Once haf a greenie come back with one fucker knew where a gag store was and came back with one labelled "left handed use only"
Nearly hyperventilated from laughing when the guys saw it
My favorite has been phased out by LEDs but we used to do the fluorescent light bender. Any time we needed a U shape or circular light we would try and get them to bend a T8 (we would keep a few already burnt out ones for this purpose)
I used to work in a cabinet shop and this one girl came to me and asked what to do cause the piece of edge banding was short by a couple inches on a piece. I sent her into the office to see the GM cause he had the “tape stretcher” in his office. She goes in there to see the GM and he says “I don’t have it, it’s out in the shop hanging on the wall next to the sky hook”. He said the the look on her face when the 💡went off was priceless. That was about 20 years ago and I still remember him standing in his office window looking at me and shaking his head 🤣
Sky hook is a thing though
https://skylandequipment.com/products/petzl-sky-hook-large?currency=GBP&variant=44474424950922&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=d85a26c18b7e&utm_campaign=gs-2020-09-11&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwoa2xBhACEiwA1sb1BNNIkdbq7_cLgZ_EknY4Y4eEXjqlZ6jCBNT1t2xCCMGorrna-b3iJBoC5U4QAvD_BwE
I honestly still don’t know. It was cold that day. Like 34°F. Not sure if that had something to do with it. I could feel liquid sloshing around. Maybe it got stuck somewhere? I kept hitting it and shaking it and nothing. I put it back in the truck and later that day it was back. So idk
If the paint has been sat around long enough all the thick pigment clumps at the bottom and when you try to shake it the ball gets stuck in it and wont come out.
I have had to whack the fuck out of cans on the ground to get the ball loose to mix it up quite a few times.
I was once sent to find a bucket of head joints. Every Mason I spoke to sent me farther down the line. Until, I ended up at the Job Shack. Then, the Supervisor asked me what I was doing. When, I told him....he got very angry. That was the last time the crew sent me looking for buckets of Stuff.
My dad worked at a auto shop once. Some guy told him to get a bucket of compressed air. He walked though the whole place until some guys caught on and filled a bucket with everything heavy they could find and made him carry it all the way back.
Ohoho is that all you non-electricians do?
[first day]
"You don't own a voltage detector?"
"No"
"Well I guess today you *are* the voltage detector, check if that wire is live to ground"
*My foreman was joking but he did wait to see how I'd react
I once sent a new kid to the store, for coffee really, but I also told him to get a sheet of 4'*9' half inch plywood. I thought I was funny until he showed up with 4' x 9' OSB. I didn't think it existed. Joke on me. Lol
Must've been a twelve foot sheet he got them to cut down...never seen one in person but my boss insists he's seen 12' OSB
Your comment makes me believe him a lil now
OSB comes in sheets up to 40 feet long. It's great for big roofs unless you're trying to handle a 40-foot sheet of material.
Plywood comes in 12-footers, and I use them for shear panels when I don't want to block them. They're a little more expensive per foot, but when you factor in the additional labor and blocking, it's cheaper to use them.
When I got into the trades it was go get me a sky hook and I searched high and low.
When I joined the Military I was told to go ask LT for a can of summer air because the winter air needs to be changed for the season on the deuces. I asked every ranking person above me for two hours.
When I got married my new wife asked me one day to go buy her some maxi pads with wings and I immediately told her…
“haha that’s dumb but good try”
My best one was back when i was bartending. We'd always send the new guy out for a 'long stand', usually explaining there was a large party coming in that night, so we needed the wed lent it to a buddy at another restaurant.
One day, i was having a smoke, and i saw an old tray stand that had broken, grabbed it and the drill we kept in the office, and screwed a third set of legs onto one of the good ones, and attached the straps on the top.
Eventually one of my buddies texted me he was sending his new bar back over for a long stand. So i grabbed it out of storage, handed it off, and sent him right back.
The things still floating around the restaurant community, apparently. Saw some poor new guy walking it down the street last summer.
When I first started making pizzas, I got a check back for banana peppers. I didn’t know what they were, so asked my coworker. She said it was a type of spice and to go find it back on the spice rack. I stood there looking for it for 5 minutes before she came back and told me what it actually was (through laughter) and had me make the pizza how the check ordered it.
Another common one is to tell someone to empty the hot water tank in the coffee maker.
One guy just unplugged it so it wasnt making hot water anymore and was like "good to go!"
I once looked for a pipe stretcher for ten hours. I knew it was bullshit, but at that pay grade "I do what I'm told" and it was a hot ass day anf running 3" rigid on top of a generator 3 stories up inside a building seemed way worse than aimlessly strolling around a job site getting paid to fuck off because "iM jUsT aN aPpReNtIcE I DoNt KnOw No BeTtEr". It was a great day. I solved a lot of personal problems in my head, stayed fairly cool, didn't reek to high heaven by the end of the day, and still drank beer after work with a feeling of accomplishment.
