Strange or funny things which happened in work

[random]

Gearbox vs Face (aka where are my teeth ?)
(late 1980's)

So we return to previous garage with the gearbox specialist and the self-abusing apprentice

There are always a lot of accidents in workshops, particularly where screwdrivers and hammers are used on a daily basis. Sometimes you don't see an injury happening until it does, then you wonder why it never happened before


Nowadays mechanics have these to put under a gearbox when they are removing it from a car,




back in the early days and especially if the owner was cheap, then you often watched between 2 and 4 mechanics under a car man-handling the gearbox down when it was being unbolted from a vehicle.

Anyways on this particular day, One of the guys was working with an apprentice, he had one side of the box and the apprentice was on the other.


"Now we keep hold of the gearbox and when the last bolt is out we will gently lower it onto the floor"

"okay" replies the apprentice


I don't know the expectation level as to how heavy the lad thought a gearbox was, but whatever it was, he seriously underestimated the weight of the thing.

When the apprentice was no longer helping support the weight due to the unexpected mass of the gearbox, gravity took over, fortunately on its way to the floor, the velocity of the gearbox was significantly slowed down when it hit the mechanic slap in the face, put a gash on his forehead (which needed a lot of stitches) and a few teeth were removed as a bonus (3 or 4 teeth I think it was)

The apprentice bless him was very upset, not as upset as the mechanic whose face he helped re-arrange but still....


Ming and the Mallet (aka where are my teeth v2)
(early 1990's)

So I need you to spend a couple of minutes watching this video to understand what is about to happen, it's not on for too long




Often cars come in and the wheels just won't come off.

Mechanics will swing from them, use the big bar (see the masturbating apprentice post), or any such other method to remove a stuck wheel, some wheels just wont budge no matter what you try.

Unfortunately one young lad (Ming) took it upon himself to use his initiative and to hit the tyre with a mallet, (he was hitting the tyre as to not damage the wheel).

A clever plan with just one drawback, which he discovered when he knocked several of his teeth out from the front of his mouth (both the top and bottom rows).

Spoiler: Can you guess what his mistake was ?

Yeah, he stood sideways on to the wheel, got the mallet in both hands and smacked the tyre with said mallet, unfortunately tyres are rubber, so the mallet simply followed the laws of physics and rebounded back in the direction it originally came from, Mings face....

haha

 

[random]

That's not my number plate !
(1980's)

Nowadays most dealerships make their own number plates, however in the early/mid 1980's most garages used specialist number plate makers, I worked in one of the few that had its own plate making facility

There was no control or record of plate making in the parts dept (unlike nowadays where records are kept and you cannot just get a plate made), so we started making plates galore. The things were all over the place, toolboxes, walls near ramps, toilets, you name it.

Then we started on each others cars, a plate would be made with words such as

Spoiler: words

very rude ones lol

and the spurious plates were fitted either on the front or rear of the victims vehicle with sticky pads over the existing number plate, whichever one was out of view when the victim went to his car.

Some of the abusive plates were on the cars for days being driven around until the owner spotted the dodgy plate. It got so bad that everyone had to do a plate check before they jumped in their car to get home in case they got stitched up.

Still amazes me to this day how someone with COCK as a registration number never got stopped by plod when out and about.


My Parrot is Dead
(1980's)

The dodgy number plate making leads into this one. The owner of said garage had a top spec Audi Quattro, which back in the day was one of the cars everyone was after. Unfortunately the boss was not renowned for keeping to the speed limit, I think he was one more speeding stop away from a ban.

Allegedly.......
I might have been asked to make him a new set of plates with a couple of letters transposed 'by mistake', the reasoning was that if he went through a camera he wouldn't be the one getting the speeding letter, if he got stopped (I don't think ANR was in place in those days) doing a normal journey around town, he was just going to say its a company car and he didn't realise.

he also 'might' have asked a mechanic to disconnect the speedo cable, a cynical person would think that was to keep the mileage down rather than the speedometer distracting him, but who knows.

He wasn't a full on dodgepot like some I have worked for, it was more like he felt that the laws of the land were inconvenient, the guy was as rich as Croesus so not sure why the need to keep the mileage down on the Quattro but I guess that's how the rich stay rich

Anyways....
He owned an African Grey parrot and one day he walks into the building and put his dead parrot on the counter. I looked at him, looked at the dead parrot and looked back at him.

