My plumber buddy hired me to do an extensive 320 Amp service and tie together feeds to several boilers, outbuildings, hot tub, etc., about a year ago. Several areas were not completed such as wiring in his shop. Now, my friend takes up a lot of space, has a big ego, did his apprenticeship on the 50 & 51st floors of the WTC in '70, moved to the Ozarks in the early seventies. He is really good at his Craft and he and I trade jokes about many of the so-called master plumbers and electricians that we encounter. So I had installed a 60 A circuit and receptacle for his brand new welder, as yet not ordered when the plug was installed. Several months went by and I go in to the supply house one day and my friend had been in that morning and left a note for me to call him.(Don't ask why he didn't have my number...) So I checked in to find that the welder won't work, I musta done sum'tin wrong...so I drive out to his place, kick into troubleshoot mode, suspected a missing leg of the 240. I checked the receptacle, breaker, panel, he had proper voltage everywhere & the welding machine fan was running, I checked the manual, did my best to seem thorough, he claimed that when he shorted the stinger to the ground clamp, he got no response. I suggested he bring me a scrap of steel, explained that maybe the unit needed to detect a tiny bit of resistance in order to work, clamped the ground to the steel, pressed the trigger and ZAP! it worked. The look on his face when he realized that I had driven 30 miles to show him that pressing the trigger was required was too good for words. He had made such a fuss attempting to blame me for doing something inappropriate with HIS welding receptacle, only to find out that all you have to do is push the lil' red button... In his defense, his welding experience was 20 years ago and with stick, so he had never held a MIG gun in his hands before, but you gotta be carefull when you think that just because you are a NYC trained MP that you have an open license to be an expert in every area of life...Read the book, maybe.
