Crazy crap that has happened at your work

Ported&Polished · Post by **Ported&Polished** » August 26th, 2007, 8:54 pm

Lets hear some stories of crazy work related incidents. Here is one from my days in the oil refineries.
So I am on a vessel called a "catcracker", it's a 200 foot tall spark plug basically. So I am fire watch outside of the man hole entrance 200 feet up while a few coworkers are busy inside cleaning giant ceramic insulators. Across the way was a refineing tower with about 100 men all over it doing varoius repairs and upgrades. This job was what they call a shutdown, where the refinery closes down once a year for mandatory repairs. So I'm just chilling out making some easy money, watching the crews go up and down the unit across from me when BOOM!! Instant chaos erupts in the form of an explosion, flames, smoke and men scurring down 200 foot tall scaffolding like ants. I start screaming into the man hole "Get out, she is blowing!" The dudes and I flew down the stairs that wrap around the giant spark plug, and it was elbows and assholes all the way to the parking lot. Then it starts raining, no not water, oil. The flare went out, which is that really tall candle you always see buring at refineries. It's a stack that burns off stuff the government deems allowable for oil companies to send into the atmosphere. So me and my supervisor drive back into the refinery after a bit, using winsheild wipers to smear the goo around as we go. It's a rule that everyone meets at a central location in the refinery after an accident, so that they can perform a head count. Well, sure enough, one man died and several were injured. Apparently a welder was working in a area with built up gases, and his torch ignited the gas which in turn exploded. So that's my story, I have other ones to tell about from my years doing fire jobs at refineries, very dangerous working invironment, but lets hear some of yours.

iggys-amsoil · Post by **iggys-amsoil** » August 27th, 2007, 6:58 pm

Man if I had half the memory, could write like Rabbit, You guys would not fly on comercial jets anymore.

But the first thing that comes to mind that does not affect flight safety are known as C-50 bombs. Trik or 111 works good to. Sizes range from a 1oz paint bottle to the liter size coke bottles. Most settle with, back then, 16oz coke bottles.

Pack with dry ice, fill half way, cap off, drop in garbage can. Ummm ya, in a few minute the whole million square foot building is now awake.

ps. I personally never made one.

Rosco-Peeko · Post by **Rosco-Peeko** » August 27th, 2007, 7:45 pm

Cargo-strapped the crapper door shut with a guy inside.....not well liked guy.

Blew over a plastic Crap-house while I was running engines on an A-10. Little did I know there was a Weapons Troop inside. He looked freaking nasty crawling out of there and quite angry.

"Borrowed" a 150 pound dummy from the Fire Dept. Put it into the backseat of my supervisors car. Later that night when he went home he did not see the dummy till he was driving down the road and the car was illuminated from an oncoming cars headlights. He freaked, soiled his pants and went off the road.......

Had to deal with a troop (kid was a A-1 freak / creepy). He was walking around the shop with an erection. One of the female troops came into my office and told me he needs to be pulled off to the side and talked to.....

"The mystery sock"
Had a troop that worked for me get into an arguement with his wife on the phone in my office. She found a stack of spank mags with a crusty sock. She was hollerin over the phone...I could here it from 5 feet away. His reply, "But baby, I use that sock to polish my boots!" I yelled BULLSHIT......he freaked. I never laughed so hard in my life. When he got transfered to another base. We made him a plaque with a crusty sock on it. He did not see the humor in it. His wife scowled at me.

I did or have seen a lot of crazy things.......most of them will not be posted here. Do not want you to get the wrong impression of the military.

Most of the time I just holler this:
:knock:

bigpower · Post by **bigpower** » August 28th, 2007, 2:48 pm

Christ, I've got a million of em.

But my specialty is f**kin people up.

I'm the kind of guy that will weld your hammer and wrenches to the bench, and I had one asshole that pist me off so bad that after hours "someone"

drilled and tapped his rollaway for a zerk fitting and pumped an entire 16 gallon drum of grease into it. He fronted me off on that one. Told em we must have a phantom running around here.

Blown up cutters, fires, shit falling off shelfs and the hoist, guys running the hi-lo into the bay doors, I've seen and done most of it.

