One time a fellow electrician was telling me about a situation where he felt unjustly treated.

He had been sent to dig a ditch with a ditching machine and install underground wiring along a future fence line.  He was given the exact line of the fence, the wire size, etc.

It was summer time when he did the ditch ditching, wire installation, and ditch-burying.  It was fall when the fence was installed.

One of the steel fence posts was driven through the wire buried the summer before.

The Union ruling on such occurrences was that: If you make a mistake and it is definitely your mistake, you must make it right.  When correcting the mistake, it must be done during normal working hours.

By the time the mistake was established as his mistake, it was winter.  He said that the week before Christmas he had to shell out the extra money to fix the mistake from his own pocket.

His real complaint about the whole situation was that, as he put it; “I was distracted for one moment while I was riding the ditcher.  It was obvious that there was only one portion of the electrical line that was out of line with the rest of the installation.  Why would someone drive a steel fence post in that one spot?”

I was sympathetic, but there was nothing I could do to help.  I did take a lesson from it.

Don’t presume that anyone else will be thoughtful about what they do on your job.  Think ahead and try to prevent other people from damaging your work.

I have seen many cases where ground rods, which are 8 or 10 feet long, have been driven through gas lines, water lines, sewer lines and electrical lines.

Each of those instances carries its own type of disaster.  However the biggest problem with ground rods is solid rock.  There are ways around a solid rock conundrum.  Driving a ground rod at an angle will often times allow it to slip by an underground obstruction.  You can also lay a ground rod in a ditch if it is of the proper depth.  Some inspectors have objected to that in the past, but it is allowed by code.

I had one job on the side of a mountain one time where driving a ground rod was problematic.  There was no rock involved, it was solid sand.  And I do mean SOLID sand.  You could dig a ditch easy enough and the sides would hold up straight.  However there was something in the makeup of the sand that after a short distance, it was impracticable to drive a ground rod.

What I came up with for a solution on that job is probably classed as proprietary information.

That was his name.

When we left Montana, I left a lot of good friends behind.  One fellow I got well acquainted with was John Sherry.

He had been a cowboy at one time.  When I use the word “cowboy”, I mean a real, honest to goodness, cow workin’ man.  Back in the days when they had trails instead of roads and horses instead of cars.

In those days everyone watched out for their neighbors, and was friendly and helpful.

John told me one day he was riding to town (on his horse, of course) and stopped in to check on a bachelor friend of his that lived in a small cabin.  John asked him if he needed anything in town.

“Yes, would you mail a letter for me to Sears Roebuck?”

John got to town and was ready to mail the letter when he noticed it was unsealed.  He checked inside.  The letter contained a $5.00 bill and a note.  The note read; “Send me one pair of boots.”

No size, no color, no style.  And no return address.

John rode back to the bachelor’s cabin and told him what he needed and got the order straightened out.  Then John went back to town and mailed the letter for him.

I assume he got his pair of boots.

One day John went to help a neighbor do some butchering.  They butchered a cow.

The cow’s owner said; “Save the tail, we’ll have oxtail soup.”

John said; “Yes!  Save the tail.”

The owner said; “Save the liver.  We’ll have liver and onions.”

John said; “Yes!  Save the liver.”

The owner said; “Save the heart.”

John said; “Yes! Save the heart.”

The owner said; “Save the head.  We’ll make head cheese.”

John said; “Yes!  Save the head.”

They went to clean the head for head cheese and the owner said; “Save the eyeballs.”

John said; “Save the eyeballs?!?!”

“Yes, boiled eyeballs are good.”

Not to be outdone, John said; “O.K.  You eat one and I’ll eat the other.”

The guy boiled the eyeballs, set a couple of plates, and brought one eyeball each over to the table.

John told me later; “You know Adrian – that eyeball rolled over and looked at me and I just couldn’t eat it.”

They didn’t waste the head.  There was still the tongue and brains.

In modern day slaughter houses, when they butcher a pig, they say; “Use everything but the squeal.”

At fast food places they say; “Parts is parts.”

As with any trade, electrical work can produce damages.

It happened in a lawyer’s office, where two lawyers shared an office, and each had a pretty good desk.   And lawyers, by the way, have some mighty fine desks, some of which are very expensive,

The lawyers’ office decided to put in a fire protection sprinkler system.  The two lawyers moved out of their office for the day, in order to allow room for the plumbers to work at installing the sprinkler piping.  One of them had to come back into his office to retrieve some paperwork.  Imagine his consternation when he entered and both plumbers, with their heavy work boots, were standing atop his desk.

I believe that was the same office where we were called in to re-hang an 8 foot fluorescent light fixture.  One end of the fixture had fallen free from the ceiling and it was swinging.  It wasn’t swinging free.  However it did have somewhat of a pendulum action going.  The swing was regularly interrupted by the pass over the top of the desk where it was doing a fine job of scratching the desk.

I imagine that some insurance company had to cover the cost of those damages.

Thank goodness for insurance.

One insurance agent told me that electricians rarely have to use their business liability insurance.  Maybe, if they trample someone’s landscaping.

One time I went up to a Dentist’s office.  A patient had been in the middle of a procedure; probably doing a close examination of the ceiling.  The light fixture above her head let loose and dropped about 4 inches and was caught by the electrical wires entering the fixture.

I was told she left in a hurry and never came back.  Uh, oh, a lost client.

In another instance, in a large auditorium, a number of people were sitting in the audience when one end of a light fixture came down and was swinging “like a pendulum do.”  The auditorium had a sloped seating area, and the fixture came loose near the front so that the length of the fixture was still held above head height where it came loose.

Two older ladies had been sitting just below the fixture, but had gotten up and left their seats just before the fixture came down.

We went through the entire auditorium and refastened all the fixtures into roof trusses.  Amazing as it sounds, the inspectors would allow hanging fixtures from sheet rock with toggle bolts at that time.

It makes me question why some people will work without license, permit, or insurance.

I guess they have to be ready to leave town at a moments notice.