Stories From The Job
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Over a period of thirty years working as an electrician, I have accumulated
a huge number of stories Most are mildly funny/strange. Only a few are really
great. I will let you determine which is which. The descriptions will be minimal
for now. I am experimenting with this aspect of ElectricianEducation.com to see
if there is any interest in this information. We all need a chuckle. Here
are a few from me.
I visited a house on a service call where there was a chair in every corner
piled almost to the ceiling with clothes. I don't know if these folks ever were
told about what a closet was designed to do. But on every chair, clothing was
piled. There was no place to sit. Strange to me.
Speaking about closets, I had to access an attic through a closet one day.
As I was climbing into the attic, the unthinkable happened. The rod fell to the
floor with all the clothes. The home owner came running. She said she was sorry
about what had happened. She expected it to happen. So I did not have to help
put the clothes back up. I did anchor the rod properly so it would not come down
again. What an electrician gets into in a day.
Numerous times I was expected to work in a house where there were dogs
present. Keeping animals in a home is difficult. And time consuming. I
eventually asked home owners to put dog in another room while I worked to save
time.
I changed the lighting over the desk of F. Lee Bailey one day. I put
newspaper on the desk and just stood right in the middle of the desk. That was
the only way I could get to the fixture. The desk was huge. On that topic, I
often could hear F. Lee Bailey leave town, Menominee, Michigan, in his Lear jet.
He had something to do with Enstrom Helicopter in that city. He also employed
Ernest Medina, probably to help pay off his debit for defending him in the Meli
trial. Only fogeys like me remember that time. I ended up playing racquet ball
at the Menominee YMCA with Ernie more than once. I beat him easily. I was a kid,
probably 26, and he was older then. About 1969.
BB King came to West Palm Beach for a concert one night. I was asked to be a
stand-by electrician for the event. Overtime, free food, and great music. The
roadies were really adept. I was asked to do only a few tasks. A neat night.
I was asked to work on a Saturday which was rare. My task was to install a
bathroom exhaust fan in the ceiling near a bath tub. I carried all my
stuff in. Put a layer of cardboard over and around the tub. And began to work.
Wouldn't you know it, a hammer slipped out of my hand and fell on the tub.
Knowing I had covered the tub with cardboard, I thought nothing of it. The
helper that had just come down out of the attic asked what had happened to the
edge of the tub. I said what do you mean. There was a huge chip down the side of
the tub. The hammer had hit just right to flake off a 6 inch by 6 inch piece of
finish from the edge of the tub. I completed my job, told the owners that the
office would contact them about the tub and left. I said I was sorry. Not as
sorry as they were. A part of the exterior wall had to be removed to change the
tub. The company where I worked never asked me to work on a Saturday again. They
might have thought I did not want to work on Saturday so caused the damage
intentionally which was not true. I continued to work for that company for
another couple years. They were nice folks and never mentioned the tub again.
And didn't ask me about Saturdays, either.
I was given a job ticket one day to go to a new house for a rough-in. I took
a normal package of material and went to the address. Upon arriving at the
address, I couldn't see a house under construction. All the houses seemed
complete. So I went to the front door, knocked, and asked the owner if they had
requested an electrician to do some wiring. Yep, the lady said. Where upon I
entered the living room of a completed house thinking there must be a problem
with the job ticket. I asked what I was to do. The lady said that I was to wire
the house. Now mind you the house had furniture, rugs, pictures on the wall. It
looked done to me. I then looked closer. There were no receptacles. There were
no lights. I walked around the house. There was no service. Seems the guy who
built the house, and was living in it, completed all the work and then called an
electrician. I couldn't believe it. The guy didn't think to call an electrician
when the walls were open. Never occurred to him, he said. Well I went on to wire
this house, install a service, and hardly made a mess, working through the
basement and attic. I still have a hard time believing that really happened, But
it did!
