ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Fun with apprectices

I sent my apprentice out to the pickup for a rigid T. He comes back and hands it to me, I tell him I need one with the hole out the bottom, knowing that the way they are stacked in the pickup, all the hubs are on top. Twenty minutes later, I go check on him, I walk over grab one, flip it, and say "this one should do it". He called me every name in the book.

I guess it's OK to trick the green 'new boy', apprentice, or whatever, but please take care of the truly gullible, those who go through their whole lives being tricked, hoodwinked and made fun of.

'Ralph' was such a one, a great happy lump of a man, the butt of endless japes which he took in good heart. Too many to mention, but here's some of them:

Pulled our 5 ton O.H. gantry-crane the full length of the machine shop with his teeth, because someone said he couldn't.

"I bet you couldn't eat two dinners Ralph!", went the banter in the canteen dinner queue. [ Our canteen-lady, Joan, always served up a stonking-great dinner of prize proportions].
Well, he blinking well could! Two massive steak pies, boiled spuds, mushy-peas, gravy and 2 giant bread rolls went down his cake-chute in short order, followed by two puddin's with custard!

In 1964, Lynne Davis was Wales' Olympic long-jump gold medallist. Ralph was tricked into a fake 'sports hour' at lunch break, and duly broke the world record in his boiler suit, flat cap and size 11 hobnail boots. As his huge frame took off, they moved the marker-stick back 10 feet! This joke was repeated the next day, with Ralph duly kitted out as the Golden Athlete. Plimsoles [ light canvas shoes], shorts & singlet, the lot.
He was convinced he had beaten the world record for years.

Finally, one day in the mid-eighties, he confided to his lunchtime-compatriots that he was going to repoint his chimney-stack at the weekend, and had arranged to hire a scaffold tower, roof ladders, boards etc.. to do the job safely.
Some idiot told him to save his money and tie himself to the chimney stack with a bit of rope instead.
And, of course he did. So when the old stack suddenly fell clean off the gable end, he went with it.
Result: He was partially paralysed and had to take medical retirement.

Alan

"To prepare for use, just add, er..... water!"

That reminds me of a fairly strange dream I once had... I got an old photo camera and in the carrying case there was all kinds of weird stuff. Most interesting: small paper bags of "Instant sparkling wine"
Even in my dream I laughed my lower backside off seeing that stuff...

Oh my! Steve if you ever want to work in VA., give me a call. Everyone around here gets it sooner or later. I am also reluctant to reveal too many J-man secrets but the box of 3/4" concrete holes has worked well and then there was the apprentice brave enough to lock me in that porta-john....
KB

...and then there was the time that I was training a new (book-smart) engineering graduate while one of the plant journeymen was making up a cord connector for our testing truck.

He asked my whether I wanted postive or negative phase rotation.

Since the truck was set up to reverse rotation as part of our testing procedure anyway, I told him that it didn't matter.

The kid was watching him terminate the cable in the cord connector when I pointed out "notice that he's making this up for POSITIVE phase rotation, if we were to need NEGATIVE phase rotation, he'd simply have to twist the wire strands in the other direction."

The kid would have completely bought it except for the small fact that the tradesman actually fell over against the side of the truck from laughing so hard.

Luketrician:
On your hacksaw trick of " flipping the blade upside down"... try just turning it around so it cuts on the backstroke... Did that to a co-worker and it was priceless, but he got me back eventually!

A.D

There are so many ways to get you Steve....and we will

I recall a story from years gone by....
A young apprentice and an older JW were pulling cables through cored holes in a hi-rise deck. The old timer was on the upper floor, the "kid" was on a ladder below. The kid would push the cables up and the old timer would grab it and secure it before they both relocated up one floor.
On one particular floor, the old timer put his foot over the hole in the floor. The kid shoved as hard as he could, but could not get the cable through the hole.
...and that's when it happened...
The old timer dropped his pants and squatted over the hole...telling the kid there must be a rock or a bottle or something in there....the kid dutifully reached up into the hole...and grabbed a sack of yams.

LOL

It didn't hurt/help that a crowd had gathered around the 1/2 naked old timer to see if he had actually lost his mind this time...when they saw the hand come up out of the floor...and the old timer drop a few inches to meet it sans undergarments...

You have nothing to fear, Steve...
...just keep telling yourself that....every morning when you wake up...knowing that one day it WILL be you...and it will be .


[This message has been edited by Celtic (edited 10-14-2006).]

Ahh yes,
the good old apprentice tricks.
A mate of mine was sent to the supply house by my Boss at the time to get 15 Left-hand Elbows and was told that there had better not be any Right-hand ones in the box or his pay would be docked.
Another one (Same guy) was bi-directional cable.
The young fella was told to tell the supply house not to give the Boss any more of that uni-directional cable.
(Same stuff, like Romex 12-3).
That Uni-directional stuff will burn someones house down one of these days, AC has to go both ways you know!.

Along the same lines! A little bit of fun, A clear bead of silicone caulk on a hard hat suspension.
Dave
PS
Peanut butter will get it out of the hair! With no damage done