What Mistakes Have You Done?

[kbl123]

a few years ago on a big extension a labourer asked me why his lead light wasnt working, he tried a new bulb but nothing. to be honest i couldnt be bothered as was having a bad day. So gave him a new fuse and siad probably that. Still no light. Is the socket even live gave him a plug in tester it beeps away , still no light. Okay give it here. Undo plug check connections find live loose and so moaning and basically ripping the ****e out the labourer sort it out and hand it back. This is all in the space of 5 mins just me and him. Tea break time comes and all there and one of the lads says that the lead light is buggered to which i said no i did it and that i was like god by letting there be light etc. He plugs it in no light. Thought well i've checked everthing else theres not a scratch on it and cable fine so I take out bulb undo bulb holder. Aha another loose live so i twist the cores to fit in the terminal and BANG 230V up me arm, light smashed, pride obliterated, red faced laughing stock. ALWAYS disconnect. ha ha

 

[Kamikaze]

Some real good ones here. We've all bu**ered up some time or another. After 30+ years i got some beauts.

Winston Churchill once said, success is the ability to go from one failure to another without the loss of enthusiasm. :biggrin:

 

[mark ju]

Few years back we were doing a massive office refurb in basingstoke, and i fetched up one day to have my boss tell me to fit start fitting modular lights in one of the large areas where the ceilings were finished.
He told me they were a right so and so to fit and it took him and another lad all day to fit x amount.
So left to my own devices i started dropping them in, easy as anything. clicked into place nicely, flex pre-made and plugged straight in. when through that area like a dose of salts. Did twice as much as boss and his mate without even breaking into a sweat. What a pair of jessies.
Talking to one of the other lads working on a board, he said christ they struggled. Balancing them on their heads while they put the clips in. Why on their heads....cos the bloody things fitted in from below!
Wondered what the bag of clips was for. In my defence i had never before come across modulars that fitted from below.
Very steep learning curve that day. Lucky for me my boss almost wet himself laughing. Until we went to remove them and found that nice clicking sound which i thought was the fitting clicking into place was actually the enamel stratching off them. Had to go round with touch up paint on dozens of the bloody things!

 

[tidyboiler]

It goes past Chedworth, it runs as a road from Leicester to Cirencester, and is a track from Cirencester on towards Bath.

Ah right, thought I recognised the name. Had a fantastic few holidays down there when I was young, free and single! :devilish:

 

[Bobster]

Had to work on replacing the oil on an 11kv transformer one night, just me and another lad with me on site, job was going ok everything in place, radio on etc...

About 20min after knocking the power off to the tx, I could hear a helicopter flying over the quarry, thaught nothing of it.

10min after this had a shout from outside the door of the sub, "come out slowly this is the armed response unit"

Yeah, I'd compleatly forgotten to let the police know the power to the explosive compound would be switched off so they thaugh the place was being robbed. They had used the thermal camera to spot our pickup outside the sub with a hot engine still.

That took some explaining, got a good ribbing off the lads the next day.

 

[Paul.M]

Ah right, thought I recognised the name. Had a fantastic few holidays down there when I was young, free and single! :devilish:

Is that an omission of making a mistake or was the mistake made by the girls whilst you was on holiday lol.


If some of my x-girlfriends/victims could see and reply to this thread they would have it up to page 47 by now :rofl:

 

[tidyboiler]

Is that an omission of making a mistake or was the mistake made by the girls whilst you was on holiday lol.


If some of my x-girlfriends/victims could see and reply to this thread they would have it up to page 47 by now :rofl:

I was staying with my then boyfriend (I'm female)... my mistake was going home lol.......:rolleyes2:

 

[Geordie Spark]

I was staying with my then boyfriend (I'm female)... my mistake was going home lol.......:rolleyes2:

Behave yersel Wor Lass !!! :32:

:love:

 

[DNS1]

I was staying with my then boyfriend (I'm female)... my mistake was going home lol.......:rolleyes2:

Hold on a sec...

We have a GIRL on here?!

Has that happened before?!

 

[tidyboiler]

Behave yersel Wor Lass !!! :32:

:love:

Every cloud pet.......... I wouldn't trade you for a lorry full of stotties!!!!!! :37::love:

 

[Rockingit]

I did a right stunner of a D'oh! only yesterday - having pre-cored a 38mm hole through a wall with a triple cavity a couple of weeks ago and left a nylon pull cord (BT style one) in it for prep, I thought that feeding 4 CCTV cables through would be easy, even in the pouring rain soaking down by neck. Nah. Who made the schoolboy error of pushing the first couple of metres through rather than pulling? Yep, 3 or 4 metres of cable and drawcord all nicely tangled and looped in a knot inside the cavities. Had to remove a 5" fan duct next to it to get my hand/arm into the cavities to sort it out, and the draw cord ended up getting snipped into about 20 bits! What should have taken 5 minutes ended up being 2 hours schlopping about in a muddy trench in torrential rain. Glad I always keep spare socks in the van!

