Hey all so I was talking to a buddy the other day and he brought up some things from the past. This had me thinking of a certain incident at work that was so crazy and unbelievable that I wanted to hear other people’s stories. I’m shooting for work place or on the job craziness but if it’s a true good story well share it!
I’ll start with the story that gave me this idea for this thread.
When I was in college I was working for a flat roofing company. I went to school in Kalamazoo Michigan and this job was during Christmas break location grand rapids Michigan. It was a huge freight train warehouse where they load unload train cars or switching them anyways building is about 3/4 of a mile by 3/4 of a mile and 40 feet tall. There was 2.5 feet of snow on this roof so we had little cub cadet tractor with snowthrowers on them. We would clear a section, remove and then replace a little by little everyday. This genius running the tractor thought it would be funny to shoot the snow on to us. Well he poppetthe clutch and forgot it was in reverse and he shot of the roof. He fell into a 20’ snow drift because of size of building so he just got hurt from the tractor landing on him.
This is where it gets crazy his brother was also working on the roof. When he saw his brother ride the tractor off the roof he took off and jumped off the roof after him.. Don’t know why or what he thought he was gonna do.
So any good work stories please share them. We can always use a good laugh!
Driving behind a wide load flatbed carrying a double-wide, I saw one of the tires on the right burst.
The increased pressure on the remaining tires was too much, and one by one the rest of the rubber on the right succumbed like bursting bubbles that let out shotgun blasts!
Finally (and the truck is now pulled over and stopped with a 2 lane highway on his left, and a ditch on his right), the angle of the flatbed was pitched hard right due to not having tires over there, and because the driver pulled onto a sloping shoulder… as the drivers behind me (I was immediately behind it) and I watched, the manufactured home slid off the flatbed into the ditch, crushing itself accordion- style under its own weight!
Must have been an interesting phone call for the driver to have to make.
Many years ago in Ohio i worked for a trucking company at one of their distribution hubs. We were having a safety training/meeting for the lift operators. While demonstraing stacking pallets of plasma tv panels the trainer side shifted and nudged a stack. Boom! Dominoes in full effect, lost about 30 rows of quadruple stacked pallets of screens. What a mess, loud too. Also saw someone drive a forklift full speed off a loading dock (wrong door). Forks stuck right through the concrete, fucking nuts.
This is sad and fucked up. Years later I had gotten into nursing and was working as part of an internship at a lockdown unit for geriatric patients. I remember a patient who every morning would walk out to the common area completely naked with his newspaper would stop for a piss in the corner, in a planter, in a wall heater, wherever then sit and start reading, completely oblivious. Saw much worse but that stood out.
I worked at a restaurant that catered all the teachers from our school for a huge party and they got faded af the cops came and arrested them. Never heard about it again. But they ordered like 15 plates of jello shots. And so much tequila holy hell, and funny thin was I had school with all these teachers and staff members the next Monday. They partied harder than some of the college parties I’ve been to
I once watched a guy try to yank a small tree out of the ground with a riding mower. He bought some nylon rope from Walmart with the intention of returning it when he was done. The property was on a hill, so he thought getting a running start with lots of slack would help. So his happy ass comes barreling down the hill at like 6-7 mph, mower tied to this poor little tree. The line gets tight, then it begins to stretch, and the tree starts bending…and as if in slow motion, the mower gets pulled back and flips over but he won’t let go, so it drags him ten feet back towards the tree, and magically the rope snaps at the last second and whips him gently on the forehead as hes laying there. I wish we had cell phones back then.
I’ve done some construction in the past and this site we were putting up a robotics system. Super fancy high end system. Robots are stupid expensive all the metal is sourced from Europe and they only drug tested the first couple groups of people. Well fast forward we hire a bunch of junkies on the night and weekend shift to pick up some slack. Couple days in im stuck with a junky. Always tweaking but damn did the dude get shit done! One day ole boy getting in a rush and angle grinded right into his arm. We are on a white mezzanie cutting and mounting and blood splatters everywhere and im like oh no look around whew ok its not from me. Look over and i can see the dudes arm bone with a blade in it. He rips it out and makes a turnikin and im like dude you know i gotta report this because your not gonna die next me to. Dude got fired ON THE SPOT. They didnt even take him to the hospital! Moving forward the whole thing was supposed to get setup where you did a couple floor tracks then went back and did a long pole and then went up and tied it all together working little by little assembling the grid. Well the night shift and weekend shift did not tie it all together and was just putting it up. At the end of night shift and beginning of day shift we are tying in with each other and I look over to see one guy leaning on the pole not tied off. I smack my buddy look look look. Next thing you know the whole grid system came down. Owner walks out. It was a scheduled work day. Everyone got fired and sent home. People were traveling to go do work there I had a buddy I made from Tennessee and they sent him shipping. Wild but always watch your back you can never be too safe
I was a dishwasher in a Japanese hibachi restaurant. I used to take out the trash and smoke weed when I was supposed to be working. Sorry dad. Anyway, this wigneck I was smoking with came back in after we had a few bowls. There was a stack of glasses on drying racks. My dude hears guns and roses and the radio and highly starts doing the axel rose snake dance. His elbow clips the glasses, the whole stack hits the ground, they all shatter. He books it, never came back hahahaha. I saw him years later at a party. He and his brother got in a fight on the front lawn and cops came. I don’t do stuff like that anymore but I laughed so hard when he ran it was so funny.
I got a few, in construction I was working on a 8 storey hotel, there had been a lot of rain and the 3 top floors had no windows so there was a lot of water laying on the floors. My buddy and I were asked to shop vac it up, but we couldn’t find anywhere to dump it apart from out the window. So buddy says I will check it’s all clear and you tip the water out. Buddy goes all clear, I tipped the water out, by the time the water was around the second floor, this huge Newfie laybourer stepped out under it and lit a cigarette then got hit with 50 liters of dirty water. He didn’t even flinch, just looked up and said, thanks I was getting hot, lmao. I bought him a case of beer for being so calm about it.
Roofing, laying gravel down on a rubber roof using motorized wheel barrows that hold about a yeard of gravel. Newbie couldn’t turn the buggy at the safety rail and went through it, I had to grab him and pull him away as he was trying to stop the buggy and a yard of gravel going down 3 stories. The ground workers had just finished smoothing out a large patch of concrete directly below, it was a mess.
Another Roofing job I watched a guy get crushed to death trying to hold up a concrete wall that was hit by a backhoe and knocked over, crushed him from the waist down. They tried to lift the wall, with the backhoe but dropped it again on him before someone could drag him out.
Another job, an electrician had just put up a temporary power board, he had music playing in his ear buds and was jigging about to the music, when another guy rushed up and whacked him across the arms breaking both of them, with a 2x4, thinking he was being electrocuted, lmao I bet that was a real shock.
Ok story #2. I was working at a pizza place in Denver. It was a Friday night busy af. We had a dough rolling machine that you would put a big lump of dough in and it would press it out not fully but down to less than a 1/2 in thick. There is a flap that you are supposed to use to push dough through with but everyone just pushed through with fingers. As you have already guessed homeboy was talking not paying attention all of a sudden I hear the machine wind really weird turn around and see dudes fingers wrapped around the rollers looking like split hotdogs. So I hit power button grab the bartender and we had to take to kitchen steels,the long things sharpen chef knives, to pry open the rollers to get his hand out. Once it was out it was a mess he turned green and fainted out cold. Told bartender to call ambulance then call manager. The manager told him to cancel the ambulance and have one if the bar patrons take him to hospital. I said f@#$ that! That’s why these places have insurance. Dude ended up with a cast and 40 stitches worse part is after cast came off he couldn’t play guitar anymore. Really have a bar drunk drive him.wtf @shadey yes roofing and construction there is sone crazy ones.
Watched a bald eagle snag a duck flying in mid air on the 28th story of the Hilton while building it, it took it onto the unfinished roof and devoured it while we watched sending feathers flying down below everywhere. ! Was definitely a sight to behold but god I hated that job!! On the same site, the owner of the Hilton (Mr . deCosmo) came by one day so they are like clean,be on your best behaviour and when he’s on site nothing loud etc, no profanity. He gets on site, walks up with an entourage headed towards the elevator, guy runs up and hands him a hard hat, he refuses it, guy says sir you can’t be on site without one, he snatches it disgustedly, puts it on …… literally like 20 seconds later out of nowhere a large block of styrofoam flew off of the roof (like 30+ stories) and no freaking joke smokes him square in the head, knocked him down and out, and like 5 people down with him. Ambulance came, people freaked out etc. it was insane . But I can only imagine the force that thing had generated when it hit him, he’s lucky he’s not dead, AND REAL LUCKY HE PUT THAT HARD HAT ON!
Roofing again, this guy who was a nephew of the boss and a complete idiot, is using a drill on a 50ft extension cord attached to a generator, instead of picking up the generator and moving it closer to him as he worked his way along the edge of the roof, he tries and pulls it. The generator tips over and starts leaking gas on the roof, which is not good as it seeps through the rubber membrane and melts the polystyrene insulation underneath. Idiot takes off at full pelt to try and get it upright, before the gas starts leaking, then comes to an abrupt stop at 45ft, flies 5ft up in the air and lands on his ass. Lmao he forgot he was tied off on a safety harness and ran out of rope.
Another newbie working with me, I am drying rubber membrane with a blow torch, as it’s got some frost and ice on it, so we can attach another piece of rubber with some rubber tape. I am drying the rubber and newbie is putting glue down the seam with a 4 inch roller. I have told him twice now not to get close to me as the glue is highly flammable and the gasses it gives off will cause a fire jump. 5 minutes later I hear behind me, whooomff, oh fuck what do I do. I look around and newbie is trying to put his roller out by waving it up and down briskly, then realizes he’s setting himself and the roof on as the flaming glue goes everywhere.
That stuff is like napalm he had to strip off, and stamp his clothes out, he didn’t come back the next week.
Really have a bar drunk drive him.wtf
as the flaming glue goes everywhere.