It's been awhile and working with masons can range from terrible to easy. A case of beer given for after work can sometimes work wonders.
We always would pre make a bunch of 1900 boxes with about 5' of 3/4 pvc coming out of the top. Since they have to lift the block over the pipe, it shouldn't be too long and there should be plenty of couplings and glue on hand. Pigtail the ground and thread some doubled up tie wire through the back of the box holes and bring it out the front of the deep p-ring with plenty of extra.
Then we would duct tape the whole thing, poking the tie wire through the p-ring.
Communication was the key and if you let most of the masons I used to work with know where and when to put the boxes, they had no problem cutting it out and setting them in.
Then we'd take a cut piece of pvc and use the tie wire to snug the box up to flush (on finished block).
We keep a stash of pieces of busted up block to stick behind the box to snug it in, but a lot of time the masons would take care of that and throw some mud in there too.
Many times when they first hit the job they would need power to be hooked up for their saws, so that was a good time to get everything straightened out how it would happen, but I know what you mean about the dance thing.