"Why have you put a dead parrot on the counter boss" ?

"can you wrap him up in something nice and bring him to my office"

The only thing I could find was one of those silky looking sheets they cover new cars in just before an unveiling, or a box out of the parts dept, slightly bigger than the dead bird.

Personally I would have thought the box would have been more practical, but I went with the sheet and took the corpse to the boss.

He told me that he was thinking of having the bird in his office for a while, the bird was in its cage on the front seat of his Quattro watching through the windscreen, when the boss hit about 125mph the parrot squawked, its eyes went the size of saucers and it keeled over. He said he was one hand on the wheel, half watching the road while he is trying to poke the parrot through the cage to wake it up, all this while doing 125mph (approximately, we don't know for sure as he had no working speedometer).

Yeah the old parrot poker wasn't a bad guy to work for, mad as a box of frogs though


Your Gay Porn Mag has Arrived
(1980's)

Same garage, all the post that arrived went on the accountants desk, (in case it was confidential stuff and a minion saw it) from there the accountant would distribute the mail accordingly.

One day he rings me, "Can you pop up ? I need to have a word"

Up I pop and he gets me to one side, hands me a package in a plain wrapper

"I am not sure if you are aware, but you cannot have these delivered here"

I look at the parcel and open it up, it was a gay magazine (Stag or some such name), and despite my protests, I am still not 100% sure he believed me that it wasn't mine.

I went back downstairs with said parcel and I knew, I just knew it was someone in the workshop, because although they didn't say anything they were all grinning at me.

When the mechanics had gone home, I swapped it for their toilet porno's by way of revenge

 

[random]

feels like I am spamming the thread and still have these from the list I originally thought of......

Customer Gets Blackeared
Bonnet on the Roof
It's Snowing in my Jaguar !
The Accountants Daughter is a Dominatrix
Box him up and send him away !
Captain Gough and the Mystery Mileage
Why does the car Smell so bad ?

Since making that list I remembered a few more.....

Unfortunately Sir, that's reverse not forward
A lorry full of unwanted axles and other parts mistakes
The Lottery Winner
The Ghost Car
Oops we have given your car away !
The Star of Jeremy Kyle
Hang on, that's supposed to be fitted...
Wheel nut vs sunroof
Bunny Boiler strikes back
We think your car keys are in Spain sir
A workshop full of pirates
That girl was not a girl....
The Calendar boys

Are you bored of these stories or still finding them interesting/amusing and want me to keep going ?

 

[canuckblue]

feels like I am spamming the thread and still have these from the list I originally thought of......

Customer Gets Blackeared
Bonnet on the Roof
It's Snowing in my Jaguar !
The Accountants Daughter is a Dominatrix
Box him up and send him away !
Captain Gough and the Mystery Mileage
Why does the car Smell so bad ?

Since making that list I remembered a few more.....

Unfortunately Sir, that's reverse not forward
A lorry full of unwanted axles and other parts mistakes
The Lottery Winner
The Ghost Car
Oops we have given your car away !
The Star of Jeremy Kyle
Hang on, that's supposed to be fitted...
Wheel nut vs sunroof
Bunny Boiler strikes back
We think your car keys are in Spain sir
A workshop full of pirates
That girl was not a girl....
The Calendar boys

Are you bored of these stories or still finding them interesting/amusing and want me to keep going ?

Keep them coming. These are almost as funny as the Aldo diaries by @Yarrgh.

 

[Aberblue]

feels like I am spamming the thread and still have these from the list I originally thought of......

Customer Gets Blackeared
Bonnet on the Roof
It's Snowing in my Jaguar !
The Accountants Daughter is a Dominatrix
Box him up and send him away !
Captain Gough and the Mystery Mileage
Why does the car Smell so bad ?

Since making that list I remembered a few more.....

Unfortunately Sir, that's reverse not forward
A lorry full of unwanted axles and other parts mistakes
The Lottery Winner
The Ghost Car
Oops we have given your car away !
The Star of Jeremy Kyle
Hang on, that's supposed to be fitted...
Wheel nut vs sunroof
Bunny Boiler strikes back
We think your car keys are in Spain sir
A workshop full of pirates
That girl was not a girl....
The Calendar boys

Are you bored of these stories or still finding them interesting/amusing and want me to keep going ?

Keep them coming. Contributions from anybody else also welcome, especially office stories.

