I'd forgot to put the sensor probe and conduit in:mad2::mad2:

 

[kilty55]

i did a trav bathroom for a customer,this was the 4th attempt btw the previous 3 were ripped out so it was essential we got it 100 percent,,all went fine until the plumber ignored my exact instructions where to put the harmonica shower screen and drilled both sides in the wrong place.......luckily enough we made good aftter some advice and all was well..phew

 

[mikethetile]

I was a foreman on a refurb of a block of flats owned by a housing association, there was a painters scaffold out side to paint the large sash windows. it was the height of summer so break times the lads would climb out the windows and sunbathe on the scaffold

one day one of the tenants came and found me and said my team of polish kitchen fittters had pinched his spirits and drunk them

I said to him how do you know it was that team

come with me he said

they were all asleep on the scaffold surrounded by rum and vodka bottles

whoops

same job they were warned not to urinate off the scaffold as there had been complaints from passers by, this was on east india dock rd, London

at the bottom of every standard were little pools appearing, they were peeing down the inside of the tubes