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We had a subbie and I'm sure in his was "Remove from site all materials deleterious to the fix". Never sure if that meant his stuff or other people's.....

 
Is that a word  ?? 

You reminded me of a specification for a job  years ago that read  .." All spare holes in enclosures with have blanks fitted to prevent the ingress of arachnids " 

At the time , no one knew what an arachnid was .  Turned out the consultant had a spider phobia. 

Which in turn reminds me of some work we did at Cadbury's  .  Their spec  insisted that on fixing , say, a dist. board  or panel , it should be sealed all round with mastic  to prevent insects nesting behind it .   Makes sense in a food factory. 

 
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Is that a word  ?? 

You reminded me of a specification for a job  years ago that read  .." All spare holes in enclosures with have blanks fitted to prevent the ingress of arachnids " 

At the time , no one knew what an arachnid was .  Turned out the consultant had a spider phobia. 

Which in turn reminds me of some work we did at Cadbury's  .  Their spec  insisted that on fixing , say, a dist. board  or panel , it should be sealed all round with mastic  to prevent insects nesting behind it .   Makes sense in a food factory. 


Deleterious...think so if I've spelt it right. Aka license to nick I always thought! :) Give this guy his due he was a diamond and the 5 /10% the office would over specify went back to his lock up to be used on future jobs where they under specified. 

Only "food" factory I worked in was an animal feed flour mill. All the conduits were pressurised. Pretty weird to be wandering past a light switch and having air pi$$ing out of it. Kept the dust out though...

 
we had an apprentice at work once and I'm sure he thought he was running a sanctuary for homeless electrical equipment, it all started one Saturday afternoon, we'd been doing some overtime on a factory and on the Sunday I had a nice little foreigner lined up involving fitting a 32A TPNE socket for a machine. The only problem was that I didn't have one! I had all the other bits needed, just not the socket, my intention being to pick one up on the Saturday, however doing the overtime meant I had forgotten and now everywhere was closed.

"no problem, I'll have some of those in my shed" says the lad, "pop over and I'll give you one".

I went to his house and he led me to the garden shed, it wasn't big, about 8x6 and it was full, sockets, switches, cable, contactors, emergency lights, it was like a small wholesalers, he had everything! I asked him where it had all come from, "simple, anything left off a job, I bring home, if there's something I haven't got then work provides it" he proudly explained, he then went on to tell me how his system worked, lets say he wanted a couple of TPN, 16 A plugs, just for storing you understand, then if there were none left of a job, he'd pick some up from the wholesalers next time we needed some. He'd be sent off to get 4, and actually get 6, 4 for the job and 2 for him.

It was then that I discovered there was nobody at our firm who actually kept track of what was bought and where it went, one day he rolled up on site with some fancy new tools, !"booked them on the works account, I saw them and fancied them" he told me, and he never got caught, talk about being cheeky.

 
It was then that I discovered there was nobody at our firm who actually kept track of what was bought and where it went
Again the memory is stirred ,  in our previous entity we had a new housing site running  down in Stroud , I'd done a few units myself but we now had two subbies doing them .  

Because of the stop / start progress of the site due to  the economy collapsing ...( we'd been going up & down to there  for 2 years  doing two units at a time  )  ...I  was getting fed up of the damn place  ,  typical  project  company ,  suddenly phone out of the blue  , must get down there  immediately   we have 2 units ready . 

So in the office I checked the original quotes  to see there was no profit in them anymore  and the  2 subbies   had been booking out  a 100m drum of 6mm  cooker cable  for each unit .     (  One drum would do about 9 units ) 

Because of all the stop / starting the contract was out of the window so we told them to shove the job  & told the subbies they were on their bikes and were welcome to the site .   

 
we had an apprentice at work once and I'm sure he thought he was running a sanctuary for homeless electrical equipment, it all started one Saturday afternoon, we'd been doing some overtime on a factory and on the Sunday I had a nice little foreigner lined up involving fitting a 32A TPNE socket for a machine. The only problem was that I didn't have one! I had all the other bits needed, just not the socket, my intention being to pick one up on the Saturday, however doing the overtime meant I had forgotten and now everywhere was closed.

"no problem, I'll have some of those in my shed" says the lad, "pop over and I'll give you one".

I went to his house and he led me to the garden shed, it wasn't big, about 8x6 and it was full, sockets, switches, cable, contactors, emergency lights, it was like a small wholesalers, he had everything! I asked him where it had all come from, "simple, anything left off a job, I bring home, if there's something I haven't got then work provides it" he proudly explained, he then went on to tell me how his system worked, lets say he wanted a couple of TPN, 16 A plugs, just for storing you understand, then if there were none left of a job, he'd pick some up from the wholesalers next time we needed some. He'd be sent off to get 4, and actually get 6, 4 for the job and 2 for him.

It was then that I discovered there was nobody at our firm who actually kept track of what was bought and where it went, one day he rolled up on site with some fancy new tools, !"booked them on the works account, I saw them and fancied them" he told me, and he never got caught, talk about being cheeky.




used to work for a council. you got supplied the bare minimum per job and everything had to be accounted for per job. i.e if you exceeded your 2 metres of earth sleeving for a rewire, you had to go back to the yard and ask beg for more

then on other jobs you could book out what you wanted without question. i.e you need a full roll of 10mm earth for a maintenance job of replacing a broken switch

 
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I once had a governor obsessed over the amount of amalgamating tape we used. Nothing else just that. He'd rant about the cost for days.