 

[COYBL25]

feels like I am spamming the thread and still have these from the list I originally thought of......

Customer Gets Blackeared
Bonnet on the Roof
It's Snowing in my Jaguar !
The Accountants Daughter is a Dominatrix
Box him up and send him away !
Captain Gough and the Mystery Mileage
Why does the car Smell so bad ?

Since making that list I remembered a few more.....

Unfortunately Sir, that's reverse not forward
A lorry full of unwanted axles and other parts mistakes
The Lottery Winner
The Ghost Car
Oops we have given your car away !
The Star of Jeremy Kyle
Hang on, that's supposed to be fitted...
Wheel nut vs sunroof
Bunny Boiler strikes back
We think your car keys are in Spain sir
A workshop full of pirates
That girl was not a girl....
The Calendar boys

Are you bored of these stories or still finding them interesting/amusing and want me to keep going ?

Keep em coming !

 

[Kurt.]

Not a funny story by any stretch but I once worked as a painter in a boatyard mainly doing complete refits on the UK Lifeboat fleet. We used to have to completely strip out every removable part of the boat and repaint it after sanding and prepping it. My workshop had loads of washing line type of things where we used to hang small bits up to dry when painted. This was great as if I fancied a lazy day I’d just sit in my workshop, if the gaffer came to what I was doing I’d point to the washing lines and tell him not to touch anything as it was wet, we used to swap the things on the lines around every day or so and it looked like we were knocking out loads of work..... there’s always a scam in every job.

 

[random]

Customer Gets Blackeared
(early 1990's)

So to pass the time, occasionally the parts and service staff on the front counter would get up to a little mischief (well actually a lot).

One of the favourite pastimes was to ink the earpiece of a phone with an ink pad, (obv needs a dark grey or black coloured phone to be effective)




Just touch the phone earpiece on the pad a couple of times and when the phone rings and the victim touches the phone against their ear and for the rest of the day they are serving customers with a black ear. Even better fun if they swap ears with the phone and sit there with both ears covered in black ink for the day.

The rest of us would watch the customers looking confused at said staff member. With experience we learned to wipe any phone earpiece with a bit of cloth before using/answering the phone. If you got caught out a dubious look from a customer was all it took to remind you that you had been mugged.

We would do this for a while, then leave it a month so everyone was in a false sense of security, then someone would cop a blackear and it was war again, you can still do this today if you have a particular victim you want to inflict a blackear on.

Quite often someone would just leave the ink on a phone and wander off, just knowing that their prank will catch some unwitting victim sooner or later.

All well and good, except one day a customer needed to borrow the service dept phone (no mobiles in those days), when he finished his ear was black.

Chap sits down and waits for his car to be finished, whilst we are all looking at his odd coloured ears trying not to laugh.

Yeah I know it's childish lol


It's Snowing in my Jaguar !
(1990's)

So one of the guys in the stripper garage is going on holiday for a fortnight and wanted to leave his pride and joy of a Jaguar in the works car park. He didn't trust that the wheels would still be on it if he parked outside his house for two weeks.

Sure, not a problem mate, but the keys will need to be left in case we need to move it at some point.

Off he trots on holiday and we have his keys....


Ever seen the waste a hole punch makes ?



well we had two weeks, we might even have punched holes in paper just to get the waste stock level up .....

a day or so before he returns we go to his Jag, we pack as much as possible under his drivers sunvisor, so whenever he flipped it down he would get the hole punch confetti all over him.

However, we still had loads left, so the fan control was set to full face and the engine turned off, then the remaining punch waste was carefully placed in all the air vents, so when he returned from holiday, jumped in his car and turned the key.....


Box Him up and Send Him Away !
(early 1990's)

Probably not something that we would get away with nowadays....

One thing you notice after a while is that apprentices in any job start getting a bit 'cocky' when they have been doing it for a few months, I am sure you know what I mean. Every so often the young 'un needs telling before he gets into a spot of bother with someone that won't put up with his crap. Unfortunately every so often one of the apprentices won't take the hint.

I worked at a dealer that had a good few branches scattered about and a big van that used to go around the various branches in a loop dropping parts and paperwork off between them.