I got a job ticket to change a defective breaker for a water heater in a
home. I took my Square D box of breakers and knocked on the building manager
door. I was shown to the panel for the water heater where I found a 20 amp two
pole circuit breaker. Now the building was new. About 1 1/2 years old. I checked
out the appliance. Noted it was a 4500 watt 240 volt unit. The breaker installed
was a 20 amp 2 pole. The draw on the unit is a bit more than 18. And through
brown outs or power surges, this 20 amp breaker was tripping. That wasn't the
problem, though. The breaker was undersized. Breakers for water heaters have to
be at least 125% of the nameplate but not more than 150% of the nameplate unless
marked for a lower setting. The original electrician, apparently not knowing,
just did the simple Ohms Watts math and came up with the 18 plus amps and picked
that size. Not this would be the end of the story, but I mentioned to the
building manage that the breaker was incorrectly sized and should be a 25 or 30
depending on the nameplate. He left for a few minutes, came back and asked for a
price to change the entire building from 20's to 30's. I said each would be a
service call plus the breaker. He called the office. They told me to go on to
change all the breakers as needed. I did. In the process, I got several free
hours of time and a box of relatively new Square D two pole circuit breakers
which I used in my own home. This was one of the best service call jobs I ever
had.
I showed up in a new 26 unit condo building we were wiring in Florida one
morning when the temperature was in the 40's. All the electricians looked at one
another and voted to take the day off. Yet I remember working in Wisconsin when
the temperature was below zero. Go figure. Infact I have often said I have
missed more work in Florida because of the weather than I ever did in Michigan
or Wisconsin.
When doing a service change and piping the basement of houses up north, one
of the first things I would do is screw in all the 200 watt light bulbs I could
find to warm the place up. Service changes were saved for winter, as I recall.
I had my wife go with me to hold a long fixture in place while I fastened
it. She did not go often. But once a year I asked her to help me. We showed up
at a house that couldn't have been worse for her. There were reptiles in cages
on the patio. The renters were not tidy. The place was a mess as so many of the
places I ever have worked are. To me I ignored the mess and got to work. The
place was so dirty, my wife wouldn't put down her purse anywhere. That's how
dirty the place was.
One time we were so busy we worked thirty straight 10 hour days, took one
day off then worked the next thirty 10 hour days before returning to a normal
schedule. The good news is when you're working so much you do not have time to
spend any money. But it does wear a person out.
I passed four final inspections in one day in the Town of Palm Beach, all in
the same day. I framed the final inspection tickets which I still have. I
figured I would never ever pass four final inspections ever again in the same
day, there. Palm Beach Florida was a great place to work as long as the work was
perfect. I liked working there because I could charge more since not many people
wanted to be held to such a high standard. I did some of my finest work there.
A lady asked me to do a service change for her. I asked for a deposit for
the material. She refused saying she would never pay anyone in advance for
anything. Turns out, not only would she never pay anyone in advance, she would
never pay anyone, period. One of my buddies did the service change. She never
paid him a dime. She also had Shell Oil Company deliver tanks of gasoline to the
service station where she was renting, and never paid them. Last I knew, she was
renting a station in Cedar River selling Shell Oil gasoline. I was sent there on
a service call by Shell Oil because something was wrong with the pumps. I
called Shell Oil and told them what I knew since I was sure they were
looking for her. I did not do the work, explaining that I needed parts. I never
did return. I figured what she couldn't pump she couldn't steal. I never
did hear what happened to her. I hope she did jail time. Probably not, though.
Crooks get off since they have nothing to loose. Oh, here's the rest of the
story: she was probably eighty years old at the time. Neat trick for a granny,
wouldn't you say?
I worked at a pawn shop/adult video store doing something electrical. When I
finished, I gave the guy a bill. He paid with quarters. At least that's how I
remember it. Could be I laughed about the possibility so much I believed that is
what really happened. Sometimes fiction seems more likely than the truth.
As an electrical contractor, getting paid is sometimes harder than doing the
work. One time I remember I wired a new church. Good people to work for, right?