A shop I worked in a Loooooooooooooooong time ago used to have a phantom shitter. Every once in a while there'd be a pile in the middle of the floor somewhere

Ported&Polished · Post by **Ported&Polished** » August 28th, 2007, 6:00 pm

Rosco-Peeko wrote: "Borrowed" a 150 pound dummy from the Fire Dept. Put it into the backseat of my supervisors car. Later that night when he went home he did not see the dummy till he was driving down the road and the car was illuminated from an oncoming cars headlights. He freaked, soiled his pants and went off the road.......

Yikes, I woulda craped my pants too lol

Ported&Polished · Post by **Ported&Polished** » August 28th, 2007, 6:11 pm

Thoes are all pretty sweet stories. Lets keep em going. I would expect cr500 riders to have some radicle shit to tell. One time I was working in a can factory, a very very loud building. So my coworker is all down on the ground working on a palletizer, and I am over his shoulder watching and assisting. Of course there is a pair of ear plugs in everyones ears, and you can't here a person 2"s in front of you, screaming at the top of there lungs. So suddenly there is a whole lot more light and I kinda notice some flickering. I turn around and there is a 100 foot long flame shooting up to the ceiling an across it. Being from the oil refineries, me and the other dude know about elbows and assholes, so I grab his arm and yell at him "lets get the fuck outta here!", he doesn't here me, but turns and reads my lips as I yell it again. Then he sees the carnage and we both took off. Later, back in the building, turns out it was an acetalene torch bottle that somehow got it's top knocked off. Luckily the bottle was chained to a beam when this happened otherwise someone coulda been riding that sucker into space.

jbird_710 · Post by **jbird_710** » August 28th, 2007, 10:22 pm

I worked in a foundry one summer when going to college and one of the guys who drove a fork lift didn't like to work. They used a fork lift to pick the ingots out of the oven and move them around the forge table. The forks could be moved horizontally as well as vertically. This guy figured out that if he hit the cooling trough just right, it would break one of the hydraulic hose fittings and shoot oil when he spread the forks. After pulling an ingot out of the oven, he put it on the forge table and spread the forks. It shot a stream of burning oil like a flame thrower at the blacksmith. Luckily, the blacksmith saw it coming and jumped out of the way.

The forges were steam hammers and the same guy threw a wire coat hanger at the top of one of the tranformers that fed electricity to the boilers causing the transformer to pop. It shut down the boiler and we all got to go home unpaid for the rest of the day.

One summer, while still in high school, I got a job driving a delivery truck for an oilfield supply. The truck was a Ford with a standard "3 on the tree" shifter. They hired a guy to take over permanently after I had to go back to school in the fall. He was around 25 and had a 4 year college degree. His mom knew a vice president of the company who got him the job. I was training him on how to make the deliveries but hadn't let him drive the truck because he said he hadn't driven a standard before. I was floored that someone could grow up in SE Texas and had never driven a standard transmission car or truck. I had tried to explain to him how to shift it and had him walk through it sitting in the truck with the engine off. A customer came into the store and told the guy to follow him out to an oil lease to pick up a pump. The guy jumped into the truck, got it in first and took off. When he went to shift to second, he went straight up into reverse and dropped the clutch. The transmission shattered and it rained parts out of the bottom of the truck. Guess that college degree didn't include driving.

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 29th, 2007, 7:58 am

jbird_710 wrote:I worked in a foundry one summer when going to college and one of the guys who drove a fork lift didn't like to work. They used a fork lift to pick the ingots out of the oven and move them around the forge table. The forks could be moved horizontally as well as vertically. This guy figured out that if he hit the cooling trough just right, it would break one of the hydraulic hose fittings and shoot oil when he spread the forks. After pulling an ingot out of the oven, he put it on the forge table and spread the forks. It shot a stream of burning oil like a flame thrower at the blacksmith. Luckily, the blacksmith saw it coming and jumped out of the way.

The forges were steam hammers and the same guy threw a wire coat hanger at the top of one of the tranformers that fed electricity to the boilers causing the transformer to pop. It shut down the boiler and we all got to go home unpaid for the rest of the day.