 
My old gaffer ...PVC tape .......... "Its a pound a roll you know "  

Another gaffer used to turn up on site and inspect the skip for materials that shouldn't be thrown away .  

Doing ward refurbs  , he'd come on the ward , head for the conduit vice/bender and throw a wobbly  about the bushes & couplers on the floor  .  I used to tell him  someone will eventually pick them up  but he wouldn't have it . 

 
Risk assessments are my favourite 

try writing an RA for a 100m dive on 4 different gases which you HAVE to have with you throughout the dive and switch at specific pr-calculated times/depths......and you have calculated these switch points yourself . Bearing in mind that they will ALL kill you if breathed at the wrong depth!

RISK.......running out of gas

CONSEQUENCE.....death or some serious injury almost certainly leading to death

how to negate this risk...stay out of the water

 
Nice one !    Theres one somewhere for working in a switchroom  to connect a sub main . 

Task ....  connecting a 100A switch fuse to existing BBC  ...risk  from 1 to 5     = 0   as everyone on the firm is an electrician .    

 
Hi Viz jackets.......go on site and they are everywhere even the site cat has one. They just become a blur . You don't know who is a visitor and needs an eye keeping on them as they may fiddle, or an Architect who by definition knows nothing. "Oh we have different colours of jacket....here is the list,  along with the different colours of site helmet". A female apprentice plumber who is also a first aider resembles a Unicorn who has had an accident in a paint factory

just slowly becoming less tolerant

 
Hi Viz jackets.......go on site and they are everywhere even the site cat has one. They just become a blur . You don't know who is a visitor and needs an eye keeping on them as they may fiddle, or an Architect who by definition knows nothing. "Oh we have different colours of jacket....here is the list,  along with the different colours of site helmet". A female apprentice plumber who is also a first aider resembles a Unicorn who has had an accident in a paint factory

just slowly becoming less tolerant


I've believed for a long time that you are virtually invisible in a high vis jacket and hard hat!  Go anywhere, do anything, no-one will ask!

It's the "unicorn" bit of that description which is testing my imagination.

 
Fun fact......

if you see any films of old style Hard Hat divers they are always wearing a red hat.

nearly all of them were stone deaf due to pressure related hearing loss, so they wore red hats to make everyone around them in the dockyards realise that shouting a warning to them wouldn't be heard

everyday is a schoolday

 
I've believed for a long time that you are virtually invisible in a high vis jacket and hard hat! 
How true is that !!      Even crocodiles of kids  walking between school & swimming baths ,say , wear them .   But when arriving or leaving  school they are not required . 

Its a bit like one of my favourite hates .      

Hate 1.    

A dozen emergency vehicles  have arrived at  their destination ,  fire , crime scene  ,   and all 12  vehicles need to have all their blue strobes flashing  for the next 6 hours . 

Hate 2 .  

Pick-up trucks  hoist a vehicle onto the back ...why does it require the orange flashing lights  to be working  all the way back to the depot , or sitting a traffic jam with the rest of us .      OK  theres a vehicle on the back  :C   So what ?  Is it an "OOoh look at me  I'm a tough trucker type person  with flashing lights . "  

A wide load , yes no problem with that ...emergency vehicles in a hurry ...no problem , let them through ....but when they get there , switch the damn things off. 

 
I've believed for a long time that you are virtually invisible in a high vis jacket and hard hat!  Go anywhere, do anything, no-one will ask!

It's the "unicorn" bit of that description which is testing my imagination.
A meter (the more expensive looking the better) and a drawing used to be my favourite, I once got fed up with 'carrying' the other sparks on a job, for 2 days I wandered around, meter in one hand, drawing in the other, if anyone came near I'd just swear or grumble under my breath. I managed 2 full days before someone asked me what the problem was. lol

Emergency lights are another one, I was on my way out one winter,it was pretty cold but the roads were ok, until you crossed a small bridge over a stream, then the road was like glass! I rang the police as it was only a matter of time before there was an accident, especially as there was a blind bend and a narrow bridge with a railway line. It was right on the Cheshire/Merseyside border, they were arguing over who's problem it was, when 20 minutes later I returned, there'd been a bad accident. I closed the road, cones at one end and my vehicle at the other, flashing lights lit, and warning signs out. I rang 999 to get some help and eventually a Cheshire cop arrived, he stuck his head out of the window of his new BMW and asked why I'd shut the road, He didn't like my answer and leapt from the car, promptly ending up flat on his back on the ice! After I'd stopped laughing, and he'd stopped rubbing his back he came over, "I can see why you closed that road mate, someone could get hurt, it needs gritting" he said, oh how I laughed on the way home. lol 

 
I've believed for a long time that you are virtually invisible in a high vis jacket and hard hat!  Go anywhere, do anything, no-one will ask!

It's the "unicorn" bit of that description which is testing my imagination.
I always keep mine in the car for the occasions I need to park in the 'strictly loading only' area in town. (very zealous wardens) Its worked so far, even at weekends

 
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