my entire life is a horror story...

The Job from hell part 1...

This steel magnate (smallish company) is bilding anew house... He strikes a deal with his best bud the electronics supplier.... you gimme electonics for my house, I give you steel for yours... Electronics guy builds $5m house ($8-12m elsewhere), then has to carry out his end of bargain. HE calls a guy I work with and says 'prewire', so we go have a look... Steel guy's house is 80 feet wide, 60 feet deep, 2 floors... Guy I work with, from this point on called idiot, says it'll take 3 days to wire. He helps me for the first 10 minutes, then idiot flys away. I was a n00b at the time, no wiring xp- had to do 3 runs per room, 2 coax, 3 cat5e, by myself. House sound w/ cat5e... 3 surround sound options per room. central vac (i cringe at the words 'central vac' now)... 5 plasmas in one room- as far away from the panel as you can get...

3 months later, I emerge from steel guy's house and declare it wired.

During this time, brick guys come in, lay 3/4 of the brick, and are stopped by steel guy's PITA wife. Bitch hates the brick, so they take it all down. They start another set of brick, PITA wife hates it, so they pull it, and start again, She hates is again, so they go back to original brick, PITA wife LOVES it. She also made the carpenters remove the curved main stairway and redo it... I couldn't tell the difference!!!

The main contractor tried to buy his way out... steel guy wouldn't let him...heh

We got fired from that job... they got sick of idiot's lying to them!!!



Part 2... the Wrath of Punkin
(that's the poor lady's real name)

coming soon!

Hey guys -- thanks for a great thread! I've found lots of comments to work with for my article, but I need to contact you all to get details so you can be mentioned in the story

I've got most of the info, but no emails for:
Fred Harding
Sheik Yerbouti
MesaMan

If you three could drop me an email at [email protected], I'd appreciate it and will get you into the story.

Thanks, looking forward to it!
Ron Goldberg

This job shouldn't be a nightmare , the contractor gave me incorrect info .
The people that owned the house walked .
New owner wants us to do A/V and phones :-)
I't at least appears tho have all necessary wires pulled .

Keeping my fingers crossed .

Having all the necessary wires doesn't necessarily mean having all the necessary wires going to the necessary places, right?


Just don't get your wires crossed.

JJP

True but the contractor gave us free rein , cut run holes if we need to and he will patch :-)

John, my wires were crossed a LONG time ago lol

DUTCH BOY!

Just what I call him since my lead guy is Dutch.
I was in a rat infested crawl space sending up phone and network wiring to a master BR wall. Since we had so many of them and the crawl was about 18" deep(too much food now has me at about 14" deep), we took a few shotcuts in determining locations and my guy was cutting boxes while I started the crawl. As he opened this particular one he noticed a copper pipe but determined that it would be no big deal as the jack was only about an inch deep. He told me to make sure that I drilled straight up... not at an angle as I only had 1" of clearance. I protested that it might be easier to patch this hole but he insisted that we'd be ok. Dumbass me takes his word for it and drills. PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Shit I'll never forget that sound... Oh and did I mention this expensive Brazilian somethingorather floor that had just been put down and sealed! I immediately yelled "DUTCH BOY...put your finger in the dike". Exited crawlspace in record time and ran all over house looking for main water shutoff while Dutch Boy's finger was getting beet red from squeezing around the hole. Found it... shut it off... crawled back to luckily placed below feeder pipe with hacksaw and bucket. Once all the water dripped harmlessly out of the pipe I called my plumber and the fix was made. Needless to say we moved the location of the network jack once the 8" hole for the upper fix was made. General wasn't even pissed and Dutch Boy still has an indent on his finger!

I got a few here is one:

We were working on a retro fit in Beverly Hills with the most evil witch of a lady customer. We bid out a media room & multi-room background music system. We were awarded with the media room contract but the alarm company was awarded the background music contract. They copied our design item for item & then had the nerve to call us with technical questions. The owner told them "We wouldnt mind". We completed the media room & ran.