In the parts department we had hard tops for convertibles, now these hard tops were

1. large
2. expensive

This is what I mean by hard top in case you are not sure





Anyways the hard tops were painted and they were sent to us in large wooden boxes to keep them from being damaged, so if you were in our situation with

1. annoying apprentice needing a lesson
2. a large double coffin size crate
3. a van that would do a drive around for a few hours

Would you ? well we did.....

Nailed him into the wooden crate, loaded him up and sent him on his way, haha

He was back in a few hours, none the worse for wear but remarkably helpful and quiet after his road trip

 

[random]

The Accountants Daughter is a Dominatrix
(1990's)

Bit of background

Nowadays you have it easy, you can make a movie on your phone and have it uploaded to the world as fast as your connection allows. Anything you are not sure of you just google and instantly you are an expert.

Before all this wonderful technology if you took a picture you waited until the camera film roll was full and then took it to the shop to be developed.

Until these came out,






expensive but it saved a photo processor looking at your snaps.

If you wanted to find out about swingers and other dubious goings on, then there was very little out there, so unless you had contacts and were into that sort of thing it was just something that was a world away.

So, let me introduce you to our lovable accountant. Well I say accountant, he was more like the head cashier/office manager, used to be ex-forces, now in my experience working with ex-military, the bit that is 'ex' seems to escape them, especially if they held any sort of rank.
And I say lovable ? no he was a full-on knobhead who would drop anyone in it at the first opportunity. surprised he wasn't shot in the back by his own troops tbh

So he ran the office like a military operation, well not really the girls in their would rather talk about girl stuff and have a giggle, and he would be sat at his desk like he had a plank down the back of his shirt firing disapproving looks in the direction of the girls every so often. He made their working life hell.

The accountant/cashier/manager had a daughter, she seemed normal enough, maybe late 20's / early 30's I would guess, not exactly a looker but not pig ugly either, but unfortunately every time she was bringing her car in, he would get involved, actually had to get involved more like. he would come and chat to her at the counter, then when she trotted off he would remind us that she had to get the staff discount rate, and only certain mechanics were allowed to touch the car (and no apprentices to go near it !)

Anyway, the car is in for MOT test, yet again the same mechanics crop up, this time its the bike sand vandal/speeder again, doing the MOT. As part of the test they have to check the boot floor is solid and not structurally weakened.

The mechanic calls me over, in the boot are a few bits and bobs, there is also a carrier bag with an open envelope in it, inside the envelope ?

boomshanka !

The daughter is on Polaroids dressed in various poses wearing all the gear that is normally only seen in the pages of the News of the World. Altogether there must have been about 40 odd Polaroids, and some were very stylishly taken, I liked to think I was worldly, but this was next level stuff.

Now a normal, law abiding, decent person would probably just put them back, but this was me and the speeding vandal we are talking about, so we might have kept about 10 or so photos for research purposes, well by research purposes I mean we were showing them to the others in the dealership.

After a week or so of showing others the wonderful world of the Dominatrix in colour, we thought it would be a waste throwing them away, so we decided to return them to the rightful owner. how to do this.... ?

Popped them in an envelope and put them with the mail that the office manager opened each morning of course.

Apparently he opened the envelope, spasmed as though he had a cattle prod inserted up his bum hole and spun his head around while his body was rigid, a bit like a demented owl looking to see if anyone was watching.

Things carried on from there fairly normally at the dealership, but every so often when he was talking to someone they would just give one of these smiles to him. He might have suspected that the smiler has seen the photos but couldn't be sure.

A bit like that scene in the sopranos when someone gets aced and the body disappears, the relatives... they know but they don't know. that was him.


Coincidental about 8 years later I worked with his son in law, he was also ex-military, short fella who got the nickname RALF (real annoying little f****r), every so often if a copper was in the building I would make a point of asking Ralf if he had ever been in handcuffs

 

[summerisle]

This count ?

 

[random]

Captain Gough and the Mystery Mileage
(early 1990's)

Salesmen, tried not to have too much to do with them, but every so often one of them gets involved in a situation, they all thought they were God's gift though.

There was the time two leg breakers came in to do damage to one who was a bit of a randy sod, he obviously spotted them, I watched him sprinting away like his life depended on it, I think it did tbf looking at the two that came in. Never saw him again though, hope he lived.

Then there was the occasion when four or five of them were chatting up a very nice young lady in the office who was flirting with them all, they all thought she was dumb as a brick and they were in with a chance. She loved it when she asked what they would do to her if they went out and they told her. She wasn't that daft though and when the recording of them that she was secretly making was produced, she got a real nice payout from the firm who really needed to avoid more bad publicity. Good for you girl ! You teach them haha.


