I did maintenance at heavy industrial plants for most of my career. We typically did planned shutdowns of the entire plant every year to work on infrastructure. I would be running around trying to juggle a dozen jobs when I would get a page from a manager.

Since this was pre-cellphones, I would need to go all the way across the factory to find a phone and call the manager.

Manager: “How long until the power is turned back on?! This is costing money!”

Me: “I need to complete [list of tasks].”

Manager: “Well, what’s taking so long?”

Me: “My work keeps getting interrupted by managers paging me and asking me how long until the power is turned back on.”

Manager: “…”

At the end of the year, when I was going through my useless performance review, my own boss asked me:

Boss: “Do those manager calls actually make a difference in how quickly they get their power back?”

Me: “Yes, it makes a difference, just not in the way that they want.”

I once had a boss who ran a small, independent bus company. The boss was a very smart, no-nonsense man. For this story, he had recently bought three buses from a German automotive company.

The buses go into the workshop for a clean bill of health, and come out with all the happy boxes ticked, so the buses were put out to service. The very first day in use, one of the buses made a very loud CLONK noise every time the vehicle turned.

It was sent back to the workshop with the complaint. The workshop sent it back out in a suspiciously short turnaround time, claiming that the bus was perfectly fine and that no work needed to be done.

The boss was no fool. He immediately ordered that all three buses be driven into the workshop. He then stood there, breathing down their necks after explaining that the first bus went CLONK when turned, but the other two didn’t. Either something was wrong with the first one, or something was wrong with the other two, who didn’t go CLONK. Either way, they were going to inspect the buses properly, and now!

It turned out that the sway bar was installed upside down on the CLONKing one.

To put it simply, a sway bar is a part of the vehicle suspension. As you turn a corner, the vehicle gets a tilt, which is why you feel yourself sliding right or left while riding in the car. The sway bar helps reduce that tilt by distributing the weight. If a sway bar is installed upside down, depending on whether it is in the front or the back, it can jam into steering components like the tie rod, damage brake lines, or just cause the bus to lose stability and handling.

Basically, the bus could have caused a massive accident if it had been driven for too long on that upside-down sway bar.

A lot of bullets were sweated by the workshop team. They had to fumble through an explanation of why the suspension was ticked as having been inspected twice, but had in fact NOT been. In the end, the paperwork was checked, and the guy who signed off on it both times was fired with cause.

I work maintenance for a fancy gated community. A lot of rich people in big houses pay a lot of money to live here, so I get some interesting characters, to put it lightly. 

I’m out supervising some contractors as they lay down a brand-new surface on the basketball courts in the rec area in the middle of the community. We’re replacing some old, worn-down concrete with a softer rubber floor. A group of neighborhood kids wanders up with a ball under their arm.

Me: “Sorry, guys. Can’t play today; we’re resurfacing the courts.”

Kid: *Shrugs.* “Okay, cool. We’ll come back when it’s done.”

They head off without complaint. Easy enough.

About half an hour later, I hear stomping. An angry woman is marching across the grass toward me, her son trailing behind.

Mom: “Why was my boy told he couldn’t play basketball today?”

Me: *Gesturing at the workers.* “Because the courts are closed for upgrades, ma’am. We’re putting in a new ground.”

Mom: “Ugh, this place is terrible! I pay my HOA so my kids can go out to play, and the quality of the parks is awful! I’ve been complaining for months about the dangerous concrete and the potholes in that court!”

Me: blinking slowly “Ma’am… we’re here because of that complaint.”

She freezes for half a second, then rallies.

Mom: “Well… you… you shouldn’t do it over the summer break! Now I gotta find something for my kid to do!”

She storms off, kid in tow, horrified that she has to be a parent for a day over the summer…

I do general yard maintenance: mowing, edging, weeding, pruning, basically making rich people’s lawns look better than mine ever will. 

One client in particular is… meticulous. She insists I walk her through the job every time I finish, which I do, because I like getting paid.

One afternoon, I wrap up a job: lawn mowed, driveway edged, flower beds weeded and shaped. It looks good. I ring the bell, she comes out like she’s about to appraise an estate.

Me: “Mowed and edged, flower beds cleaned up, trimmed the boxwoods, and I pulled all the visible weeds.”

She nods slowly, then narrows her eyes.

Client: “Did you pull up all the weeds?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. At least the ones I could see.”

She tilts her head.

Client: “Well… what about the ones you can’t see?”

Me: “I left those for the X-ray crew; should be here any minute.”

There’s a pause. I stare at her. I realize that she wasn’t joking. It was a real question from a real adult with a real mortgage.

Client: “Hmm. Well, tell them to be extra thorough.”

That was the day I learned to never assume a customer/client knows how to joke.

Related:
Never Joke With The Customers… Ever!, Part 13
Never Joke With The Customers… Ever!, Part 12
Never Joke With The Customers… Ever!, Part 11
Never Joke With The Customers… Ever!, Part 10
Never Joke With The Customers… Ever!, Part 9

This happened to me when I was a field tech for a commercial restaurant repair company. The company charged $110 an hour, port to port, meaning from the time I left the shop until I returned. Being from the Southwest, I resemble much of the back-of-house staff, and working on ovens, I was usually dirty, as well.

On this particular day, the chef had called in a service call for a convection oven that wasn’t working, and I had just finished ordering the parts when some top brass from the front office came into the kitchen — to harass the staff, I suppose.

One dude in a pair of khakis and a button-up asked me why the ovens were as dirty as they were.

Me: “I’ve got no idea.”

Dude: “Well, you need to get them cleaned up!”

Usually, I would have told him to kiss my a** and walked out, but this particular day, I decided to help him out. I stayed a couple of hours and cleaned up his oven… at $110 an hour.

Of course, he disputed the invoice and threatened not to pay, but I had parts on order for another piece of equipment, and if you don’t pay, I don’t come back and put your s*** back together, so yeah, he paid.