 

[Knobhead]

Yeah, I'd compleatly forgotten to let the police know the power to the explosive compound would be switched off so they thaugh the place was being robbed.

Similar situation. Turned off both feeders to an MCC panel to do some alterations on the bus-bars. The easiest way to get to them was to climb inside the panel. So there I am quite comfortable cracking on with things when I hear voices, strange, I’m the only person on the plant???? Sticks my head out and I’m looking at a pair of wellies and bright yellow over trousers, Ooopps! The MCC panel was for the 12 X 150HP hydraulic pumps that fed the plant.
I’d isolated the CO² system and the slam shut fire doors, but clean forgot about the silent alarm to the fire brigade. The central hydraulic reservoir contained 200,000 liters of oil, the minimum brigade attendance was six engines.
Two engines from three stations had to be paid for by the company. For some reason I wasn’t the most popular person in the world on the Monday morning.

 

[llywelyn111]

15 core SWA into a pump station control panel, all connected up, tested, cover closed, tools back in van. SHROUD still sat nicely on top of the control panel.

 

[ayjay]

not me but my mate-we ran a new240mill 4core swa from a trench up the wall(fixed by cleats) to the top and through a hole that we drilled through the brickwork, then fed it through said hole and cleated it along the side of a joist all the way to the new mains board
it was friday so we packed up early, when my mate went to take the ladder back to the store uhh-ho
he had passed the swa through top rung of the brand new ladder
ohh how we laughed

 

[1shortcircuit]

not me but my mate-we ran a new240mill 4core swa from a trench up the wall(fixed by cleats) to the top and through a hole that we drilled through the brickwork, then fed it through said hole and cleated it along the side of a joist all the way to the new mains board
it was friday so we packed up early, when my mate went to take the ladder back to the store uhh-ho
he had passed the swa through top rung of the brand new ladder
ohh how we laughed

So now your ladder is missing a rung... right? lol

 

[ayjay]

my boss was as tight as a crabs arse and never bought any plant
well he bought a brand new pair of steps(this is a long time back) well- i had a job and put said steps into my austin a40 farina
they didn,t fit(too tall) and were stuck out of the passenger window quite a bit
well going thro highcliffe village a national sunlight laundry lorry came the other way, i forgot how far the steps were sticking out, crash!!- they hit the oncoming lorry, and the legs/feet pushed out the rear window which didn,t break btw, it just cane out onto the road
the steps were completely destroyed,
i got back to the yard later and told the boss, he hung then back on the wall in the store, and there they stayed for years

 

[ayjay]

i used my hacksaw to cut the outer lip off of the rung, then we bent the shaft of the ladder open to slip it off of said swa
(the ladder was aluminium btw)

 

[mark ju]

Now this ones not down to me, but to the owner of a shiny new house some years ago...

Doing a bit of new build work some years ago. Was on this site for quite a while.
Site agent came and got me one day, looking agitated and very annoyed. asked if i had done a private on a house recently moved in. Now the custom was on this site that if customers wanted extras the sales lady used to put them onto me as it was cheaper than going through the builder.
Anyway we walked down to this house, nice place, big 5 bedder, top standards etc, and asked if i was responsible for fitting several lights to the outside of the attatched garage. Wasn't down to me, and the customer changed his story when confronted from saying that the site sparks had done it to owning up and admitting that he had been responsible.
Apart from the fact the wiring looked like it had been thrown in by a child, the plum had also drilled through a boxing in the garage without checking what was inside it. The soil pipe from two upstairs bathrooms! He not only drilled clean through it but also managed to thread the cable straight through the pipe to an outside light.
Problem only came to light because of the smell of sh** in the utility room backing onto the garage. The bottom of the unit also swelled up and blew and the floor vinyl started rotting.
To coin a modern phrase LMFAO

 

[polo1]

Guys/gals,
I'm not long back from my hols and just catching up with posts on the Forum. Have to say, I've laughed so much my sides hurt. :cry_smile: Good to realise that I'm not alone in delivering some "Auntie's Bloomers" whilst on the job.

A while ago, I had an apprentice helping me with an alarm installation - his job was to drill from inside the loft to the outside to route the bell cable. He was using a long masonary as the building had solid external walls. I heard the drilling, but could see no sign of the drill bit. Cutting a long story short, the customer runs out of the house to say there was a large drill coming in and out of her stairwell, going across the landing into the external wall. The lad had got confused entering the loft and was drilling through the stairwell. The cust took it in good humour, but exit one embarrassed apprentice & boss!

 

[skydog1]

My sisters house has hollow walls. I've no idea what they are but I'll post a pic, someone will know. I was an apprentice and Was doing her dining room under supervision of my boss who came in and instructed me what to do. "put a bigger box in for the switch in case they want a dimmer." he goes. I get the scutch chisel out and ever so gently taping the wall to try and make it bigger. Next thing ya know a hole appears and I can put my whole arm through her wall. Luckily she laughed about it and they also stopped taking the p about it now
View attachment 13970

spanish brick a nightmare