But I digress, salesmen.....

I can think of maybe 4 salesmen in 30 odd years that really stood out from the rest, and tbh they were wasted doing the job they did. (One of them we will meet later in Bunny Boiler Strikes Back), I don't mean the ones that made a load of promises then moved jobs every 6/8 months, there were loads of those shysters, no I am talking about real salesmen, the ones I would buy a car off even if I knew they were having me over and getting full money out of me.

So, this story is about one of those guys.

Let us go back to a previous post, (Where does this bit go ?) I mentioned in the 1st paragraph how important the mechanics paperwork is, so one day a mechanic comes up to me and informs me that he is a tad perplexed. He was working on a customers car (sporty convertible), it was parked up overnight, keys in the key box, when he went to the car the following morning it had 100+ more miles on it than he had written on the paperwork. Now we always write down the correct mileage for lots of reasons, and this was one of the more careful guys. Ok, so the 1st instance the mechanic didn't say anything as he thought he had written the mileage down wrong originally. The problem is the same thing happened the following week and he was adamant that he wrote the mileage correctly. No idea mate sorry. Didn't happen again so thought no more of it.

Then the following month the sales admin are doing a stock check and found that several cars (usually top spec sporty models) had a distinct increase in mileage from last check but no record of anyone road testing them (all salesmen logged customer contacts/road tests so the customer was 'theirs' in case they bought from another salesman). Too many to be errors in recording mileages, they needed to be correct so if anyone phoned up the salesman could look on the system for the mileage rather than shlep outside to check

We had cctv, so the sales manager decided he would sit and watch the car pitch recordings, eventually on day 3 or 4 he spotted something.

One of the salesmen, and this kid was good, early 20's but by golly he sold cars. He would roll up of an evening when the place was closed, open up, grab a set of keys to a car he fancied, more often than not a top spec one and drive off in it. Around midnight he would return the car to the exact place he got it from and no one was any the wiser.

Turns out that the little rogue had a boyfriend, and a couple of times a week they would book a meal at some restaurant way out of town, usually under the name of a military ranking officer 'captain xx' or whatever to give them an air of respectability, have the meal and when the opportune moment arrived disappear without paying.

He would use different cars so in his words if the restaurants did contact each other (probably didn't back in those days), and they were looking out for a blue Jag, he would be rolling up in a red Granada or whatever. Sometimes if he saw a tasty customers car parked up then he would give that a try out, that's why the mechanic thought he was losing his marbles, 'Captain' Gough was out and about joyriding with his boyfriend.


He was obviously just a full on con man, but you just couldn't help but like the guy, probably why he got away with the stuff he did. I bet he is either living the dream or inside by now.

 

[random]

A lorry full of unwanted axles and other parts mistakes
(2000's)

Parts departments....

You can skip to the 1. below if you have worked in a parts dept or are not bothered too much about explanations on how things can go wrong

For background, here is a picture of an Electronic Parts Catalogue (EPC) page. The parts guy will look at the picture, cross reference the illustration number to the part number listing and that's what you need. The catalogue also lets the parts guy know how many of a particular part are on the car. Easy enough ?




Well not quite, there are a few issues...

1. Part numbers are in sequential order
2. They are usually between 10 and 14 digits depending on the manufacturer


let me explain...

part number 1234567891011 might be a washer for a fiesta
part number 1234567981011 might be an engine for an Escort

Notice the part number difference ? So a parts operative who has been doing the job for a while and gets a little overconfident might end up ordering an engine instead of a washer, even though they are over 100,000 in number sequence away from each other. Easily down when all you are doing is mashing 13 digit numbers into a system all day


However there are some get outs/fail safes , if a dealer ordered 5 engines, it will 'usually' flag on the system and at the point of order a query will appear 'are you sure ?' or ask you to email to confirm the order.

If there is still a mistake and you end up with an unwanted part, manufacturers will normally let you return it providing:

1. its still in the box and unopened
2. you pay a handling fee of between 5% & 15% of the value of the goods

there are some other criteria depending on the manufactures rules, but those two are pretty standard for them all.

