Callouts you should never have been called to!

[Darkwood]

Just been called out to a customer saying the hot water is luke warm at best and been like that a week now, so after asking a few questions over phone to save a trip I decided I needed to go out and check it out...

It was a simple set-up on inspection supply to a mechanical 2hr boost timer only then to the water tank element, it all tested ok nothing out of the ordinary but confirmed the water was luke warm after it had been on for 90mins, now I dont know why but although it could have been a few things like faulty stat etc --something niggled me, I asked if any females are on sight to they confusingly said no!, do you have womens toilets - 'Yes' was the reply so off I wondered and as soon as i opened the door I saw the hot water tap running half flow lol....

Embarrased was the guy to say the least and sorry he wasted my time, I said don't be as Im getting paid and its not me that has to explain to the boss why turning the hot tap off in the womens toilets cost £60 ..... of course Ill edit the invoice to protect his arse but still funny thinking about it.

 

[telectrix]

called out yesterday evening to an alarm system that was bleeping. turned out customer has accidentally activated chime on a PIR zone, every time she walked past PIR, panel chimed. 3 button presses. sorted.

 

[dingledong]

Went to one today both toilet fans did not work ,isolators of ! What can you charge for that ?

 

[Darkwood]

It made me chuckle that this had been like this a week and no-one thought to check the taps...I can only assume the cleaner is on holiday too or shirking her duties lol

 

[Robotstar5]

Got called to a robot that had been working fine at start of shift but now wouldn't work. When I opened the door on the control cabinet, one of the switches was in the wrong position, I asked who'd been in the cabinet, no-one apparently so the toggle switch must have defied gravity and raised itself. Put the switch right and everything OK, just sign the jobsheet and £200 for a 5 minute job!.
I wish every callout was as simple.

 

[Tiny Spark]

Most stupid one I ever got called to was a "flood"

2am the phone rings, Security guard says he needs me to come out the toilets were flooded!
I have heard this many times so I asked the question where from and how bad.
He says its coming through the ceiling and its flowing under the toilet door down the coridoor.

**** I think I better get in quick, So quickly get changed and motored there fast as my car would go.

I walk in to find a puddle of water about 12" in diameter behind the toilet door, No water coming down (or signs of) No mass scale flooding just a random puddle of water.

Obviously there must of been a comms error or something I thought so I rang the bloke and asked him to show me the flood.
He says I must be blind but he would come.

So 5 mins later he shows up and points at my puddle and says there you go, You must be blind!

I then proceeded to tear strips off him and call him all the names under the sun before buggering off back to my bed.
Oh and told him that if he ever rang me for something that stupid again Ide shove the phone down past his smug mouth and boot it from the other end.

I also had one, Again the early hours of the morning saying the power had gone off.
I asked to what and the reply was everything, The whole area is down.

Well WTF am I meant to do about that!!

 

[tazz]

I get called to a block of 6 flats at least twice per month.....Bloke in top flat gets drunk and keeps sets off fire alarm call point.....drunken bloke in bottom flat, keeps taking a baseball bat and smashing the alarm panel till it stops......New panel and batteries everytime. Landlords going mad with ongoing costs. What makes me laugh, is all our hmo`s have gps remote silence reset, and if the guy just phoned us, I would silence it on route....

 

[LeeH]

I've driven half the length of the country to pull out an estop and press the reset button...one of a few nice jobs.

 

[Barry White]

Called to a flavour unit the touchscreen is dead when i got there it was the screensaver (was at work so not an actual callout but funny so worth a mention)

 

[telectrix]

reminds me of this:

Too stupid to own a computer | Really Funny Clean Jokes and Humor

 

[Pete999]

Most stupid one I ever got called to was a "flood"

2am the phone rings, Security guard says he needs me to come out the toilets were flooded!
I have heard this many times so I asked the question where from and how bad.
He says its coming through the ceiling and its flowing under the toilet door down the coridoor.

**** I think I better get in quick, So quickly get changed and motored there fast as my car would go.

I walk in to find a puddle of water about 12" in diameter behind the toilet door, No water coming down (or signs of) No mass scale flooding just a random puddle of water.

Obviously there must of been a comms error or something I thought so I rang the bloke and asked him to show me the flood.
He says I must be blind but he would come.

