# World's worst laborer.



## wnerfr (Jul 26, 2015)

Years ago my boss and I were summoned to another site to lift a glulam into place. The thing was huge...took everything 5 men could handle. The contractors laborer was just standing there watching. The contractor yelled "Damn it Bill, what are you doing? Get over here and jump on this beam" Without hesitation the kid immediately ran over and jumped up onto the beam as we were carrying it, stood there perched like a bird waiting for the next command. You moron, get off the beam yelled his boss. Poor kid, now he was thoroughly confused!


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## JBM (Mar 31, 2011)

We had a kid, we told him to pick up a piece of granite curbing and walk around the building to see if he could find another one like it. 

Good times....


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## wnerfr (Jul 26, 2015)

That's funny... I'd like to see that. It's strange how they never ask why do it that way. I guess they don't want to look stupid.


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

About 20 years ago we were framing a house and I hired a kid as a laborer. I needed some strips of plywood cut and as I was making the first cut the saw cord got hung-up. While he stood there and watched, I stopped the saw untangled the cord and very calmly said “If that cord gets caught again while you stand there and do nothing – your fired”.

He was gainfully employed for 60 more seconds.


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## pritch (Nov 2, 2008)

Had a kid come ask me where the penny nails was. He said he was sent after 16 penny nails...


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## Agility (Nov 29, 2013)

pritch said:


> Had a kid come ask me where the penny nails was. He said he was sent after 16 penny nails...



You should have sent him to the lumberyard with $0.16. 

Last year I watched a two man team try to rip a sheet of plywood in the wind. The first started ripping so the sawdust was blowing back in his face. The second ran over with an air hose and held it right by his face to blow the sawdust backwards into the wind.

Then again, last year I cut right through the bottom four rungs of a ladder with a roof hook while making my hole for a dormer from the inside.


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## wnerfr (Jul 26, 2015)

That must of been a wooden ladder.


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## Warren (Feb 19, 2005)

Agility said:


> You should have sent him to the lumberyard with $0.16.
> 
> Last year I watched a two man team try to rip a sheet of plywood in the wind. The first started ripping so the sawdust was blowing back in his face. The second ran over with an air hose and held it right by his face to blow the sawdust backwards into the wind.
> 
> Then again, last year I cut right through the bottom four rungs of a ladder with a roof hook while making my hole for a dormer from the inside.


About twenty years ago, I was cutting an overhang off in order to build a chimney. I was saw sawing away when I noticed the sawdust had turned bright orange. When I checked underneath, I saw that I had partially sawed through the side rail of my fiberglass ladder.


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## Youngin' (Sep 16, 2012)

As a labourer I installed a 2 piece bifold knob wrong. 

I put the knob on the right side and the decorative plate on the inside face of the door. 

I honestly thought it was supposed to be a washer to keep the screw from blowing through when the knob was pulled on.


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## MDjim (Mar 15, 2011)

Youngin' said:


> As a labourer I installed a 2 piece bifold knob wrong.
> 
> I put the knob on the right side and the decorative plate on the inside face of the door.
> 
> I honestly thought it was supposed to be a washer to keep the screw from blowing through when the knob was pulled on.



I drilled for a cabinet door pull on the hinge side...Now I always open the door and drill.


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## wnerfr (Jul 26, 2015)

Youngin' said:


> As a labourer I installed a 2 piece bifold knob wrong.
> 
> I put the knob on the right side and the decorative plate on the inside face of the door.
> 
> I honestly thought it was supposed to be a washer to keep the screw from blowing through when the knob was pulled on.


 If that's the dumbest thing you ever did then your doing pretty damn good! 
The dumbest thing I ever did was nail my big toe to the floor joist. The nail was counter sunk and had to be pulled with a Nail puller pincer.
http://www.garrettwade.com/pop_multi_view.asp?t=l&pn=64B01.05


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## Metro M & L (Jun 3, 2009)

Told a laborer to cut a bunch of door casings for flooring to run underneath. The entry door had steel casing which I had told him to do with a grinder, all others to be done with a fein.

He tried to cut it with the fein for about twenty minutes before I finally came over and was like wth is up with all this racket.

He was determined at least.


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## Youngin' (Sep 16, 2012)

wnerfr said:


> If that's the dumbest thing you ever did then your doing pretty damn good!
> The dumbest thing I ever did was nail my big toe to the floor joist. The nail was counter sunk and had to be pulled with a Nail puller pincer.
> http://www.garrettwade.com/pop_multi_view.asp?t=l&pn=64B01.05


That makes me winch even thinking about that. I've shot myself but nothing ever that bad.

I remembered a homeowner's dog got out once. It was my fault. I found it though about half a block down. Homeowner wasn't home fortunately.


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## TaylorMadeAB (Nov 11, 2014)

Youngin' said:


> As a labourer I installed a 2 piece bifold knob wrong.
> 
> I put the knob on the right side and the decorative plate on the inside face of the door.
> 
> I honestly thought it was supposed to be a washer to keep the screw from blowing through when the knob was pulled on.



I'll admit that I've put the knob on the wrong section of a bifold before.


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## jaredhvay (Jul 9, 2009)

Put a deck rimboard on over a step ladder that was straddling a joist once. Didn't realize it till I the needed ladder again a while later.