Some dealerships are classed as 'hubs' and that means they have up to 10 other dealerships ordering from them directly, they in turn order from the manufacturer, then when the parts arrive, they deliver them on vans to the other dealers. the hubs get a handling % for their troubles (this saves delivery lorries from the manufacturers going to say 300 dealers around the country, instead they may only go to 60 hubs)

Now I mentioned earlier about the system flagging some orders, well if you are at a 'hub' the flag is removed on goods below a certain value, say £3k, purely because you are ordering for several dealers and it would constantly be stuff getting flagged for manual confirms.

Oh and delivery lorries will always drop the stuff, if you don't want it too bad, off it comes and you go through a returns procedure to send stuff back

1.

The dealership needed about 2,000 parts requisition sheets, they come in boxes of stationary ordered via the office, unfortunately the young lady who ordered them ordered 20,000 requisition sheets by mistake, a pallet load of the things turned up, no worries poppet, they will get used up in about 10 years time.


2.

Sometimes a perfect storm hits and when it does the results are a spectacular sight to see.

Parts lad 'Ginge', been doing the job for years, really knows his stuff, works at a hub. needs to reorder something like 100 oil filters so he puts the order in.

Imagine the surprise when a lorry turns up a day or so later with 100 rear axles and starts unloading said axles outside the goods inward door.

ooops ! the silly billy transposed two of the digits in the part number when he placed the order

now the thing about 100 axles is....

1. they take up a lot of space
2. they are expensive (these were about £1,500 each iirc)

So £150,000+ vat worth of 100 unwanted rear axles are sat outside in the car park

They all needed bringing in so they didn't get nicked until the returns were done and back to the manufacturer they went, everyone involved in the axle carrying was really happy to do it.

The handling charge was negotiated to about £8k I believe,

Poor old ginge, kept his head down for a while after that
(rumour has it that the others started calling him Axel afterwards)

haha

 

[random]

A workshop full of pirates
(2000's)

Ever seen a standalone cd copier ?



They were not to expensive and all you did was plug them in, stick a cd in the top tray, blank in the bottom tray and 5 minutes later you have a copy.

One dealership was in full-on pirate mode, every mechanic had a copy box and a tube of 100 blank cd's on his bench, as soon as a car came in they would rummage through the glove box, shout to each other what was available and merrily rip off the cd's while they worked on the cars


Wheel nut vs sunroof
(1990's)

Mechanics love to buy tools, the more powerful, shiny and expensive the better.

One particular mechanic purchased a new air wrench,




this thing was top spec, hard to undo wheel nuts ? no problem this beast undid them all

One day he had undone some wheel nuts and wandered off for whatever reason, the lad at the next ramp thought he would have a look at the new toy, holds it up and 'shoots' it like a pistol.

Unfortunately there was still a wheel nut in the end of the socket, so as he pressed the trigger, the thing spun round at a great rate of knots, shot the wheel nut out like the proverbial bullet, it rapidly ascended until gravity reared its ugly head, and came flying back to earth.

.....of course the nut travelling back down to earth just had to land on the sunroof of the car

Now how do you think the explanation went to the customer who came in for two tyres and ended up with a broken piece of glass in the middle of his roof ?


Hang on, that's supposed to be fitted...
(1980's)

Remember mechanic number two in the previous tale (where does this bit go ?) well he was doing a clutch on a car, car in air, gearbox out, gearbox back in, just a few bits to do but time for lunch.

Comes back from lunch and sees a brand new clutch on his bench still in the box, being the one who stitched up mechanic number one previously he came to the conclusion that someone was trying the same stunt on him. laughed it off and carried on finishing the car.

gets the car done, puts the on the deck, tries to select gear. no sir !

the muppet had removed the old clutch, gone for a fag, came back and put the old clutch back in.

lets get it stripped down again shall we..... ?


That Girl was not a Girl !
(2000's)

One of the apprentices was on a train journey back from London, fancied himself as a bit of a lad. Anyways he is getting on famously with a quite attractive female (his words), and there was plenty of snogging, starting to get a bit horny the pair of them, so much so they went to the toilet to have a bit of privacy.

She was, 'down below' got him close, then wanted him to take a turn. Imagine his surprise when he found the full package down there ! not quite what he was expecting would be an understatement.

Its not the fact that he mistook the gender, its the fact he told everyone about it. Why would you do that ?

 

[davids]

A workshop full of pirates
(2000's)

Ever seen a standalone cd copier ?

