Is There Any Reason...

Has a near miss with the same kind of problem.. I was doing a security and CCTV install at an explosives manufacturing plant, when I noticed a few AC outlets wired backwards.. (how can you do that, I thought) I checked a few other outlets just out of curiosity, nearly all of them were backwards... I ran down the owner, told him what I'd found.. It seem a good friend of his from another state was a master electrician and he had sent a couple of his workers over to do the electrical work at the plant.. Needless to say one of them was color blind, ‏(and I would assume a very low IQ'd individual) ((never heard of someone not knowing the difference between black and white)) to shorten the story, the plant opened 2 months late, it seem they had a long list of electrical problems, just lucky no body got killed. (you might ask, why didn't the ground didn't trip out the breakers, it seems the guy didn't know where to put that wire and cut it off in the electrical panels...) . If you live long enough, you'll see all kinds of things..... . . . RTS

(as requested, this is an opinion and or SARCASM) F.U. Big Government

Some days you just don't know!!

(years ago)I was contracted to install a fire alarm system is a 3 story building. Due to the size of the project I needed some help. I found this guy that had good credentials and was not employed at the time. I hired him on a part-time basis at 6 hours a day.

Once, it came to a time that I was ready to power up the system it was a Friday. So, at about 1pm I powered up and the system had multiple error that was a big puzzlement!! He happened to be ready to leave the job site since it was the end of his day. He asked if there was a problem, since I had a strange look on my face?? I said, no, just go home, I will see you on Monday!! He left.

I called a friend that had is own alarm business as well. I begged for some help on Saturday!! We met on site and started troubleshooting the system. There were a lot of problems that this part-time guy had made.

The one that really fried my short was a Pull Station that had the RED and BLACK on the same terminal. &@#&#^*(@!&&@

It took us about 8 hours to find and correct all of his mistakes.

On Monday morning I was in the parking lot waiting for him to show up. When he did I got out of his car and with his tool belt and I was there. I said, there were a lot of problems that you caused with the wiring of the system. I have corrected them all. I then showed him a picture of the Pull Station wiring connection he had made. He said I couldn't have done that!! Yes, YOU DID!!

I then handed him envelope and said, "here is your paycheck for last week and I included 2 hours for coming here today. You can go home now!!"

It was then that I realized I worked harder with an employee than I did without!! From that time forward when I needed some extra labor I would sub-contract with a few guys for a day or so. They got paid what the wanted and I moved on with my day!!

Memories, Memories......................

Now, for me every day is a Saturday and ever Saturday I have two Saturday's!!

Les

The first year I worked solo only hiring occasional (not much) contract labor as helpers was the most profitable year I ever had as a contractor. Next couple years were pretty good too. I lost a couple customers when they found out it was just me, but only one of them wasn't more trouble than they were worth. Sad to lose that one, but you can't win them all.

Ahhh Bob!! You bring back so many memories!! I was out to a house to work up a proposal for a full install. The potential customer was asking questions and the one was "So how many employees do you have??" I said, "Just me." He said, "So, what happens if you die??" A slight pause...... I said, "And what happens if you die??"

I wrote up proposal and doubled the cost! Never heard from him!!

I already wasted to much time and postage, for nothing!!

Les

Had a customer who was a PITA on a large job, and I wound up being forced to do some free work to get signed off to get paid. When they wanted an add on I wrote them a contract that said, "see addendums attached. The 9 pages of addendums are included in terms and conditions of contract." Then I easily tripled the price. They paid it. Customer was a pain and tried the same bull, but I pointed out the addendum to the contract covered everything he was asking for and who (not me) was responsible. I got paid, and they did the stuff they didn't pay for themselves.

When I started out I tried to have a single side single page simple normal size page contract, but customers forced me to write stricter and stricter contracts.

Plenty of customers I tried to price out, but instead they paid it. It took the sting out of working for them to get well paid to put up with them. I do the same thing with machine work. Easy customers always get my best price (which still isn't cheap), and PITAs get charged a putting up with them fee. If only I could know which they were before the first job for them.

After being in business for 33 years I decided that it was better for my stress level to just work with the good customers and let the others go! It was MORE BETTER!!

On Thu, 6 Nov 2025, RockyTSquirrel, Esq. wrote: "If you live long enough, you'll see all kinds of things....."

If you live long you can get opportunities to see many kinds of things.