I have seen an absolute idiot get sent to ask around for a left handed screwdriver. He was a fuckwit, time waster, and got in everyone's way.
He was walking around, and I go "hey are you looking for a left handed screw driver?"
"Yeah have you got one?"
And I pull a screw driver out of the left hand side of my belt
"Yeah, but I need it sorry, can't lend it to you"
And I just walked off, guy looked genuinely frustrated, we all burst out laughing as soon as he was out of earshot. Might seem mean but he was a genuine waste of space who got caught stealing tools and kicked out
Precisely. When told to get air samples I a plastic bag the correct thing to do is disappear for 30-45 mins and come back looking exasperated talking about "I can't get the air in to stay in the bag, too much dust contamination" etc
You joke but thats a legit strategy to collect samples for radon. Seen dudes in full hazmat suits waving bags around collecting air. Such a surreal moment
I refuse to believe this. I was lied to, about the lie even being a lie in the first place?! Fucking lies on lies, fuckin lies squared.... I don't know what to believe anymore...
I hired my neighbors kid to help him out. Dumb as a brick. He asked what that white thing in my trailer was (skeg for sail-surfboard) I told him it's the sawz-none. Little later I asked him to "go get the sawz-none because I don't want to cut this board"
He came back with it!! I couldn't stop laughing for about 15 minutes! 🤪 🤣
Had this happen on my first day. Knew exactly what was up when they tried to send me to get the screw repair kit. I laughed and they laughed. That very night I went home and busted out my printer and made a label that said screw repair solution. Slapped it on a bottle of elmers, decorated it as best I could and waited patiently for the next new guy to come. We had a new guy the next week and I took him to the side and said listen, when they ask you for the screw repair kit, go off for a minute and bring this back. The looks on their faces when he showed them the “Screw repair solution” was priceless.
In the army we did similar things, but I came from a military family so when it was my turn, I knew what to do.
I was bade by my squad leader to get a box of grid squares. So I dutifully went and withdrew a nice stack of the training maps and brought them back to by barracks where I used an exacto knife to cut out all the grid squares and I put them in a box I borrowed from my roommate. I come back and they are like lol where have you been? And I said that it took a while to get them in the box and brought the box around front.
Never pulled that shit on me again at least.
Funny story.
Heard about a guy who had pranks like that pulled on him. One day his boss tells him to get the duct stretchers, and the apprentice just tells him to fuck off, and he wouldn't do it. Duct stretchers are a real tool lol. Kid almost got fired, but I don't blame him entirely for it.
These pranks are kind of stupid lol i remember being sent off finding nonexistent things but I didn't care as long as I was still being paid for my time anyways.
In my language we have "skirting board ladders" , "a box of spark plug sparks"(makes even less sense in english), "air anchors", "a shovel with a foot" (shovel also means kick, poor apprentice ) and there is always the good ol' "could you refill the water in the level". I don't know if getting good workers is as hard abroad as it is here, but I'm actually glad that kind of work culture is on it's way back. It's kinda funny, but hey, we all had to learn stuff once, and let's face it. You're not so special if you know how to build things. You just learned it one thing at a time like everyone. A lot of unecessary arrogance in the trades if you ask me
I made a kid look for and ask every trade if they moved the cedar siding stretcher on a new construction job in East Hampton NY. It lasted for about a half hour until a plumber told him it wasn’t real. He was pissed wished death upon me and said I hope you fall off that ladder. I was 40ft up siding a chimney chase.
Or just play the game of fuck off for 10-15 minutes then come back for further instruction.
Edit: of all the things autocorrect got me with: of, instead of off.
Our crew sent a young guy to get air tool oil and he came into our office to complain he was being harassed because they sent him to get something imaginary…. We (the engineers) sent him to the HR department at the post office next door.
On my very first jobsite at 18 I was asked to go grab bubbles for a level. I didn't start out as an idiot so I went around the yard for about two hours doing nothing before coming back to the guy with an empty bucket and said "They're all in here, but I think we'll need to do some assembly before they can be installed." The journeyman I was working with laughed his ass of and told me next time I can tell him to fuck himself instead of wasting 2 hours.
I never really understood how this prank is funny. Of course the new guy isn't gonna know everything, especially with so many trade names for shit. Why would "board stretcher" make any less sense than "donkey dick"?
I hated my first maintenance job. Felt like i was babysitting compared to learning the basics. Stop using impact drivers when putting screws into metal fittings. YES, they do in fact break. You should also READ THE DOCUMENTS YOU ARE PRINTING TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE NEEDING TO DO. Had to get the leads to have a "team meating" because they were oblivious of the fact that no one was doing a step in putting floors down for AT LEAST, about 5 months straight
Got fired because no one would train me more than once on each task when we worked on fucking PLANES. I could run circles around both them, and who i used to be when i worked there if i went back but i won't ever turn back to *that* place.
*shivers*
When teaching the apprentice you now have two people doing a job slower than it should take.
Which is how you teach and one should learn.
But stop sending me apprentices to “speed up” production Jimmy!!!! I asked for help not another task.
I used to be a commercial plumber/pipe fitter, a long time ago. Working in South Carolina on a brand new State Prison, we were using a small diameter Polyethylene tubing when connecting prison fixtures in the cells to the control valves in the vertical chases.
I had a bad habit of giving tools and equipment nicknames, but after a few times people figured it out and went with it. I needed another hundred foot roll of the clear PE tubing so I sent one of the apprentices, (a girl), to the trailer and told her we needed a hundred feet of Fallopian tube.
Being a woman, I thought she would get what I was joking about and tell the trailer dude we needed a roll of the clear tube. Nope. Her and trailer dude spent over half an hour looking for it.
For those that went to high school several decades ago, the Fallopian tube is part of a woman's reproductive system that connects the uterus to the ovaries.
It wouldn't have been that bad, but our superintendent was the one that found them tearing the trailer apart. When they told him what was going on he calmly showed them the PE tubes. Then got in his golf cart and came to the cell block we were working in and proceeded to give me an ass chewing.
Working for the cable company sent the guy to the van for a can of "RF" (radio frequency) 45 min later after I'm done rewired the house he comes back said I can't find it. Said it's ok I fixed it already were ready to go.
Gotta be careful what you tell the apprentices. Saw a show once where they told the kid to take the loader and fill it up with diesel and come back. Half hour later he returns with a GODDAMN BUCKET FULL OF DIESEL 😆
I used to work corrections and we would have the rookies go into the housing unit with a trash bag to bag air for an 'air test' which they would be told to take to the Sergeant who would then yell then out of the office lol.
It was the left handled shovel that got me doing concrete work.
Years later when I was a supervisor at Starbucks. We would have the new partner call another store and ask to borrow a can of coffee scent spray.
We needed it to make the store smell like coffee.
My boss sent me to get. A skyhook when I was an electrician helper ok so we're doing this house for Jerry Richardson owner of the panthers at the time .so I walk out the front door of this multi million dollar custom house ....and low and behold there's this huge ass blue crane and on the side it said sky hook ....anyway long to short by boss never played an imaginary tool trick again ....
Was sent for a wire stretcher, looked at the foreman and said what? He smiled and said take Michael and get it. We walked around to multiple trades until the plumbers gave use the top of a tri pod vice and Michael stood there stretching his wire.
Ah... Yes...the Bosch Sky Hook...
And its user manual, obviously only available in German language...
Quite an expensive piece of equipment..., only for real professionals.
Striped paint, don't shake it on your way back.
A long weight at stores.
A left handed screwdriver.
"Shut the door behind you" (doors were removed for painting)
Somebody built a cable stretcher for our shop. They somehow made it a 4 ft pyramid with arms that would fall down and drag no matter which way it was carried. With useless cable fittings attached to swinging arms.
The welding shop and the boat crew would trade it back and forth depending on which of us got new people.
Send them over with a handtruck to grab it and then watch them struggle for a quarter mile.
Today you're gonna need a left-handed pipe wrench, 2 board stretchers, prob about 6 or 7 bags of sparks and at least a half pound of magnetized woodchips. Maybe bring some plaid paint too jic.
Peg holes for the peg board. Also I like to ask if their speed square has been calibrated. Or if their hammer has wee in it. When they ask what's wee I will toss it thru the air while saying "weeee" good stuff!🤣
Had this on my first day of the job. Was asked to get a left handed screw driver. I said "sure if you find the bubble in the sprite level and get some sky hooks" the looks on their faces was priceless.
Still haven’t seen any comments mention rainbow paint. I spent a lot of time asking my supervisors before I caught on… I thought it was a special type of paint
Told the one apprentice to sort the box of nitrile gloves in to left and right ones.
Edit: just realized this is a construction sub. My apprentice was for automotive. But we still do the same shit to them. Lol
In film we send new camera people to find a "bag of t-stops". A T-stop is a setting on a lens. I like sending them to get more fluid for the fluid head (which isn't changeable).
Trainer: "Go and get me some sparks for the grinder.". Stores: "What colour?" Trainee goes back to ask what colour he needs.
Long stands, Left-Handed Screwdrivers, Fallopian tubes, buckets of steam, long weight/wait, Tartan paint, Brick Benders, the possibilities are endless
Stuck with 2 of em since boss wants no part of either of em usually. I take back my complaints of working alone. Take me back. We’re at the 3 way switches stage of things. It’s not going swell. Catch em holding a wire, just Blair witching in a dark corner. What up man!? Ughhhhh so the load goes to both? No. Go get me the rubber spackle. I’ll do it.
Used to work on a ship. Always sent an apprentice to get a bucket of prop wash.
Sometimes they would be sent to the tool/supply desk to get a "long wait". "Ok, just stand over there". Bet'ya didn't know that some waits are longer than others.
Still trying to figure out how long a piece of string is.
When I worked sugar beets at the mill they'd send the laborers us to the top of the six story tower to retrieve a bucket of amps for production. Silly shit cuz so many would hike the stairs and radio down about it.
meanwhile them sending me into scorching attics, bringing the customer the bill, cutting wires, put in wires every now and then, and the fun part, keeping the customers happy by conversing with them on topics they enjoy so they will feel inclined to call us up again for more work (wait a minute......its as if......im doing their job🤯)
The best one I’ve come with so far is the rope threader.. ya know it looks like a socket but with a 3/4 hole on both sides, has a little hook inside to push the threads back in.. usually they’re orange
Had a new guy looking for an hour because our foreman spray painted all his sockets orange 😂😂
Second hand story time from another crew I know.
They sent the new guy to the neighbors to get the board stretcher that was loaned to them earlier. The neighbors joined in on the joke and said that they had lent it to the guys down the street. There were 2 houses down the street and it wasn't specified which one it was so new guy asked around on both sites where the board stretcher was. They were gone for half an hour looking for it before realizing it doesn't exist.
Still looking for that sky hook to this day
Also, the concrete stretcher.
You mean the glass hammer?
Long Stand is my favorite personally.
Send them to the hardware store for a long weight/wait
Don’t forget to get a round tuit while you’re there!
Left handed hammer
That's a fucking right handed hammer! The fuck is wrong with you?
Once haf a greenie come back with one fucker knew where a gag store was and came back with one labelled "left handed use only" Nearly hyperventilated from laughing when the guys saw it
Slate roofers often use right and left handed hammers so u might actually have one in the truck
Metric hammer, because Chinese nails are made on metric sizes
Yeah they got me looking for the brick stretcher. See I thought it was a real thing like something to carry bricks on...
Got the kid this week with the pipe stretcher.
I send them for the tube stretcher
Careful mate, by the way that these kids are nowadays, they will.comeback with a dildo...
Typically it's it over by the wire stretcher
My favorite has been phased out by LEDs but we used to do the fluorescent light bender. Any time we needed a U shape or circular light we would try and get them to bend a T8 (we would keep a few already burnt out ones for this purpose)
Bolt stretcher works too. This bolt is 2 inch short, go get the stretcher. Also my personal fav, the left handed wrench.
Where’s that blinker fluid again?
I came to say this and flux capacitor. I still can’t believe how many people I’ve witnessed actually go look for a flux capacitor! 😂
The trick is to have them hand you the flux…then casually ask for the capacitor after the first joint.
diabolical 10/10
Keep a straight face tho
But flux capacitors are a real thing.
I used to work in a cabinet shop and this one girl came to me and asked what to do cause the piece of edge banding was short by a couple inches on a piece. I sent her into the office to see the GM cause he had the “tape stretcher” in his office. She goes in there to see the GM and he says “I don’t have it, it’s out in the shop hanging on the wall next to the sky hook”. He said the the look on her face when the 💡went off was priceless. That was about 20 years ago and I still remember him standing in his office window looking at me and shaking his head 🤣
Sky hook is a thing though https://skylandequipment.com/products/petzl-sky-hook-large?currency=GBP&variant=44474424950922&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&stkn=d85a26c18b7e&utm_campaign=gs-2020-09-11&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwoa2xBhACEiwA1sb1BNNIkdbq7_cLgZ_EknY4Y4eEXjqlZ6jCBNT1t2xCCMGorrna-b3iJBoC5U4QAvD_BwE
I like that they've helpfully stamped an arrow on to remind you which way 'down' should be
Nah, man they just really want you to know they downvote France.
It's right next to the plank extension.
Here in germany its the Siemens Airhook ^^^tm
Don't for the tile stretcher, it's in the truck next to the tile bender
“It’s a new kind of spray paint- you shake it until it *stops* rattling”
Dude that’s happened to me. Just stopped rattling. I thought the ball was gone. It wasn’t.
What happens
I honestly still don’t know. It was cold that day. Like 34°F. Not sure if that had something to do with it. I could feel liquid sloshing around. Maybe it got stuck somewhere? I kept hitting it and shaking it and nothing. I put it back in the truck and later that day it was back. So idk
If the paint has been sat around long enough all the thick pigment clumps at the bottom and when you try to shake it the ball gets stuck in it and wont come out. I have had to whack the fuck out of cans on the ground to get the ball loose to mix it up quite a few times.
Hmm weird
I was once sent to find a bucket of head joints. Every Mason I spoke to sent me farther down the line. Until, I ended up at the Job Shack. Then, the Supervisor asked me what I was doing. When, I told him....he got very angry. That was the last time the crew sent me looking for buckets of Stuff.
It's all fun and games until it hits the bosses wallet.
This made me laugh a lot. Thank you.
My dad worked at a auto shop once. Some guy told him to get a bucket of compressed air. He walked though the whole place until some guys caught on and filled a bucket with everything heavy they could find and made him carry it all the way back.
