Years ago, when there were only flip phones, I worked for a week for this guy off Craigslist. Eight to ten-hour days for seven straight days.

He dropped off $37 at my house with a nasty note saying I was a s***ty painter and didn’t even deserve the $37. I can’t remember my hourly rate, but I know it was more than a few cents an hour.

So, this dude had mentioned he had arguments with his girlfriend about constantly calling and leaving messages, because he would still incur a charge.

So, my buddy had a PC with a modem and set it up to dial the guy’s phone for three straight days and leave a message for two seconds and hang up, then redial.

I wish I knew what his bill was by the end.

My buddy works for a General Contractor doing framing and renovations. One of their clients is absolutely LOADED (fourth house, luxury cars, expensive gadgets constantly being delivered) but every time the contractor asks for a payment, the guy gives nothing but lip service.

Weeks of work go by. The addition is framed out, materials stacked, labor hours piling up, and still no check. The General Contractor has had enough.

One afternoon, after yet another excuse, the contractor waves my friend over.

Contractor: “Grab the chains.”

Friend: “…the chains?”

Contractor: “Yep. Hook them around the framing. Fasten the rest to the truck.”

So, my friend does it. They’re big, heavy-duty chains looped right through the wood beams, clanking as they’re dragged toward the pickup. By now the sound has gotten the homeowner’s attention.

He storms outside, red-faced.

Homeowner: “What the f*** do you think you’re doing?!”

Contractor: *Calmly, not even looking up from the truck hitch.* “If you don’t have the check in my hand in the next minute, I’m leaving the site, and I’m taking all my work with me.”

There’s a frozen silence, except for the clinking of the last chain tightening. The homeowner’s bravado collapses. He panics, runs back inside, and less than sixty seconds later comes out waving a check like a white flag.

In about 2004 or so, when I was still in my first job out of college, the chemical plant where I worked hired an independent contractor to do some engineering work. We didn’t keep him around for long because he was totally useless. He was an older guy and really did not understand computers.

On one occasion, he asked me if it would be possible to get editable text from a scan of a paper document. I explained that, yes, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) exists, and I offered to help him. He gave me the document, and I scanned it and sent him the file by email.

Contractor: “Well, this is no good! This is just back to where I started!”

Me: “But I sent you the document electronically.”

Contractor: “I had that already! The printout I gave you was from one of my emails! This is useless!”

Me: “Okay… Just so we’re on the same page here, can you explain what you want to do?”

He explained.

Me: “Okay… So, the thing you are describing that you want to do is called ‘copy and paste’. Let me show you…”

I work in a call center of sorts for a large local business in Hawaii. My department handles internal calls for the most part, so employees at our various locations will call if they need assistance with their security systems. Occasionally, we also deal with vendors arriving after hours, such as cleaners and delivery personnel.

One night, I get a call from one of the janitorial contractors.

Janitor: “Hello? I cannot get into the door.”

Me: “The door? You are referring to the front door that enters the lobby?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, what location?”

The janitor gives me the location, and I look at what I have on my side. Once I verify his identity against the list of authorized individuals, I speak to him again. 

Me: “So, you are having trouble with the front door that enters the location from the street?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “Do you have your keys?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, and the key won’t let you into the location?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

I run through my emails. The bad part is that it is a Friday before a long weekend, so if the janitor can’t get into the location, the trash from the business day will be sitting until Tuesday.

I ask my shift partner to reach out to the manager and see if they have, for some reason, changed their locks without telling us. 

Me: “Hold on, we’re contacting the management. Are you outside right now?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Finally, I find a notation in my email about a keypad door lock that has been replaced inside the location, between the main lobby and the employee area, though this is a door from an internal space to an internal space. 

Me: “Just to clarify, you can’t get into the front door of the location, as in the door from the sidewalk outside into the interior lobby?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “You are outside.”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Coworker: “Hey, they say they never changed the lock for outside. They only got one new lock on the inside for the kitchen and that.”

Me: “Are you looking at a keyhole in a door or a keypad with numbers?”

Janitor: “Yes, it has numbers, keypad, I cannot get into the kitchen to clean.”

There was a solid beat. 

Me: “So, you are inside the location and can’t get into the back?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “So, you aren’t outside?”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “So, you were able to get into the front door when you arrived, from the sidewalk to the lobby.”

Janitor: “Yes.”

Me: “Just… just… clean where you can, and we’ll get you a new code for the keypad on Tuesday.”

Janitor: “Okay! I do thank you, boss!”

The line dies. 

Coworker: “Are you okay?”

Me: “Yes.”

I used to work for a rail equipment repair contractor around the turn of the millennium. Due to the nature of the work, my employer required appropriate safety attire at all times: glasses, gloves, hard hats, appropriate welding gear for the welders and burners, etc. You get the idea.

Safety boots used to be only steel-toe. We needed oil-resistant, burn-resistant (leather), steel-shank, steel-toe boots. We were reimbursed for most of the required gear up to an annual limit, so there was no reason not to have it, and yet, like anywhere, there was “that one guy”. [Coworker] thought steel toes were dangerous — an insurance company scam to cut off your toes to save medical expense for injuries. (They are not. Anything that will damage them enough to cut off a toe is pretty much going to destroy your foot anyway.)

As [Coworker]’s boots wore out, he refused to replace them. The sole wore through, so he used some spray-can goop to kind of fill the wear. The leather wore through, so he wrapped them in duct tape. At one point, he had basically no sole — nothing but duct tape (he taped them on for his shift) and exposed steel toe. Everyone else on the crew was sick of it, as we all got crap from clients over [Coworker]’s so-called boots.

Eventually, [Coworker] was working on an awkward weld prep where he needed to lie down on a deck plate sideways and work the bottom of what was essentially a wall — think like a cartoon mouse hole. This twisted his foot so the exposed steel toe was on the steel deck.

Another welder tack-welded his toe down. He was trapped due to the awkward position.

In the end, someone finally cut him free, but the next day, he showed up with new boots.