Shortly before I started working at a steel mill one of the millwrights earned himself a Darwin award. He had a length of rusty pipe that needed to be cleaned, so he chucked it in a pipe threader so he could use a belt sander to remove the rust. Since it stuck out too far to reach while using the foot switch, he stuck a pipe nipple in it to keep it running. He had long hair, and somehow got it caught on the pipe. It flipped him around a couple of times and broke his neck before it scalped him.
-
Welcome back Guest! Did you know you can mentor other members here at H-M? If not, please check out our Relaunch of Hobby Machinist Mentoring Program!
Bozos And Horror Stories
- Thread starter intjonmiller
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2012
- Messages
- 4,119
When I started my career as a chef we had very large mixing machines, like a giant mixmaster.
These never came with guards in those days but they did have a collar for sloppy mixes so they wouldnt flop out the bowl.
I once saw an apprentice pastry chef use a large flexible pallet knife to skim the mixture as the machine was turning.
Even after being told not to he continued.
The mixer blade caught the pallet knife grabbing it then flinging across the kitchen at near on light speed. It hit the wall and smashed a hole in the ceramic tiles.
Now karma enters the scene.
A couple of months later the same guy was using his hand to pat the large blobs of dough back into the bowl when it caught his thumb.
It actually wound him into the machine breaking his arm in a large number of places. The best part was having to unwind him.
Different hotel, very large 5 star in the middle of london.
The best one ever I heard was about a commis chef we called "Dumbo" not because of his actions but because of his ears.
This hotel had a basement kitchen with 120 chefs working. The Great room held 2000 customers and the smaller ballroom held 240 customers.
Dumbo had the duty of ignighting the gas hot cupboards before service so they were hot when we started serving.
These where two layers high and 30 feet long with multiple burners, each burner had an interlocked pilot and main tap like so
the object being to turn the pilot tap, light it then the main tap can turn through the cutout. (no safety cutout in those days, early 70's)
Dumbo went down the line turning all the taps on then was going to ignite at one end and the flame would travel all the way down the line igniting them all.
Picture the scene, all the gas taps on full, Dumbo patting all his pockets for a lighter, ooops, nothing, back to the lift, down to the main kitchen, lights a wax taper , back into the lift, up to the service kitchen, doors open and
totally destroyed the kitchen, two stainless counters blown through the wall into the street, blew the wall down into the restaurant and the only thing that saved him we think is the blast blew the lift doors shut in his face preventing the flash from burning him. Needless to say he was sacked.
This same hotel was having renovations done and a new customer lift being installed.
The builders were using jack hammers to make the holes in the floor for the lift shaft.
Started at the bottom and worked upwards. The bozo working on the fourth floor did--- yep you've guessed, worked all around himself like willie coyote and plummeted to the basement breaking most of his body. He survived.
I wasnt on duty that day but no one could stop laughing about it.
I refuse to tell about the ones I have done.
These never came with guards in those days but they did have a collar for sloppy mixes so they wouldnt flop out the bowl.
I once saw an apprentice pastry chef use a large flexible pallet knife to skim the mixture as the machine was turning.
Even after being told not to he continued.
The mixer blade caught the pallet knife grabbing it then flinging across the kitchen at near on light speed. It hit the wall and smashed a hole in the ceramic tiles.
Now karma enters the scene.
A couple of months later the same guy was using his hand to pat the large blobs of dough back into the bowl when it caught his thumb.
It actually wound him into the machine breaking his arm in a large number of places. The best part was having to unwind him.
Different hotel, very large 5 star in the middle of london.
The best one ever I heard was about a commis chef we called "Dumbo" not because of his actions but because of his ears.
This hotel had a basement kitchen with 120 chefs working. The Great room held 2000 customers and the smaller ballroom held 240 customers.
Dumbo had the duty of ignighting the gas hot cupboards before service so they were hot when we started serving.
These where two layers high and 30 feet long with multiple burners, each burner had an interlocked pilot and main tap like so
the object being to turn the pilot tap, light it then the main tap can turn through the cutout. (no safety cutout in those days, early 70's)Dumbo went down the line turning all the taps on then was going to ignite at one end and the flame would travel all the way down the line igniting them all.
Picture the scene, all the gas taps on full, Dumbo patting all his pockets for a lighter, ooops, nothing, back to the lift, down to the main kitchen, lights a wax taper , back into the lift, up to the service kitchen, doors open and
totally destroyed the kitchen, two stainless counters blown through the wall into the street, blew the wall down into the restaurant and the only thing that saved him we think is the blast blew the lift doors shut in his face preventing the flash from burning him. Needless to say he was sacked.This same hotel was having renovations done and a new customer lift being installed.
The builders were using jack hammers to make the holes in the floor for the lift shaft.
Started at the bottom and worked upwards. The bozo working on the fourth floor did--- yep you've guessed, worked all around himself like willie coyote and plummeted to the basement breaking most of his body. He survived.
I wasnt on duty that day but no one could stop laughing about it.
I refuse to tell about the ones I have done.
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2015
- Messages
- 894
Wow. You hear about that but you never get to see it.This same hotel was having renovations done and a new customer lift being installed.
The builders were using jack hammers to make the holes in the floor for the lift shaft.
Started at the bottom and worked upwards. The bozo working on the fourth floor did--- yep you've guessed, worked all around himself like willie coyote and plummeted to the basement breaking most of his body. He survived.
