Funny Stories from the Coalface

[Cronker]

Hello

im new here, and I'm sure this topic has been done previously, but in the seventeen pages I've read, haven't seen it quite this way.

im not asking about douchebag customers, although that might comprise some responses, and poor service has been touched upon too.

more so I'm asking about funny, bizarre, head scratching stories that C.A Pinkham would kill to publish.

 

i'll share just one of mine, to start.

 

I had a lovely girl working for me, in her first job.  She was pretty (a requisite in the hotel chain I worked for) but not really bright.  She had a warm personality and the guests were always patient with her, despite her denseness.

anyway, one day we were setting up a huge function for the Wheelchair Athletes Awards ceremony.  About 600 people.  The client had sent through the floor plan, and my diligent staff had set up the room beautifully.  Everything in place, I was walking through doing my checks.

with floor plan in hand, I called (let's call her) Linda over to help me.  

"So, Linda, what I need you to do is follow me around to each table, and just pull out the chairs where I say.  Okay?"

"Sure, I can do that!" she responded.

so, table one - "Position three, and position six, please pull out those chairs, Linda" I asked.  Done.

table three - "Position one, four, seven, chairs out please"

and so on, all the way to table sixty.  Me reading off my floor plan, Linda pulling out the chairs as asked (and even right hand man Danny stacking them as we went along)

 

as as we finished up this process, Linda looked confused.  Not unusual for her, but I asked "What's wrong?"

"well, boss, why are we pulling up all these chairs?"

I smiled.

"well, because these place settings are where the wheelchair athletes will be sitting."

"oh, okay"

then, a cloud of confusion came over her again.

"but boss...?"

"Yes, Linda?"

"where do we get the wheelchairs from?"

 

[Cronker]

I was managing the catering department at our cities big theatre and art centre.  It was tough, because I was juggling the expectations of both my employer and the arts centre client- each of which had a very different idea of how things should be done.

 The arts centre had all control over asset management, so if anything broke down, or needed fixing, it was their maintenance team who had to be called in.  Truth be known, the maintenance guys were hopeless.

 

one morning, about four AM, I got a call.  I was dead asleep after yet another fourteen hour shift.  But, as always, I answered.  There was a problem.

i got to my venue to find the carpet outside the bar soaked, sticky and a steady stream of syrup leaking from the front of the bar wall.

a sheepish maintenance guy pointed it out to me.

"Yes, Gary, I can see the problem." I said. "What happened?"

"well, we were going to attach this artwork to the front of the bar, and when we drilled into it, all of a sudden..."

"Why didn't you talk to me first about this?  This is news to me!"

"But the boss lady said to do it " he whined.

"But why are you doing this at four in the fucking morning?"

he shrugged.

as I had suspected, they had drilled directly into the post-mix line and now had a wonderful stream of pure sugar flavoured crap spilling into the bar and into the carpet outside.  A real mess.

 

my biggest concern, considering that this venue was very old and under a heritage listing, was that I was quite sure that there were no electrical trip switches.

what if they had drilled directly into a power cable?