Discuss What the funniest/cringeworthy things you've seen someone do on site ? in the Electricians Chat - Off Topic Chat area at ElectriciansForums.net

Evening Mr Bod.

How many plumbers does it take to change a light bulb?

None, because on 65 grand a year they can pay someone else to do it :)
 
I watched an electrician drill a live busbar when I was an apprentice, sounds like I am lying but I swear it happened and he didn't even flinch, he knew what he was doing and had done it before, we were working on a factory machine which needed power and we could not switch off the power at all as it was running 24-7, this was around 1980 ish, I have never forgot it.
 
When I just started my apprenticeship the spark I was working with was a big fan of the licked finger, live test. :shocked:
 
I once couldn't find a breaker to isolate and strip out an old switch fuse in a forgotten plant room in a hospital building. It could have been any one of hundreds, only about 20% were marked up, but I couldn't go switching off Willy nilly. Computers with hospital records, server rooms, x ray equipment etc.
My colleague told me to stop titting around, held a 6 inch nail in his pliers, and jammed it to a dead short. One flash and a bang later and we had our circuit isolated.
 
A guy in my work has a set of "bang bang snips" if he doesn't know or can't figure out what circuit to isolate he cuts threw the cables to make it blow.
 
Not long into starting working with the company we were working in an office full of women. Mostly middle aged, they gossiping and dropping a few s-bombs and f-bombs as they were doing it.

Anyway the gaffer goes through the door, I gingerly followed and immediately the birds stop tweeting and one apologised for swearing.

I piped up and just came out with

"At least you didn't say c-bomb"

After the initial gasps, the silence was absolutely deafening, I just walked back out the door and cringed for the rest of the day.
 
i wired stands at NEC for a week with about 3 other sparks, we all digged at one house in coventry and when it came to going to the pub we had to share the bath (not at the same time) and could only refill it once, so i had the first bath followed by the next spark, the spark after that refilled the bath and the last spark (my mate) followed him. when we were all cleaned and in the pub the spark who had the bath before my mate asked him if his bath water was ok (due to the hard water in the area leaving scum floating on the water), my mate said it was a bit scummy so didnt stay in long, the spark told him it was cos hed had a w**k in the bath water. my mates head then started to go red and then he got off his bar stool and chased him out of the pub and down the road while the rest of us p****d ourselves.
 
One of my old work mates told me about when he was once working kitting out a new industrial unit. There were several trades working in there at once and the floor was full of snaking 110v cables and transformers. He needed power for his grinder so unplugged a power cable from one of the transformers. There was a couple of screams, an almighty splintering crash and a thud as 2 men hit the floor near him.
The power cable was powering a huge magnetic base drill that two guys were using to drill some holes through the metal roof trusses. When the power was cut, the drill de-magged from the truss (should have been chained off), fell onto the wooden batten they were both sitting on which was resting between two girders, broke the batten and sent them both careering to the floor.
My old work mate did what a lot of people would have done in that situation. Plugged their power cable back into the transformer and did one. :uhoh2:
 
One of my old work mates told me about when he was once working kitting out a new industrial unit. There were several trades working in there at once and the floor was full of snaking 110v cables and transformers. He needed power for his grinder so unplugged a power cable from one of the transformers. There was a couple of screams, an almighty splintering crash and a thud as 2 men hit the floor near him.
The power cable was powering a huge magnetic base drill that two guys were using to drill some holes through the metal roof trusses. When the power was cut, the drill de-magged from the truss (should have been chained off), fell onto the wooden batten they were both sitting on which was resting between two girders, broke the batten and sent them both careering to the floor.
My old work mate did what a lot of people would have done in that situation. Plugged their power cable back into the transformer and did one. :uhoh2:

A right couple of daft planks.
 
We once bought a machine from a German company for our factory and the bloke who came over to commission it was telling us a story about when he went to commission one in Russia.
The Russian chargehand asked him if he would like a hot drink and the German fella said yes. The chargehand summoned an apprentice and babbled some instruction to him. The apprentice went off and reappeared with a metal bucket of water which he plonked at the Germans feet. Over his shoulder he had two cables coiled up with croc clips on one end. He went over to the wall and clipped the croc clips onto two copper strips that were running the length of the factory wall at shoulder height (no buss bars in this factory, all the machines were connected to these bars in this way :eek: )
He then took the other ends of the cables which were bare and dunked them into the bucket of water, looking at the German fellas horrified face as the water proceeded to boil rapidly.:yes:
 
working on a boost system for the glass tank one of the old batch crew had a bit of a beef with our boss so he crapped in a coffee can and placed it on the heater in the bosses office and cranked the heater on its highest setting.

can you say magic smoke?
no one would go near the office for days
 
I was a foreman in the British Embassy in USSR and 1 particular Russian brickie always made me a cup of Lemon tea with lemonade crystals, quite nice really
 

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