I wasnt on duty that day but no one could stop laughing about it.
I refuse to tell about the ones I have done.
Personally, having worked in construction, I would have asked why we didn't start at the top floor. There's no way that the falling debris doesn't cause increasingly large problems the taller that shaft gets. But then again thinking like that is the kind of thing that made me unwelcome in construction.
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2014
- Messages
- 496
My father, who I had tremendous respect for because of his knowledge, didn't always think it through and figure the correct way to do things. We were looking for a 'vessel' to heat some pieces I had made, so we could harden them. He found an old propane gas bottle and decided to cut the top off and use it. I asked him if he checked to see if it was empty and safe to put the torch to. He said yes, "Of course, I'm not an idiot!" I asked him again to make sure. He complained and wasn't going to do it. Finally I asked him to crack the valve just to put my mind at ease. Imagine the surprise when we heard the hiss of gas leaking from the bottle. Ouch! That would have hurt!. We found another bottle from which the valve had been removed so it had time for any gas to dissipate.
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2014
- Messages
- 410
How about this?.......
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2011
- Messages
- 2,082
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2015
- Messages
- 894
Story time. Not because the photo needs a story, but because there are so many bozo examples along the way.
Almost five years ago my sister and her husband bought a weird house. It's kind of famous in their area for being MASSIVE (10,000 sf in an average suburban area where 3,000 sf is on the large side of average). People assume it's a polygamist home because it's strangely sprawling. (I've lived in Utah most of my life and I've never met a polygamist. It's as much legend/myth around here as it is elsewhere. Everyone just *knows* there are polygamists in Utah, but actually finding one is another matter.) It was bank owned, an upstairs pipe had burst when it wasn't occupied and took months to repair everything before they could move in, but they got it for a song. Like no increase in their mortgage payment over their previous 2,000 sf home.
And we've been fixing it ever since. The previous occupant was a "contractor", and built it as his home and his wife's daycare business. He just kept building. I would love to meet the guy, smack him upside the head, and ask what he was thinking. The plumbing, electrical, and watershed were the first nightmares. I found out early on that some walls have studs that are at 16" OC, while others are at 24" OC. I used to do all sorts of architectural sheet metal, including gutters, so I redid the gutters when his Home Depot steel prefab gutters predictably failed. The level of the roof is all over the place, requiring incredible creativity to get the gutters to drain to locations where downspouts were an option. There are two turret-shaped corner protrusion areas with four theoretically-135-degree-angles like a bay window. Yet not one is 135 degrees, nor are any two the same. And it had to slope rapidly from the center down to both sides to keep up with the roof's weird pitch. If you've ever had the pleasure of doing custom miters you'll understand that it took me almost a full day just to do one of those turrets.
But this week we discovered something we had somehow missed all this time: the living room, which is clearly supposed to be rectangular, is EXACTLY 1 foot wider at the back than at the front. This time an upstairs toilet overflowed. We hung the ceiling drywall last night and it was a fascinating to look back after we finished the full-size panels and before filling in strips to fix the goofy angles. (Dorks from ServPro who did the water extraction and cleanup cut it out just over 12' out, whereas the damage only went to about 10', so 3 panels wasn't quite enough.)
Bozos. Bozos everywhere.
Almost five years ago my sister and her husband bought a weird house. It's kind of famous in their area for being MASSIVE (10,000 sf in an average suburban area where 3,000 sf is on the large side of average). People assume it's a polygamist home because it's strangely sprawling. (I've lived in Utah most of my life and I've never met a polygamist. It's as much legend/myth around here as it is elsewhere. Everyone just *knows* there are polygamists in Utah, but actually finding one is another matter.) It was bank owned, an upstairs pipe had burst when it wasn't occupied and took months to repair everything before they could move in, but they got it for a song. Like no increase in their mortgage payment over their previous 2,000 sf home.
And we've been fixing it ever since. The previous occupant was a "contractor", and built it as his home and his wife's daycare business. He just kept building. I would love to meet the guy, smack him upside the head, and ask what he was thinking. The plumbing, electrical, and watershed were the first nightmares. I found out early on that some walls have studs that are at 16" OC, while others are at 24" OC. I used to do all sorts of architectural sheet metal, including gutters, so I redid the gutters when his Home Depot steel prefab gutters predictably failed. The level of the roof is all over the place, requiring incredible creativity to get the gutters to drain to locations where downspouts were an option. There are two turret-shaped corner protrusion areas with four theoretically-135-degree-angles like a bay window. Yet not one is 135 degrees, nor are any two the same. And it had to slope rapidly from the center down to both sides to keep up with the roof's weird pitch. If you've ever had the pleasure of doing custom miters you'll understand that it took me almost a full day just to do one of those turrets.
But this week we discovered something we had somehow missed all this time: the living room, which is clearly supposed to be rectangular, is EXACTLY 1 foot wider at the back than at the front. This time an upstairs toilet overflowed. We hung the ceiling drywall last night and it was a fascinating to look back after we finished the full-size panels and before filling in strips to fix the goofy angles. (Dorks from ServPro who did the water extraction and cleanup cut it out just over 12' out, whereas the damage only went to about 10', so 3 panels wasn't quite enough.)
Bozos. Bozos everywhere.