One summer, while still in high school, I got a job driving a delivery truck for an oilfield supply. The truck was a Ford with a standard "3 on the tree" shifter. They hired a guy to take over permanently after I had to go back to school in the fall. He was around 25 and had a 4 year college degree. His mom knew a vice president of the company who got him the job. I was training him on how to make the deliveries but hadn't let him drive the truck because he said he hadn't driven a standard before. I was floored that someone could grow up in SE Texas and had never driven a standard transmission car or truck. I had tried to explain to him how to shift it and had him walk through it sitting in the truck with the engine off. A customer came into the store and told the guy to follow him out to an oil lease to pick up a pump. The guy jumped into the truck, got it in first and took off. When he went to shift to second, he went straight up into reverse and dropped the clutch. The transmission shattered and it rained parts out of the bottom of the truck. Guess that college degree didn't include driving.

nice, I used to have a '61 galaxy 292 3 on the tree with push button overdrive. I used to leave it unlocked with the keys in it all the time because no one knew how to drive it. one of my friends tried to take it and and only figured out how to put it in 3rd, I pulled him out of the car with my clutch smoking about 50 feet down the street! lol
most of my funny work stories are about pranks. When I was a wrench at arnolds auto repair they used to give me such a hard time because I was 17. My boss was an ex marine corps drill instructor, so he would yell things like "danny, I want that bathroom looking like a diamond in a goats ass" or "danny, god damn it, douche that fucking valve cover before you install it" but the best was my buddy travis, he used to call me over and be like "hey can you help my line this tranny up on this stand", so I'd be over there bear hugging the tranny that was 5 feet off the ground not strapped to the stand and he'd rip the gnarliest fart (I swear that dude had stomach problems) the whole damn shop would stink like ass and I couldn't go anywhere because I was holding the trans, it was some funny stuff. We used to get taranchulas on the lot and one day I was using some air to clean out the smog dyno when travis put one on the shoulder, I didn't even notice until I saw it out of the corner of my eye and screamed like a little girl and sprayed it with the air hose launching it across the lot. everyone had a good laugh.
The only fires I've ever had at work were the occasional server powersupply letting the smoke out. I don't have really cool stories like you guys, but still keep work fun..

Ported&Polished · Post by **Ported&Polished** » August 29th, 2007, 10:52 am

Ok, here is another. I was working at a cement factory in Gorman Ca.. Me and two dudes were cleaning contacts on a 3 phase 480 electrical panel. The panel was hot, and was real big, about 10'x15'. So our job was to pull these drawers out which amounted to a bunch of electrical contacts, transformers, breakers etc., and clean them with electriclean. After cleaning them, you logged down which number drawer (or bucket they call them) you cleaned, then push them back into the panel. On this panel, the buss bars were really thick and wide, like 1"X3" aluminum bar. So this one dude cleans one, and proceeds to put it back. It's about knee high on the panel. There he is with his hot gloves on the ground, sleeves rolled up, no safty glasses, a long beard, and he was a speed freak that didn't sleep the night before. He puts his palms on the front of the drawer and pushes it in. KA BOOM! The panel arcs, and it's like a bomb exploding. The concussion knocks me back flat on my ass, the dude next to me flies back too, and knocks down a another dude on the other side of a big welders curtain. I'm lying there and look up at the panel. The speed freak is still standing there, locked onto the panel with his palms. Then the arc fades, and dude flops down on his back. I go over to him, and he looks like a piece of coal, black from head to toe, and his hair and beard are gone. The entire face of the panel is black, except where the dudes hands were, you see a clear outline of dudes hands. The dude had forgotten to attach a small wire, so when the bucket made contact with the hot buss bars, there was a short out and dude was attached to the panel until those buss bars melted completely in half. Electricity, don't fawk around with it.

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 29th, 2007, 11:35 am

Ported&Polished wrote:Ok, here is another. I was working at a cement factory in Gorman Ca.. Me and two dudes were cleaning contacts on a 3 phase 480 electrical panel. The panel was hot, and was real big, about 10'x15'. So our job was to pull these drawers out which amounted to a bunch of electrical contacts, transformers, breakers etc., and clean them with electriclean. After cleaning them, you logged down which number drawer (or bucket they call them) you cleaned, then push them back into the panel. On this panel, the buss bars were really thick and wide, like 1"X3" aluminum bar. So this one dude cleans one, and proceeds to put it back. It's about knee high on the panel. There he is with his hot gloves on the ground, sleeves rolled up, no safty glasses, a long beard, and he was a speed freak that didn't sleep the night before. He puts his palms on the front of the drawer and pushes it in. KA BOOM! The panel arcs, and it's like a bomb exploding. The concussion knocks me back flat on my ass, the dude next to me flies back too, and knocks down a another dude on the other side of a big welders curtain. I'm lying there and look up at the panel. The speed freak is still standing there, locked onto the panel with his palms. Then the arc fades, and dude flops down on his back. I go over to him, and he looks like a piece of coal, black from head to toe, and his hair and beard are gone. The entire face of the panel is black, except where the dudes hands were, you see a clear outline of dudes hands. The dude had forgotten to attach a small wire, so when the bucket made contact with the hot buss bars, there was a short out and dude was attached to the panel until those buss bars melted completely in half. Electricity, don't fawk around with it.

WOW, crazy! Stupid tweakers!
yeah, my dad worked in aerospace and one time he barely tapped his pinky on a hot contact in a 480 closet to power a 70 ton press and it sent him flying across the room and jacked up his finger. if he had grabbed it he would have ended up like that tweaker co-worker of yours.

M.F.D.B. · Post by **M.F.D.B.** » August 29th, 2007, 1:36 pm

Im guessing homeboy didnt "walk away from this shit"...??

jbird_710 · Post by **jbird_710** » August 29th, 2007, 4:19 pm

Speak of electrical fun, I was installing a large supercomputer that had direct connection to 3 phase 240 volts. We had the system installed at the same datacenter previously and had to send it back for a major repair that couldn't be done in the field. When we disconnected the power, the breaker was off and they wrapped each of the 3 wires individually with electrical tape, then taped them all together. When I went to re-install the system, I pulled up the cable and started unwrapping the three leads. My meter was on the other side of the system and I had unwrapped the 3 hot wires, holding onto the insulated part. I was afraid to set the cable on the floor to go get the meter in case someone had turned the power back on. So, I thought I would slap two of the hot wires together to see if they were live. Needless to say, when the wires touched, it sounded like a shotgun going off and, due to the resulting flash, I saw a blue dot for three days afterward. One of the other techs saw what happened and turned off the breaker. I was still in shock and wouldn't let go of the insulated part of the cable until someone brought over the meter and verified the power was off. Yes, definitely don't fawk with electricity.

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 29th, 2007, 4:41 pm

jbird_710 wrote:Speak of electrical fun, I was installing a large supercomputer that had direct connection to 3 phase 240 volts. We had the system installed at the same datacenter previously and had to send it back for a major repair that couldn't be done in the field. When we disconnected the power, the breaker was off and they wrapped each of the 3 wires individually with electrical tape, then taped them all together. When I went to re-install the system, I pulled up the cable and started unwrapping the three leads. My meter was on the other side of the system and I had unwrapped the 3 hot wires, holding onto the insulated part. I was afraid to set the cable on the floor to go get the meter in case someone had turned the power back on. So, I thought I would slap two of the hot wires together to see if they were live. Needless to say, when the wires touched, it sounded like a shotgun going off and, due to the resulting flash, I saw a blue dot for three days afterward. One of the other techs saw what happened and turned off the breaker. I was still in shock and wouldn't let go of the insulated part of the cable until someone brought over the meter and verified the power was off. Yes, definitely don't fawk with electricity.

I used to assemble and configure the intel blade servers at my old work. When we got the first one in I realized we didn't have a 220 outlet, so I went to the breaker and firgured out which circuits came off sepparate sides and used some HD extention cables to wire in 2 hots from 2 sepparate rooms, I got that server up and going, but when the intel rep came out, he said intel would pay an electrician to put a 220 outlet in, they didn't want to be responsible for the building burning down

M.F.D.B. · Post by **M.F.D.B.** » August 29th, 2007, 5:08 pm

dannygraves wrote: they didn't want to be responsible for the building burning down

Note to self, do not ask Danny for electrical help...

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 29th, 2007, 6:00 pm

M.F.D.B. wrote:
dannygraves wrote: they didn't want to be responsible for the building burning down

Note to self, do not ask Danny for electrical help...

hey man, I magivered it!

Ported&Polished · Post by **Ported&Polished** » August 29th, 2007, 10:39 pm

Hey it worked, in my book that makes it cool.

And speaking of MacGyver, that reminds me of another story, although it isn't work related. I used play hockey with a guy named Jimmy Anderson, who happened to be Richard Dean Anderson's brother. He was younger than him, but he looked just like him so we called him MacGyver. Anyway, one time we played a pickup game in Burbank, so the real MacGyver came out and played too. As luck would have it, we were on the same line. So some fawker from the other team was sticking me between the legs and sent me down to the ice. Then Richard Dean Anderson skated over to the basturd and socked him in the face, sending him down! Then he came over to me and scooped me on my feet and skated me to the bench, my hero!

M.F.D.B. · Post by **M.F.D.B.** » August 29th, 2007, 11:16 pm

I thought it was "nigiver"...LOL

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 30th, 2007, 8:32 am

M.F.D.B. wrote:I thought it was "nigiver"...LOL

LOL, nnaaa, thats the ATC's name, remember!

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 30th, 2007, 8:33 am

Ported&Polished wrote:Hey it worked, in my book that makes it cool. And speaking of MacGyver, that reminds me of another story, although it isn't work related. I used play hockey with a guy named Jimmy Anderson, who happened to be Richard Dean Anderson's brother. He was younger than him, but he looked just like him so we called him MacGyver. Anyway, one time we played a pickup game in Burbank, so the real MacGyver came out and played too. As luck would have it, we were on the same line. So some fawker from the other team was sticking me between the legs and sent me down to the ice. Then Richard Dean Anderson skated over to the basturd and socked him in the face, sending him down! Then he came over to me and scooped me on my feet and skated me to the bench, my hero!

LOL, thats sweet, macgyver clocked some guy in the face for you...awesome!

M.F.D.B. · Post by **M.F.D.B.** » August 30th, 2007, 8:36 am

Ported&Polished wrote:Hey it worked, in my book that makes it cool. And speaking of MacGyver, that reminds me of another story, although it isn't work related. I used play hockey with a guy named Jimmy Anderson, who happened to be Richard Dean Anderson's brother. He was younger than him, but he looked just like him so we called him MacGyver. Anyway, one time we played a pickup game in Burbank, so the real MacGyver came out and played too. As luck would have it, we were on the same line. So some fawker from the other team was sticking me between the legs and sent me down to the ice. Then Richard Dean Anderson skated over to the basturd and socked him in the face, sending him down! Then he came over to me and scooped me on my feet and skated me to the bench, my hero!

You just made that up...

dannygraves · Post by **dannygraves** » August 30th, 2007, 8:55 am

M.F.D.B. wrote:
Ported&Polished wrote:Hey it worked, in my book that makes it cool. And speaking of MacGyver, that reminds me of another story, although it isn't work related. I used play hockey with a guy named Jimmy Anderson, who happened to be Richard Dean Anderson's brother. He was younger than him, but he looked just like him so we called him MacGyver. Anyway, one time we played a pickup game in Burbank, so the real MacGyver came out and played too. As luck would have it, we were on the same line. So some fawker from the other team was sticking me between the legs and sent me down to the ice. Then Richard Dean Anderson skated over to the basturd and socked him in the face, sending him down! Then he came over to me and scooped me on my feet and skated me to the bench, my hero!
You just made that up...

LOL

Ported&Polished · Post by **Ported&Polished** » August 30th, 2007, 10:10 am

I didn't make that up, he rolled up to the rink in a Acura NSX and all the people there were trippin out that the dude was there. I have been to his house also in Brentwood. Dude has a giant hockey player sign from "Hockey Burger" in his front yard. The sign is from the movie Wayne's World, maybe you remember it. Anyway, funny you think I made that up, because it was one of the moments in life I will never forget, believe it, I wouldn't lie to anyone here.

britincali · Post by **britincali** » August 30th, 2007, 10:26 am

Ported&Polished wrote: Then he came over to me and scooped me on my feet and skated me to the bench, my hero!

Thats the most worrying part.........

Rosco-Peeko · Post by **Rosco-Peeko** » August 30th, 2007, 2:28 pm

britincali wrote:
Ported&Polished wrote: Then he came over to me and scooped me on my feet and skated me to the bench, my hero!

Thats the most worrying part.........

Er um, thats creepy!

M.F.D.B. · Post by **M.F.D.B.** » August 31st, 2007, 1:05 am

Did you guys sing the theme song to "Gone with the wind"??

Hey Rob, sorry I didnt call you back yet I spaced it, so much going on with getting this toy hauler, give me a call when you get a chance, gonna be a busy weekend!!

BannedCR500Riders.com

Crazy crap that has happened at your work

Crazy crap that has happened at your work