So 5 mins later he shows up and points at my puddle and says there you go, You must be blind!

I then proceeded to tear strips off him and call him all the names under the sun before buggering off back to my bed.
Oh and told him that if he ever rang me for something that stupid again Ide shove the phone down past his smug mouth and boot it from the other end.

I also had one, Again the early hours of the morning saying the power had gone off.
I asked to what and the reply was everything, The whole area is down.

Well WTF am I meant to do about that!!

Same thing really, flood I mean. Got a call out at about 3am better come quick B block is flooding, so gets to site sure enough water all up the corridor, this was in a WW2 MOD block and it was a long corridor. Looks around, boiler house you name it I looked in it, all except the cleaners room, couldn't get in, where is the key, gets access, dirty great stainless sink with the stopper in and the tap full on, a few red faces amongst MOD PLOD and a few stern words from the office manager, quite funny really.

 

[amckay]

I thought this is an electricians forum, your all getting called out for floods lol

A few weeks ago I got a call from a lady "my electrics have gone, can you sort it please"
So I go there have a look and turns out husbands been gardening and the RCD had tripped, probably from a powered gardening tool thats so old just looking at it demands a red fail pat sticker.
One flick of the switch and £45 notes later she was happy and so was I!

 

[trev]

Got a call one time from what turned out to be a "special" person. He had no hot water so after asking him if he had a gas heating sytem and getting a no I toddled on up there.
By the time I got there his carers had arrived, they showed me a shiny new combi boiler with the hot water control turned right down.
Didn't have the heart to charge the poor bugger but he insisted I take a tenner.

 

[gnuuser]

I've driven half the length of the country to pull out an estop and press the reset button...one of a few nice jobs.

ha ha so im not the only one that's had to do that

 

[Silly Sausage]

I've driven half the length of the country to pull out an estop and press the reset button...one of a few nice jobs.

ha ha so im not the only one that's had to do that

In the USA, that's one helluva drive!!!

 

[Slowhand]

I got called out to get the storage heaters working in the offices of a company that organised jobs abroad for gap year students. Everyone in the offices was fresh out of uni and had a degree. I went in and explained who l was and was made to feel like I was some kind of sub human. That got my back up right away, I really don’t like being talked down to treated like a servant.
The heating hadn’t been working for days but I couldn’t find anything wrong.
I asked one of the girls to go through her “ shut down procedure “ that the last one out of the office did every night. She shut down her computer, turned it off at the socket and then turned the DP switch for the storage heater off. So I asked her if everyone did the same and she said yes.
I got them all ( about 30 of them ) together and asked the mouthiest bloke to demonstrate the procedure and asked everyone to watch to make sure they all did the same thing. As he went to turn off the DP to the storage heater I shouted “ BANG!!” He didn’t like that and neither did the rest of them.
I told them they might have degrees but even the stupidest person I had ever met knew storage heaters needed to be left turned on at night and that for people of their supposed education I would have expected a lot better.
The owner of the company, another clever mouthy b*****d soon shut up when the owner of the building called him and told him it was his fault the heating didn’t work and he had to pay me for the day and he had to pay me now.
I got paid and left them trying to work out why the heaters wouldn’t get hot till tomorrow when they’re switched on now.
Total waste of education!

 

[gnuuser]

In the USA, that's one helluva drive!!!

yes it was
they didnt notice the e-stop because the lamp burned out in the button
my only question for them is why didnt they check all the e-stops in the first place?
im sure they did start doing it after they got my invoice (over $3000.00 plus expenses)

 

[Silly Sausage]

Clear evidence that you can put a price on stupidity!

 

[PEG]

Did a bio-filter re-install for a pal,after NHBC registered builders of his new-build royally cocked up and walked....anywho...replaced damaged cabling,junction boxes etc,re-set and tested. Give little speech about what can and cannot,go through,all groovy. Few weeks later,phone call "It smells,it's noisy,and i can't have a bill off you,everytime i curl one out!" ...get down there,strip out pumps,and find blockage consisting of 1 small pair of childs "superman" underpants,and 500 cotton-buds...no problems money wise (best paying customer i have) but,found out too late,that lying down fiddling with pumps,had got comfy on top of a red ants nest...probably had a nip per quid...:conehead:

 

[Darkwood]

after cotton buds im totally lost PEG :uhoh2: