a thread celebrating the "not so bright"

[KEENAVV]

Put a light on the end of a 50' extension cord. Flip the switch and count to 50.

[monte55]

Put a light on the end of a 50' extension cord. Flip the switch and count to 50.

I guess with a 50 ft cord the electricity could never get up to full speed before it had to start slowing down again or it could crash right through light at the end

[Vicegrip]

They move even slower if the cord is coiled up as they have to go around all the corners.

[Lineman99]

Better Watch What You Say...

This happened to me some time back....Still get a laugh out of it every time I think about it or go to the steel yard.

I called a local steel yard to order materials and check availability of some items.
I was reading off my list, and was down to the last 2 items. The lady on the other end was very nice and had one of those killer voices. I asked if she had 3/4" black nipples...She asked me to hold a moment. She came back on the line and told me, "I'm sorry, but, mine are not quite that big...."

Never in my life was I ever caught for lack of words..... and talk about being embarrassed when I went to pick the materials up.

[jweller]

LOL
I've got one close to that. I had lost the screw that holds the temple piece onto my glasses. I walked up to the counter at one of those glasses while you wait places in the mall. When the attractive older lady asked how she could help me I took off my glasses and said "i need a screw". without missing a beat, she replied "sir, I'm not that kind of lady" I know i must have turned about 20 shades of red.

[spervis]

Stupervisor..

Off the welding subject but still stupervisor material. I work for a helicopter operation and we use them to fight fires for the US Forest Service. While deployed on a fire 2 weeks ago we along with some fire fighters from all over the country were sitting around talking. One fella from Mississippi was talking about fishing in the river. My Stupervisor (owner of the company) asked him if he had ever dove down and pulled out catfish like he had seen on TV. He said yes and my boss said he was too scared of snakes. The firefighter said "I was bitten on the foot one time by a water moccasin". My boss said,"Did it kill you"...... and yes he was serious. Those kinds of things fall from his lip's quite often. You can just imagine the looks on the others faces.

[welder_one]

another great one... while in the army, i was putting the belly pans back on a d-7 cat dozer. i messed up because i snugged the bolts as i started them, once at the end, the pan was warped and twisted badly enough that i couldnt get he bolts to start. i told the operator of the machine to head to the tool room to check out a bolt stretcher, the tool room custodian immediately told him that ours was checked out, and that he needed to go to alpha company and use theirs. alphas tool room guy claimed theirs was in for repairs and the soldier needed to go to bravo. bravo company was almost exactly 1 mile from our unit, but he went. the custodian there loaded a small tool box with scrap iron. handed this kid the box of scrap iron, told him that i would have a key to unlock the box and sent him packing a 330 pound box on a mile hike... in the meantime, i had removed the bolts and put the belly pan on properly, this soldier returned to me sweating and worn out, i told him that i simply had gotten a longer bolt. he took the bolt stretcher back to bravo company.

[Pass-N-Gas]

Once upon an oil-boom a welders helper showed up late to work on a hangover..The welder told his helper to go take a hit off of the O2 bottle that it would help his headache...A little bit latter the "Hand" comes back with a bloody nose and said man that was one "heck" of a rush... Turns out he went over to the bottle rack placed his mouth upon a full bottle and cracked the valve......

Yeah they walk amongst us...

[strube1369]

not so bright

Cool thing is: we only have to interact with these people occasionally. They have to spend their entire lives being those people...

[Burnt hands]

Great thread - true experiences are much better than urban legends!

Many years ago, I called to order some pizzas for a party.
Since the party was out of town, the host recommended the pizza shop.

I called and asked what size the large pizzas were, expecting to hear: "it's xx inches in diameter" but the girl replied "8 slices".

Caught me off guard but we still placed the order.

After I hung up, I realized that I should have said " oh 8 slices is too much, can you cut it into 6 slices"?.

But she probably would not have gotten the joke.

[welder_one]

here's yet another one... this morning, i was out at a job site bidding on a railing around a campus facility at UCA. i overheard an operator talking to the foreman on the radio claiming that the vibratory roller wouldnt vibrate. i told the foreman what the operator needed to do in order to get it to work. "start the machine, buckle the belt, dis-engage the park brake, put machine into gear, and push the vibrate button". The foreman walked me over to the machine, so i could explain this new operator on how to operate this machine. once i started explaining this to the operator, he promptly interrupted me and said " son, ive been running this stuff for going on 20 years now, i know how to run the dam* things" so, i hopped in the chair, started the machine........ pushed the button and off it went. the operator asked me what i did, i told him that the machine must have feared 20 years experience, but liked "kids" that listen

[travlinbumm]

I was trying to training a "new" guy a while back. He had done his weld test and interview with the day shift Leadman but they put him on the night shift so he became my responsibility.

He quickly pointed out that he had been welding/fitting longer than I had been alive, done it all and seen it all. "just stay outa my way sonny and watch how its done."

I handed him the print and gave him the normal run down, then went to work on something else. Came back ten minutes later and he's just looking at the print, so I ask him if he has any questions. He tells me the prints are all F ed up. They don’t show the proper dimensions. I tell him the parts are located on the plate off the center line. He points at the print and says "I see that, but it doesn't tell me where the center is"

Later in the week he is fitting a door into a hopper wall, he basically picked up a 250 pound piece of 1/2" plate two feet off the table with an old plate magnet, then bent over and put his head under it to check something. I was walking/running towards him from the opposite end off the shop, about 150 feet. He was poking around with his head under that plate for a good ten seconds before he decided to see what I was yelling about. I explained to him that the magnets can fail unexpectedly, dropping whatever their holding, and that he should be extra careful when using the old style magnets. He looks at me like I'm a dump a$$ and says "Don't worry, it's just gunna fall on the table…… it can't hit my toes."

He no longer works for us.

[On fire most of the time]

I was working on a hotel in Palm Desert, replacing some old ceiling track (I was the new guy on the job...but I wasn't the one that ended up injured)

We were taking out 10 foot sections of steel track that were bolted to structural I beams...each 10 foot section was about 170 pounds or so. What I will refer to as the closet was a 200lb+ beast.

When this happened, most of the track was out of the ceiling, and just the closets were left. 2 guys are up on a scissor lift attempting to unbolt this thing from its brackets...and they aren't having much luck. They request the sawzall to just cut the all thread (which is perfectly fine...we're still doing demo work). I walk it over and hand it up. They go back into the air. 10 minutes later, I hear *CLANG THUD WHAM* Followed by "Mother F******!!!" The Supervisor (who only SOMETIMES acts like a stupidvisor) runs over there.

They had cut the all thread, except for one tiny spot they had missed, and had shaken the track. It still hadn't come out, so they were coming DOWN the scissor lift. It released, and one of the guys had his arm on the scissor lift rail. Broke his arm and wrist in a few places. I consider them lucky for not getting any further down than they were, or it would've rotated and been a massive head injury.

[welder_one]

today, went out on a job to do so,me structural welding for a construction company. they had to raise and set 33 lb foot i-beam 14 foot tall and bolt it down to support some aggregate piping. ever notice on a boom lift where it says "500 pound capacity" and "do not use boom to lift materials" warning tags??? jlg 60 foot boom lift, 2 guys, weighing about 250 each, 14 foot beam.................. yup, it went end over end when they swung out over the steer tires..... i giggled for about 2.23 seconds until i noticed that peeps had been badly hurt... it was the job foreman running that machine... wow

[hockeyguynick]

Some of these stories are almost too crazy to even beleive...yet I don't doubt any of you. I'm not sure how some of these people are still alive to this day.
'Nother supervisor story. My olds job I was a tractor trailer mechanic, and we went out on road calls to do repairs on the highway. A kid on my shift hated working OT and whined about being on call (yet he is friends with the day shift boss's son, so he knows what kinda hours we work before he applied for the job) One night while I was working on something, and he was standing around, my boss sent him out of a road call, it was about 10:45, he said "No way, I'm not on call" to which he was told, "Well Nick is busy, and it's not on call, yuo are still on the clock"...well they got to fighting, and long story short, I ran the call, and when I got back, he had quit. Well, not a week later he shows up to work 1st shift. The day shift manager hired him behind the night guy's back basically. He didn't have to run on call for a while until we got too busy, and left 10-30 minutes before quittin time every day. They finally fired him after tearing up a set of brand spankin new Alcoa steer rims with a tire bar. His response "well I replaced the tires the same way as I would have on a steel rim"... well steel doesnt scratch quite as bad as aluminum

Someone needs to send this thread to Bill Engvall