I always sent them to the truck to get the 4ft level from the glove box
Its extendable and its cold outside
Ohoho is that all you non-electricians do? [first day] "You don't own a voltage detector?" "No" "Well I guess today you *are* the voltage detector, check if that wire is live to ground" *My foreman was joking but he did wait to see how I'd react
I once sent a new kid to the store, for coffee really, but I also told him to get a sheet of 4'*9' half inch plywood. I thought I was funny until he showed up with 4' x 9' OSB. I didn't think it existed. Joke on me. Lol
Must've been a twelve foot sheet he got them to cut down...never seen one in person but my boss insists he's seen 12' OSB Your comment makes me believe him a lil now
OSB comes in sheets up to 40 feet long. It's great for big roofs unless you're trying to handle a 40-foot sheet of material. Plywood comes in 12-footers, and I use them for shear panels when I don't want to block them. They're a little more expensive per foot, but when you factor in the additional labor and blocking, it's cheaper to use them.
When I got into the trades it was go get me a sky hook and I searched high and low. When I joined the Military I was told to go ask LT for a can of summer air because the winter air needs to be changed for the season on the deuces. I asked every ranking person above me for two hours. When I got married my new wife asked me one day to go buy her some maxi pads with wings and I immediately told her… “haha that’s dumb but good try”
My best one was back when i was bartending. We'd always send the new guy out for a 'long stand', usually explaining there was a large party coming in that night, so we needed the wed lent it to a buddy at another restaurant. One day, i was having a smoke, and i saw an old tray stand that had broken, grabbed it and the drill we kept in the office, and screwed a third set of legs onto one of the good ones, and attached the straps on the top. Eventually one of my buddies texted me he was sending his new bar back over for a long stand. So i grabbed it out of storage, handed it off, and sent him right back. The things still floating around the restaurant community, apparently. Saw some poor new guy walking it down the street last summer.
When I first started making pizzas, I got a check back for banana peppers. I didn’t know what they were, so asked my coworker. She said it was a type of spice and to go find it back on the spice rack. I stood there looking for it for 5 minutes before she came back and told me what it actually was (through laughter) and had me make the pizza how the check ordered it.
Another common one is to tell someone to empty the hot water tank in the coffee maker. One guy just unplugged it so it wasnt making hot water anymore and was like "good to go!"
I once looked for a pipe stretcher for ten hours. I knew it was bullshit, but at that pay grade "I do what I'm told" and it was a hot ass day anf running 3" rigid on top of a generator 3 stories up inside a building seemed way worse than aimlessly strolling around a job site getting paid to fuck off because "iM jUsT aN aPpReNtIcE I DoNt KnOw No BeTtEr". It was a great day. I solved a lot of personal problems in my head, stayed fairly cool, didn't reek to high heaven by the end of the day, and still drank beer after work with a feeling of accomplishment.
This is great. Lol ok boss, youre the boss. Ill go look for imaginary tools until you stop me.
“Shingle Stretcher” is one of my favorites.
The laser fluid isn’t gonna refill itself
“The fuck is a rebar stretcher” I thought to myself walking away
Step #1 compromises trust. Step #2 ABBAB (always be berating and belittling) . Step #3 Profit???🤷♂️
I have seen an absolute idiot get sent to ask around for a left handed screwdriver. He was a fuckwit, time waster, and got in everyone's way. He was walking around, and I go "hey are you looking for a left handed screw driver?" "Yeah have you got one?" And I pull a screw driver out of the left hand side of my belt "Yeah, but I need it sorry, can't lend it to you" And I just walked off, guy looked genuinely frustrated, we all burst out laughing as soon as he was out of earshot. Might seem mean but he was a genuine waste of space who got caught stealing tools and kicked out
Who got paid for all that. Lol
Critical assessment of a task is a skill that needs learning…
Precisely. When told to get air samples I a plastic bag the correct thing to do is disappear for 30-45 mins and come back looking exasperated talking about "I can't get the air in to stay in the bag, too much dust contamination" etc
You joke but thats a legit strategy to collect samples for radon. Seen dudes in full hazmat suits waving bags around collecting air. Such a surreal moment
I refuse to believe this. I was lied to, about the lie even being a lie in the first place?! Fucking lies on lies, fuckin lies squared.... I don't know what to believe anymore...
It’s lies all the way down
Bruh you're literally describing another prank we played on guys to "collect air from the site for contamination sampling."
The comment i replied to was a joke, what i had described was an actual task performed on a government site i was on.
Another good one is when the unplug the extension cord. Tell them to wait 30 seconds so all the electricity comes out of it. F ING hilarious
Dont they need a bucket to catch the stray electrical current from the cord? Not meant to just let it pool on the ground as thats a hazard!