Well not exactly. The folks at the church tried to say they had paid all their
payments when clearly they had not. Over a thousand dollars was still due. They
could not produce a cancelled check, or any sort of receipt for the payment. So
I pressed to be paid. One of the electricians who helped me on the job took
matters into his own hands without my knowledge. He went over to the church, and
pulled out the feeders from the main disconnect. The power company was called by
the church folks. The power company told them the wiring to the building was
fine. Then they called me to find out why the power was not on. By then I knew
about the removal of the feeders. I explained that a final payment was due. No
one else could work on the building until that payment was made, according to
the building department. Well, that check came fast. We then reconnected the
feeders. I am sure that was an illegal thing to do. But it worked. I cautioned
my guys never to do anything like that again. But it felt so good to collect
what was due. We didn't get any more work from that group, but then they might
not have paid for that either.
For several years I worked as a superintendent for a large electrical
contracting firm. There were up to 130 electricians at one time. We wired over
900 units in less than a year plus the other projects we had to do. I made
it a habit of walking all the units before rough inspection to find problems.
Normally I found a few home runs missing, a few switch legs wrong, and joints
here and there incorrectly made. Well, I was scheduled to do a walk through of
an 8 unit building the day of the company Christmas party. I did just that. I
was late to the party, getting there just in time for the bonus check and food.
I was proud to stand before the group of over 100 electricians and praise them
for a walk through inspection on rough where I was unable to find errors or any
kind. The building was perfect. I also did the hot check later which was also
without fault. It sure is nice to work with a bunch of guys that take pride in
their work.
Most of the people I worked for over the years were very nice folks who paid
promptly. But there were a few exceptions. One guy in Palm Beach, when
confronted to pay for the extras which were written up and signed by the owner
said to sue him as he was going to pay for none of the extras. We never did
collect on that one. The cost of legal action would have resulted in a judgment
which the owner never would have to pay. Bonding off is something all the crooks
know about.
A service call to a fairly new home in a very upscale development left me
puzzled. I knocked on the door. A lady answered the door. She asked me to change
the dining room fixture. I tried to go into the house but was met with a huge
mound of cardboard boxes. The lady said to follow her. I did. There was a narrow
path from the front door, by way of the kitchen to the dining room. I put the
light fixture up. As I worked, I talked with the lady. I imagined she had
recently moved in and was getting settled. Boxes, boxes everywhere is common in
a house where ever I work. I asked her if she liked the area and made other
small talk. Eventually I got around to asking how long she had been in the
house. She said five years. Wow! Imagine living in a house with boxes piled six
feet high all through your house. Paths to get from room to room. She was quite
an example of something which I can not think of a name for. I got out of there
fast.
There was an older lady that called for electrical work. I knocked on the
door. She asked me to go to a local furniture store and pick up a mattress she
had ordered. The store could not deliver it for a few days and she needed it
that night. I said I was an electrician expecting to do electrical work. She
asked me how much the hourly rate was. At that time it was $40. She said fine.
Gave me $80 in cash, where upon I quickly went to the furniture store and
pickled up the mattress. It was easy money. Nothing electrical. I still wonder
how she got my number. I had worked for neighbors. Perhaps from them. Strange.
Another lady lived alone on a house where I installed electric heat. I
noticed that in the kitchen she had all counters full of boxes, jars, and other
food containers. The kitchen table was also covered with mustard, ketchup, salt,
well you get the idea. There was only one small place where she could sit and
eat. I guess she liked having everything handy. I just could not live like that.
She was quite nice as I remember. I wonder what strange things I will do when I
get older. I have had quite a bit of experience seeing how others live. Perhaps
I will find something different to do.
One couple bought a new house in a residential development across the street
from their home just to have a place to put the doll houses of the woman and the
electric trains of the man. That was quite unusual. The house had to be over
$100,000. Not to mention taxes and all. And it was identical to the house where
they lived. I always thought it was an investment which they might sell some
day. Last I noticed, they still owned both.