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## cleveman (Dec 28, 2007)

I was pouring a long section of sidewalk and all the concrete had to be wheelbarrowed in. The helper wheeled the barrow in and dumped the load immediately. I guess he thought the rest would be wheeled through the concrete. I just told him to get a shovel and put it back in the barrow and wheel it to the end of the walk and work from the end to the beginning.


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## mski (Apr 4, 2013)

jaredhvay said:


> Put a deck rimboard on over a step ladder that was straddling a joist once. Didn't realize it till I the needed ladder again a while later.


My brother did similar. He was building his kids a wooden swing set and had the top beam between the top step and "this is not a step" step. Attached the a-frame & secured it all in. He was so proud until he realized what he did.
He sent me a picture after he stopped laughing about what he did. He though it was the funniest thing he ever saw/did.:laughing:


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## jb4211 (Jul 13, 2010)

I'm a one man show. Occasionally, I'll bring a helper a long to unload the truck, clean up and load everything back up.

I had an exterior house painting job. We showed early, began cleaning the exterior followed by applying two coats of paint. I did all of the work. Finished painting about 12 hours later. All that was left was cleaning up.

As I was waiting in the truck completely exhausted, I see my helper dragging the last bag of trash across the stone pavers which surrounded the pool. Behind him was a nice trail of paint, because by dragging the bag he obviously ripped a hole right through allowing paint to leak out.

After a brief freak out, I was forced to pressure wash their pavers as well. And, not just were the paint was, but all of them and the limestone walkway leading to the pavers which also had paint on them.

The HOs were extremely appreciative and thanked me for cleaning the pavers, etc., but were sure that wasn't in the scope.

I explained that I just wanted everything to look great when they got home.

I was soooo pissed. And tired.

I started work at 6am that day and got home just before 11p


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## carzie (May 21, 2013)

jb4211 said:


> I'm a one man show. Occasionally, I'll bring a helper a long to unload the truck, clean up and load everything back up.
> 
> I had an exterior house painting job. We showed early, began cleaning the exterior followed by applying two coats of paint. I did all of the work. Finished painting about 12 hours later. All that was left was cleaning up.
> 
> ...


That sounds very familiar...


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## SamM (Dec 13, 2009)

Worst I ever had a laborer do. We were putting soffit and fascia on an old building. Vinyl and aluminum going over old pine (with osb soffits. Figure that one out.) 
I had him cutting the fascia flush to the soffits with a recip. Turned out ok, but there were a couple dips. I marked them with a sharpie and sent him back to fix it. Apparently, he interpreted the two vertical tic marks delineating the sides of the cut as an arch. He cut out about half the face of the fascia board. I found it kinda funny. It was less funny when I noticed he'd ruined a 25' section of seamless gutter. It was even less funny when the cut in the gutter dripped nasty gutter water into my mouth.

That was today. I'm really hoping I dont get Cholera


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## tedanderson (May 19, 2010)

I had a real doozy today. I hired this kid on Monday and he did pretty good up until today. I sent him to start putting some holes in the framing.

THIS GUY WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO HOLD THE DRILL. 

Apparently his wrists and hands were too weak to do it. I don't know if I need to get rid of him or if I should hire a trainer and send him to the gym. The weak handshake on his first day should have given me some indication of who I was dealing with.


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## digiconsoo (Apr 23, 2012)

tedanderson said:


> THIS GUY WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO HOLD THE DRILL.


Are you leaving any details out of this story? :whistling


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## j_sims (Jul 5, 2007)

My HVAC sub, who has an impeccable reputation, was doing a maintenance job at an upscale neighborhood for a very prim and proper client. One of the task was to change out the registers in some of the rooms. 

The young lad must have been a practicing comedian...
While in her bedroom, I guess to get a laugh out of the other labor that was working with him, he put a pair of Ms. Prim and Proper's panties on his head like a mask and doing a suggestive dance....needless to say who walked in the bedroom while he was doing the 'panty dance'......She just didn't seem to find the humor value in it....neither did his boss.
ps....*NOT* one of my jobs:thumbup:


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## FramingPro (Jan 31, 2010)

Pretty much


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## tedanderson (May 19, 2010)

j_sims said:


> While in her bedroom, I guess to get a laugh out of the other labor that was working with him, he put a pair of Ms. Prim and Proper's panties on his head like a mask and doing a suggestive dance.


Ok... here lies the problem- I'm not too terribly bothered by the young man wearing panties on his head. I am more concerned about the fact that he thought it was OK to put his hands on the homeowner's possessions for any reason other than to move the stuff out of the way.

I'm sure that Ms. Prim & Proper found it amusing except for the fact that now she has to re-wash a pair of her underwear to get the face sweat residual off of it.


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## 66 Shelby (Jan 11, 2009)

In '03 I was doing a reno, basically a gut-job, tearing out everything _except_ for the Heart Pine paneling in the den. It was beautiful, in excellent condition, so it was staying put. I sent Dumbass over to the site to tear off the 2 layers of _siding_ (Aluminum over ship-lap). I get there a few hours later and Dumbass is so proud he got all the paneling pulled down and cut up in only 3 hours. He even had to pull off all the blue tape that said 'Do Not Remove' from the paneling. I got a sore throat from screaming at him, and I'm not a screamer/hot head type of guy. Explain THAT to a homeowner :sad: :sad: I'm still pissed about it.


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