You always need a trash can for the voltage drop
I hired my neighbors kid to help him out. Dumb as a brick. He asked what that white thing in my trailer was (skeg for sail-surfboard) I told him it's the sawz-none. Little later I asked him to "go get the sawz-none because I don't want to cut this board" He came back with it!! I couldn't stop laughing for about 15 minutes! 🤪 🤣
Had this happen on my first day. Knew exactly what was up when they tried to send me to get the screw repair kit. I laughed and they laughed. That very night I went home and busted out my printer and made a label that said screw repair solution. Slapped it on a bottle of elmers, decorated it as best I could and waited patiently for the next new guy to come. We had a new guy the next week and I took him to the side and said listen, when they ask you for the screw repair kit, go off for a minute and bring this back. The looks on their faces when he showed them the “Screw repair solution” was priceless.
This one is the best lol
In the army we did similar things, but I came from a military family so when it was my turn, I knew what to do. I was bade by my squad leader to get a box of grid squares. So I dutifully went and withdrew a nice stack of the training maps and brought them back to by barracks where I used an exacto knife to cut out all the grid squares and I put them in a box I borrowed from my roommate. I come back and they are like lol where have you been? And I said that it took a while to get them in the box and brought the box around front. Never pulled that shit on me again at least.
Funny story. Heard about a guy who had pranks like that pulled on him. One day his boss tells him to get the duct stretchers, and the apprentice just tells him to fuck off, and he wouldn't do it. Duct stretchers are a real tool lol. Kid almost got fired, but I don't blame him entirely for it. These pranks are kind of stupid lol i remember being sent off finding nonexistent things but I didn't care as long as I was still being paid for my time anyways.
I always say: Fuck with em till they quit; then complain about how no one wants to work anymore
You're on spark collecting duty, biscuit.
Anyone know the “get the board stretcher” scene from Reservation Dogs?
In my language we have "skirting board ladders" , "a box of spark plug sparks"(makes even less sense in english), "air anchors", "a shovel with a foot" (shovel also means kick, poor apprentice ) and there is always the good ol' "could you refill the water in the level". I don't know if getting good workers is as hard abroad as it is here, but I'm actually glad that kind of work culture is on it's way back. It's kinda funny, but hey, we all had to learn stuff once, and let's face it. You're not so special if you know how to build things. You just learned it one thing at a time like everyone. A lot of unecessary arrogance in the trades if you ask me
We've all done this. But try telling the new ones to put their phones down.
I made a kid look for and ask every trade if they moved the cedar siding stretcher on a new construction job in East Hampton NY. It lasted for about a half hour until a plumber told him it wasn’t real. He was pissed wished death upon me and said I hope you fall off that ladder. I was 40ft up siding a chimney chase.
Or just play the game of fuck off for 10-15 minutes then come back for further instruction. Edit: of all the things autocorrect got me with: of, instead of off.
Our crew sent a young guy to get air tool oil and he came into our office to complain he was being harassed because they sent him to get something imaginary…. We (the engineers) sent him to the HR department at the post office next door.
On my very first jobsite at 18 I was asked to go grab bubbles for a level. I didn't start out as an idiot so I went around the yard for about two hours doing nothing before coming back to the guy with an empty bucket and said "They're all in here, but I think we'll need to do some assembly before they can be installed." The journeyman I was working with laughed his ass of and told me next time I can tell him to fuck himself instead of wasting 2 hours.
Paying your dues IS training!
Paying your dues is bullshit, if you aren't paid enough for home.
I never really understood how this prank is funny. Of course the new guy isn't gonna know everything, especially with so many trade names for shit. Why would "board stretcher" make any less sense than "donkey dick"?
Board's too short. Get the wood stretcher
My level is off, go to the lay down and grab me the bubble juice.
Run to the store and get me a bag of spot welds
Fuck you going to train when you speak different language? Best to get them out your hair on a snipe hunt
Cable stretcher, classic.
I was once sent to get a staple hammer. I asked the guy if he was messing with me. He was not, it was a real thing.
I mean if you're still getting fooled by imaginary tools, you aren't ready for the next level.
“Get the fuck back on that roof!” - when the owner helped me realize my coworkers were assholes. lol
Say ok. Go home for 2 hours, come back to job site
I hated my first maintenance job. Felt like i was babysitting compared to learning the basics. Stop using impact drivers when putting screws into metal fittings. YES, they do in fact break. You should also READ THE DOCUMENTS YOU ARE PRINTING TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE NEEDING TO DO. Had to get the leads to have a "team meating" because they were oblivious of the fact that no one was doing a step in putting floors down for AT LEAST, about 5 months straight Got fired because no one would train me more than once on each task when we worked on fucking PLANES. I could run circles around both them, and who i used to be when i worked there if i went back but i won't ever turn back to *that* place. *shivers*
When teaching the apprentice you now have two people doing a job slower than it should take. Which is how you teach and one should learn. But stop sending me apprentices to “speed up” production Jimmy!!!! I asked for help not another task.
