Never rule out the Bleedin' obvious !!!!

Prodave's comment  about call out to  a non working light ...( Lamp blown!! )      reminded me  of this  ...posted  before  but worth a re-run.

A local spark  asked me to give him a hand  sort out a problem.    

He'd fitted an MK   din rail mount lighting  delay timer in the board of a large house divided into flats   and some reactive switches  to trigger it .   ( Actually a quality product)  

He' brought two more with him as couldn't  get it to work  ....he starts  swapping it over , saying if  none of the three work   he  doesn't know what he's doing wrong .  

As he does this I peer into the fitting by me  ...those old Marlin  black & white  tub shaped things  that you lever open with a coin ...can't see a  lamp in there .

Move to the next landing , no lamp ,  up to the next landing , no lamp .....in fact all the lights had lamps missing .   

He'd become focused on thinking he'd done something wrong when fitting these delay  timers  , none of which appeared to work ............ instead of the more cynical view  that in that particular area , the  tenants were nicking the lamps from the stairs  .   :C   

I remember rewiring a house for a lady some years ago, many years earlier someone had bought her an outside light, now at this point, it's only fair to mention that I have a bit of a thing with both outside lights, and service heads, but more about the heads later.

This lady asked if I'd fit the outside light for her, of course I would, I fitted it and discovered that we had no spare lamps, the only one I had was a red one, don't ask! So I put this red lamp in intending that tomorrow on my return I'd replace it for a white one, adding jokingly that she might earn enough money to pay for the rewire, she laughed and made some comment about nobody fancying her at her age.

I arrived the following morning, the lady was not in a good mood, and it was all down to the red lamp! No, she hadn't had hoards of people calling round thinking she was running a knocking shop, it was worse. She'd popped out to the shop it was only a 5 minute walk away, she'd left the light on because she was so pleased to finally have it fitted. Upon her return she discovered it wasn't lit, some little sod had pinched the lamp!

The second incident involved a new girlfriend, or more accurately her mother, I was briefly introduced to her as I picked her daughter up one night, she asked what I did and I told her I was a spark, me and her daughter actually worked for the same firm.She told me that about 20 years earlier they'd been given a coach lantern as a wedding present, but her hubby had never got around to fitting it, she also asked me to tea the following evening.

Now her daughter went to work on the bus, I had a car, so the following day we decided that I'd take her home, it would mean getting there a little early, but I had an idea, I'd sort out the light fitting.We arrived at her house, her parents hadn't arrived home yet, there was a light in the porch, the switch was fed through the wall and in the garage was a junction box, great. I mounted the light and drilled through the back into the garage running a feed to the JB, I removed the one gang switch in the porch ripped out the twin and earth and put a piece of 3 and E in instead, swap the switch for a 2 gang and job done, it took about 45 minutes.

Her parents arrived home, it was dark by now and since we hadn't switched the light on, they hadn't noticed it, what her mother did notice was the bunch of flowers I'd bought for her. Her daughter then showed her the light, she was delighted, this is where it all began to go horribly wrong, enter her father, whom I've never met. Her mother introduced me, "this is Phil, Nicky's fella, he's an electrician" her father looked at me, then spotted the flowers and asked where they'd come from, "Phil bought them for me, and look at this" she replied, dragging her husband into the front garden, "isn't he lovely, he brought me flowers, and fitted my outside light, remember, the one we got as a wedding present, and when did you last buy me flowers? oh yes, that was several years ago wasn't it!

We went back inside and ate the meal in silence, her father glaring at me at every opportunity, talk about how to make friends and influence people.lol