View attachment 114473

They were not to expensive and all you did was plug them in, stick a cd in the top tray, blank in the bottom tray and 5 minutes later you have a copy.

One dealership was in full-on pirate mode, every mechanic had a copy box and a tube of 100 blank cd's on his bench, as soon as a car came in they would rummage through the glove box, shout to each other what was available and merrily rip off the cd's while they worked on the cars


Wheel nut vs sunroof
(1990's)

Mechanics love to buy tools, the more powerful, shiny and expensive the better.

One particular mechanic purchased a new air wrench,

View attachment 114474


this thing was top spec, hard to undo wheel nuts ? no problem this beast undid them all

One day he had undone some wheel nuts and wandered off for whatever reason, the lad at the next ramp thought he would have a look at the new toy, holds it up and 'shoots' it like a pistol.

Unfortunately there was still a wheel nut in the end of the socket, so as he pressed the trigger, the thing spun round at a great rate of knots, shot the wheel nut out like the proverbial bullet, it rapidly ascended until gravity reared its ugly head, and came flying back to earth.

.....of course the nut travelling back down to earth just had to land on the sunroof of the car

Now how do you think the explanation went to the customer who came in for two tyres and ended up with a broken piece of glass in the middle of his roof ?


Hang on, that's supposed to be fitted...
(1980's)

Remember mechanic number two in the previous tale (where does this bit go ?) well he was doing a clutch on a car, car in air, gearbox out, gearbox back in, just a few bits to do but time for lunch.

Comes back from lunch and sees a brand new clutch on his bench still in the box, being the one who stitched up mechanic number one previously he came to the conclusion that someone was trying the same stunt on him. laughed it off and carried on finishing the car.

gets the car done, puts the on the deck, tries to select gear. no sir !

the muppet had removed the old clutch, gone for a fag, came back and put the old clutch back in.

lets get it stripped down again shall we..... ?


That Girl was not a Girl !
(2000's)

One of the apprentices was on a train journey back from London, fancied himself as a bit of a lad. Anyways he is getting on famously with a quite attractive female (his words), and there was plenty of snogging, starting to get a bit horny the pair of them, so much so they went to the toilet to have a bit of privacy.

She was, 'down below' got him close, then wanted him to take a turn. Imagine his surprise when he found the full package down there ! not quite what he was expecting would be an understatement.

Its not the fact that he mistook the gender, its the fact he told everyone about it. Why would you do that ?

Great stories and seems I've found the man who can answer a question that has puzzled me for a while. Having driven company cars for all my adult life the last time I bought a car I was a teenager. Now those days the rule was you went to see a car you were interested in armed with a magnet searching for any even miniscule spot of body filler. These days watching the many car resto shows on Discovery Channel Quest etc cars going to even the best auctions seem to have at least half a bucket used in the restoration. Has it changed drastically in constitution? Or don't people care anymore?

 

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Great stories and seems I've found the man who can answer a question that has puzzled me for a while. Having driven company cars for all my adult life the last time I bought a car I was a teenager. Now those days the rule was you went to see a car you were interested in armed with a magnet searching for any even miniscule spot of body filler. These days watching the many car resto shows on Discovery Channel Quest etc cars going to even the best auctions seem to have at least half a bucket used in the restoration. Has it changed drastically in constitution? Or don't people care anymore?

I think people just look at the paintwork now tbh.

What a guy does on youtube is a world away from what a professional operation does, youtubers can spend hours on a job, filling it etc, a professional operation is paying wages at whatever the going rate is, they are not going to pay a prepper to spend 4 hours on a panel, they need to 'churn' the repairs in and out as fast as possible.

Every job on every car is given a repair time so a garage/bodyshop can make a judgement on the quickest and most economical repair. Filler should be used to smooth out a dent repair that it cannot quite get smooth enough, it should not be applied by the tub load. Panels should be replaced if that is the case. But I understand if a new door/skin is in the £800's of pounds region and given the instructional videos available, then I would probably do the same, its not right but saving money is what its about

Some of the youtube videos are very informative and helpful, others just give out wrong info even ones that are shot in pro bodyshops

For example: we deal with new cars that cost over £150,000 in our onsite body shop, we carry out work as per manufacturers instructions, these are the people that build the things so we do and use exactly what they say to do. It's nothing like what I am watching on some youtube videos made by the pros.

you can always drop me a pm if you need more in-depth info