An attorney asked me to install track lighting in a room in his house. The
closet was about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. Both sides were lined with
rifles on racks. There had to be hundreds of rifles in that little closet. He
probably had several tens of thousands of dollars worth of guns. The guy asked
me if I liked his guns. I said no. I don't like guns. He seemed pleased that I
did not have my eye on his stuff. I went on to work for him several times. I
wonder if I had been impressed with his guns if he would have wanted me back. He
also had a bed that rotated with a motor. I can't remember why or how. But I
hooked it up. That I do remember. And a steam room, too. I called a supplier in
California to find out how to connect it since the instructions were in Swedish
or Norwegian or something. Strange to me.
A lady who I was wiring a small house for took pictures of all the work I
did as I was doing it. I don't know why she wanted so many pictures. She took
pictures of everyone who worked at her house as well as all the work that was
done. I never had that happen before.
This has to be the most unusual electrical story I have. A guy who lived in
an old home was taking voltage from the telephone company wiring to power lights
in his house. He had no electricity in the house except for the telephone.
Imagine my surprise when I was asked to go there for a service call. I looked
for the service and main panel I found neither. There was no service. Yet the
hoiuse had lights. Go figure.
A Palm Beach house was the address for a service call to install a foyer
lighting fixture. I showed up ready to do the do. A truck was unloading a huge
wooden box. Turns out the lighting fixture was several hundred pounds. I spend 6
hours there getting everything right. There were six men to do the work.
One electrician and five carpenters/helpers. Who has that kind of money? The
fixture was probably a ten thousand dollar deal. We ended up building a scaffold
and adding braces to the attic. It turned out to be a great job. Solid and safe.
They paid me that same day. What a service call.
I worked for people in Palm Beach that I never saw. They had interior
decorators fly down ahead of them to get the house ready. Never once did any of
that set ever offer me a soda or sandwich even on the long days and late nights
needed from time to time.
A Palm Beach guy spent over $100,000 on a house remodel. The work was done.
I asked why there was no provision for heating. He thanked me for pointing this
out and promptly called his general contractor. Someone goofed.
I showed up to install a fixture for a lady in Palm Beach at a mansion of a
house. I range the bell. The lady took me to where the fixture was to be
installed. I looked it over and told her it would be an hour at $40 for the
call. This was some years ago. She said fine. She wrote a check and as she was
leaving, she asked me to lock the door behind me. So she ended up leaving me, a
stranger, in her multi-million dollar house, alone. Talk about trusting.
One guy I worked for always paid in cash, small bills. He said it was horse
money. Probably he won the money at the track, or that is what I guessed. I
always liked working for him. Immediate payment is great.
The motto of my one person business for the last several years was
"Most jobs too large". I did not like the large jobs. I preferred
working for the store owner or home owner. They paid better than contractors on
large jobs.
A customer was presented a bill. He added to it a bill that he had paid the
previous week. So the check was $400 more than it should have been. He handed me
this large check. I explained that he had paid $400 of the amount the previous
week. He went into his office and came out with a check for $400 less. He said
nothing. If I had not said anything, he would have never known the difference. I
went on to work for him for years. I guess he may have ben testing me. No way of
knowing. I never asked.
In a discussion with an owner in Palm Beach one morning, I asked for an
answer about some task on my list. He said he did not know the answer but would
get back to me before 3PM. He had to go to New York for a meeting but would be
back. I wondered how he would ever make it there and back by that very
afternoon. That's when he admitted to taking his private jet He was the pilot,
even. You never know who you're talking to over there on the Island.
My buddy and I were getting ready to do some attic work. For this we often
used headsets so we could hear one another. As we adjusted the units at our
truck parked in front of the house where we were working on the street, the
voice of the lady where we were working came in loud and clear. She was talking
to a friend explaining that, no, she had placed all her antiques in a bonded
warehouse under another name so her husband, from whom she was getting a
divorce, couldn't attach the items as a part of the settlement. Now, this is
probably not a legal thing for her to do . Yet by using her cordless phone,
anyone in the world with a Radio Shack headset could listen into her admissions.
I suppose the information would have been worth money to someone. Us? We just
turned off the head sets and yelled back and forth from the attic. I sure didn't
want to get in the middle of a Pam Beach divorce issue.
More as time allows.
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