ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Sparky's Laws

After climbing to the roof of a 40' tall building, you'll find that the equipment you need to work on has all metric bolts.
The roof ladder will always be located on the opposite corner of the building from the spot you need to go.
You'll go to fix a machine to find that they have a great set of schematics...in Mandarin Chinese.
When you've hurried to reach a point for your inspection on a fast-track job, you'll always finish on a Thursday...and City Hall will be closed on Friday.
As soon as the inspector OK's the release of power for an eager customer, there will be a major utility problem and it will take all the utility workers days to repair it...they won't get to you for a week.
When you finally get an applicant for that service truck job that really seems like he'll be great for your company, you'll find out he's just been released from prison for embezzling and has no driver's license.
The chance of having a load of fixtures damaged in transit or built wrong is 10X greater if you need them urgently or they have a 2 month+ lead time to replace. In stock items will be OK




[This message has been edited by electure (edited 05-19-2001).]

Electure's ladder comment reminds me that the access hole to the attic/crawlspace is gauranteed to be as far as possible from where you need to go.

The foreman gives you the new 200 foot fishtape, but not without a lecture on taking care of it, wasting money etc.

On the very first wire pull from the top of your 10 foot step ladder, you let the tape pay off over your shoulder (figuring that you'll roll it up right after the pull is finished), you're unaware of the welder sitting against the wall with the wingnut terminals on the front. Yep you guessed it, 53, two foot long pieces laying on the floor!

Uhh, boss? About that new fishtape....

Matt

[This message has been edited by Matt M (edited 05-19-2001).]

. The existing panel should never have a panel schedule but if it does, it will be wrong.
. The guy you sent to find a spare circuit and make a hookup found one with no load...until the lighting control turned on that night and overloaded the circuit blowing the breaker and leaving the building dark.
. The guy you told to charge the scissorlift overnight put in a plug just for that purpose...and connected it to a lighting switchleg that shut it off as he left the room.
. You can't get to the panel because there's too much junk in the way

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 05-19-2001).]

. That resistance you felt with the sawzall was not a nail after all......it's a live waterline.


Great thread Sparky! I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes.

GJ

Home Depot will always be out of at least one item on your list.

Home Depot really doesn't carry anything I need, except as a last resort.

Tom

Matt,
Your story reminded me of one!

My first week on my current job. Trying to be a hard charger, I decided to move the service truck out of the garage and get ready to go one morning.

Being the new guy, I didn't know that it took every last bit of clearance to get the truck out. Ripped the bottom section out of the roll-up door with the ladder rack.....Oops, sorry about that!

Seven years later, I'm still here, so I guess that first impressions aren't everything.

GJ

If it's OK, I'm going to edit some of these to reflect a "future tense law-speak" rather than past tense when I post them on my webpage.

Thanks for all the input!



Sparky's Laws and other observations...

who are you kidding? everybody goes to Home Depot whether they want to or not.