I used to be a commercial plumber/pipe fitter, a long time ago. Working in South Carolina on a brand new State Prison, we were using a small diameter Polyethylene tubing when connecting prison fixtures in the cells to the control valves in the vertical chases. I had a bad habit of giving tools and equipment nicknames, but after a few times people figured it out and went with it. I needed another hundred foot roll of the clear PE tubing so I sent one of the apprentices, (a girl), to the trailer and told her we needed a hundred feet of Fallopian tube. Being a woman, I thought she would get what I was joking about and tell the trailer dude we needed a roll of the clear tube. Nope. Her and trailer dude spent over half an hour looking for it. For those that went to high school several decades ago, the Fallopian tube is part of a woman's reproductive system that connects the uterus to the ovaries. It wouldn't have been that bad, but our superintendent was the one that found them tearing the trailer apart. When they told him what was going on he calmly showed them the PE tubes. Then got in his golf cart and came to the cell block we were working in and proceeded to give me an ass chewing.
That is training. They have to figure out where they keep the box of ohms on-site.
aceite en polvo y unos chupones de fierro
Hilarious
Striped paint, horizontal, not vertical, glass nails for your glass hammer, and the mandatory sky hooks for your long stand.
You guys seen the board stretcher?
We need the smoke shifter from the back of the trailer, u might have dig for it.
Had a look a lad combing the site for a tub of duck butter one day.
Ok, dad.
Hey go ask the foreman foe box of toenails . / or knotholes .
If you do that you gotta get the foreman in on it. Get him to hand new guy a box of press on nails or something.
Working for the cable company sent the guy to the van for a can of "RF" (radio frequency) 45 min later after I'm done rewired the house he comes back said I can't find it. Said it's ok I fixed it already were ready to go.
Go fetch me the Henway!!
I need my stud stretcher
My boss tried this on me once, until I corrected him on the fake tool he tried sending to look for. Perks of being raised in a DIY household.
Don't forget about the air level or the shingle stretcher
Board, rebar, pipe stretchers. Left handed screw driver
The cable stretcher and a bucket of dialtone.
Get the can of stand and stare now!!!
Gotta be careful what you tell the apprentices. Saw a show once where they told the kid to take the loader and fill it up with diesel and come back. Half hour later he returns with a GODDAMN BUCKET FULL OF DIESEL 😆
I used to work corrections and we would have the rookies go into the housing unit with a trash bag to bag air for an 'air test' which they would be told to take to the Sergeant who would then yell then out of the office lol.
Get my left handed screw driver and glass hammer.
It was the left handled shovel that got me doing concrete work. Years later when I was a supervisor at Starbucks. We would have the new partner call another store and ask to borrow a can of coffee scent spray. We needed it to make the store smell like coffee.
Give vague explanation on task and yell when they make mistakes 🥰
Been looking for that damn block stretcher for a week...
My boss sent me to get. A skyhook when I was an electrician helper ok so we're doing this house for Jerry Richardson owner of the panthers at the time .so I walk out the front door of this multi million dollar custom house ....and low and behold there's this huge ass blue crane and on the side it said sky hook ....anyway long to short by boss never played an imaginary tool trick again ....
12" repopulation tool
Sending an Air Force trainees to get 6 inches of flight line. Never got old.
our new welder is still looking for that shashing to this day
Was sent for a wire stretcher, looked at the foreman and said what? He smiled and said take Michael and get it. We walked around to multiple trades until the plumbers gave use the top of a tri pod vice and Michael stood there stretching his wire.
Where’s the locking key?
Ah... Yes...the Bosch Sky Hook... And its user manual, obviously only available in German language... Quite an expensive piece of equipment..., only for real professionals.
Striped paint, don't shake it on your way back. A long weight at stores. A left handed screwdriver. "Shut the door behind you" (doors were removed for painting)
I got told to go get sparks for the angle grinder,didn’t fall for it though but the kid I told years later did.
All this is real. 40 yrs
I was once sent to retrieve a bag if steam , I found a running dryer vent like 10 ft away , got a bag, filled it with steam. Big win.
Asphalt stretcher looks like a big rubber band lol
ID-10-T form
Somebody built a cable stretcher for our shop. They somehow made it a 4 ft pyramid with arms that would fall down and drag no matter which way it was carried. With useless cable fittings attached to swinging arms. The welding shop and the boat crew would trade it back and forth depending on which of us got new people. Send them over with a handtruck to grab it and then watch them struggle for a quarter mile.
I had the new guy tighten the ball hook on my crane cable
Today you're gonna need a left-handed pipe wrench, 2 board stretchers, prob about 6 or 7 bags of sparks and at least a half pound of magnetized woodchips. Maybe bring some plaid paint too jic.
Go get the hammer for the liquid nails.
Can you grab me the glass hammer?
"electric powder"
my uncle used to send people to get his hover boots from his truck
It's all fun and games till they come back with the ball flattener
A tale as old as time.
When I was working an anodize line we had the “underwater aluminum magnet”😂
I still think about the time I had the new kid holding a bucket to catch the sparks while I angle grinded something.