Six months later the husband called begging us to come back for a service call.
When we arrived at the home the wife was there in all her evilness complaining, yelling. There was an electrician who just arrived because the front door overhead lights were not working. He was starting to evaluate the situation & told her the lights had to be replaced due to corrosion. She stated thats absurd climbed up the ladder and started to pry off the trim ring. Thats when we noticed all the black mold around the area where the lights were. As she continued to pry off the light trim cursing because some idiot sealed it so well (Silicon Sealant). The trim gave way and out came old moldy raw sewage that had a smell that I cant even forget to this day. The sewage pretty much covered this lady head to toe. The electrician, my crew & I were on the floor. Without missing a beat the electrician said " You better get a plumber i think you have a leak mam."

Turns out the Alarm company who did the background music system damaged the pipe that leads from the master bath toilet had been damaged and leaked in to an area above the front door collecting & pooling for months. The gods were smiling that day for every custom AV installer abused by their customers.

Another log-jam cleared by an (un) lucky logger.

rhm9,
I did that myself, more or less...I drilled down, down, down, on the ground floor of a house in Encino, and the drill STILL was going through wood! Turned out it was going through a 2x6 block between the floor support and the concrete foundation wall. Then the drill oozed forward a bit and apparently hit wood again. The bit came up a tiny bit WET!!! I had shaved through the side of a 1" or so copper pipe going through the 2x6 with a butterfly bit.

Two times before, it took me three minutes to get under the house at that location. This time, to check for a leak, it took me about thirty seconds. What a nice fine spray that was!

I actually had to crack up that, at that moment, electricians and carpenters were standing around saying, "wow, I've never seen that before; you'd think this would happen all the time, but, wow, I've never seen that before." (language courtesy of Southern California)

And, of course, NOBODY knew that the water shutoff was concealed in the 10x30 foot bed of ivy out front. But I found it!

Earned enough money that day to pay the plumber. And maybe pay for lunch.


Another one -- in the same house, I had a speaker wire in my hand, crawling under the house toward a hole in the floor where I would poke the wire up. The ground sloped upward toward that location. "I can do it, I can do it," I thought! The clearance decreased to the point where I had to, uh, well, adjust myself to get a certain part of me under a floor joist; the next joist, I had to exhale slightly...I was about to go one more joist space toward my goal when I reflected on the fact that I really truly am NOT claustrophobic. But then, as I got ready to move a few more inches toward the hole, I understood what psychics mean when they say that they "see" something, when it is not really sight, but a distinct image somewhere in the mind that is not really sight. The image I saw?? I bright red FIRE TRUCK.

I gently readjusted myself to get back out, dropped a second wire in the hole, went under, snagged it with a hook, and spliced the wires. Splice versus fire truck requires choosing the splice.

Ernie

Ernie, many times I've been in similar diminishing spaces, some so tight, I had to back up just to turn my head.

I would have passed a fishtape (or other pull wire) through the hole from above, and used that to pull my speaker wire into the hole, mainly to avoid the splice under the house.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

I was working at an expensive house and had to make a connection behind the big screen. I had pulled it out before and unloaded the oriental art frames, vases, etc off the top, including this no doubt expensive but paper mache looking lion, but this time I just wanted to move it a couple inches and thought I could do it.... Trouble was, the Mits was on carpet and the wheels indented the pad, so I pulled, pulled a little bit harder, then SUDDENLY it moved... crashing overhead ensued as the oriental art slammed down, pottery tinkling... but the LION...
The client just happened to be walking by at the time. I was on the floor on my belly, and looked up to see the lion falling off the top. He caught it gently in his arms and cradled it like a little bitty baby... "Hey good catch, Ken!"
Phew!

Give it to us...

it's not over yet..... But, it gets worse and funnier by the day!

Maybe you should start a new thread to be the "Column" for it

Ummmmm did this guy Ron mention what magazine he worked for? I don't think I'd like to broadcast blunders for any public knowledge when we are the guys that are supposed to know what we are talking about.

Just a thought.

Twix.