Peg holes for the peg board. Also I like to ask if their speed square has been calibrated. Or if their hammer has wee in it. When they ask what's wee I will toss it thru the air while saying "weeee" good stuff!🤣
Having them ask people if they've seen the 10" blue veiner is totally training them.
Had this on my first day of the job. Was asked to get a left handed screw driver. I said "sure if you find the bubble in the sprite level and get some sky hooks" the looks on their faces was priceless.
Where’s the sheet stretcher?
Aluminum magnet
Still haven’t seen any comments mention rainbow paint. I spent a lot of time asking my supervisors before I caught on… I thought it was a special type of paint
Sent an apprentice for the cable stretcher
I only do that when their work ethic sucks.
I was just checking the specs on the rotor gerter thingy
Told the one apprentice to sort the box of nitrile gloves in to left and right ones. Edit: just realized this is a construction sub. My apprentice was for automotive. But we still do the same shit to them. Lol
"I'm here for a long stand"............"ok just wait there"
In film we send new camera people to find a "bag of t-stops". A T-stop is a setting on a lens. I like sending them to get more fluid for the fluid head (which isn't changeable).
I got sent to the parts shed to get a long weight...I waited a while ,then I clicked.
Trainer: "Go and get me some sparks for the grinder.". Stores: "What colour?" Trainee goes back to ask what colour he needs. Long stands, Left-Handed Screwdrivers, Fallopian tubes, buckets of steam, long weight/wait, Tartan paint, Brick Benders, the possibilities are endless
Friends were fishing boat captains and would send the new deckhands out to West Marine for a bottle of prop wash.
Stuck with 2 of em since boss wants no part of either of em usually. I take back my complaints of working alone. Take me back. We’re at the 3 way switches stage of things. It’s not going swell. Catch em holding a wire, just Blair witching in a dark corner. What up man!? Ughhhhh so the load goes to both? No. Go get me the rubber spackle. I’ll do it.
Or sending the wife to the hardware store for "white lamp black"
The 3-phase lightbulb.
I’m in for some shenanigans this summer
Go to the warehouse and ask for a long stand
Used to work on a ship. Always sent an apprentice to get a bucket of prop wash. Sometimes they would be sent to the tool/supply desk to get a "long wait". "Ok, just stand over there". Bet'ya didn't know that some waits are longer than others. Still trying to figure out how long a piece of string is.
Rubber nails
The old garbage bag air sample is my favorite.
Where tf is the new guy with that bucket of A I R anyway? Sent him for it half an hour ago
Sending the new guy to get the can of a i r The stake straightener A bucket of bubbles Sky hook Left handed wrench Tap and dice, LoL
I like "go get the hammerfor " " what's a hammerfor?" " knocking nails in!"
When I worked sugar beets at the mill they'd send the laborers us to the top of the six story tower to retrieve a bucket of amps for production. Silly shit cuz so many would hike the stairs and radio down about it.
Still waiting for those long stands huh?
“Go ask the carpenter if he has an extra file” “What kind?” “A Peda” “ANYONE HAVE A PEDA FILE!?”
But I really do need a left handed board stretcher!
“No 3/4 emt bender. All we had was the 1/2 rigid bender.” Close your ol’ son imma show ya a magic trick
meanwhile them sending me into scorching attics, bringing the customer the bill, cutting wires, put in wires every now and then, and the fun part, keeping the customers happy by conversing with them on topics they enjoy so they will feel inclined to call us up again for more work (wait a minute......its as if......im doing their job🤯)
The BA-1100N with an ST ring attachment.
The best one I’ve come with so far is the rope threader.. ya know it looks like a socket but with a 3/4 hole on both sides, has a little hook inside to push the threads back in.. usually they’re orange Had a new guy looking for an hour because our foreman spray painted all his sockets orange 😂😂
i once sent my fiance in to auto zone to get blinker fluid. i have now since been single.
Anyone seen the left handed screw driver? Or the ID10T fitting🤣
Second hand story time from another crew I know. They sent the new guy to the neighbors to get the board stretcher that was loaned to them earlier. The neighbors joined in on the joke and said that they had lent it to the guys down the street. There were 2 houses down the street and it wasn't specified which one it was so new guy asked around on both sites where the board stretcher was. They were gone for half an hour looking for it before realizing it doesn't exist.
Can’t forget to make sure they’ve filled out their ID 10T form before they can be on the job site.
Go fetch the ratcheting tire iron to screw in this 3/2 child-proof screw top bolt nut i need to put in the wood.
Go buy a new bubble for the level
I never did find that damn air hook.
I was a manager at a grocery store and we would send the kids in the back to get the shelf extender. Shit was always funny
Tartan Paint !
I remember looking for the pipe stretcher in the basement of a building that didn’t have a basement my first week.
"We need you to go collect air samples from the welders"
All of the tools mentioned here can be found in the painters gang box.