What's the biggest mess (like, physical mess) you've ever gotten into at work?

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Landroval

Originally posted by: compudog
I am the facility maintenance manager (and IT Manager) at an indutrial manufacturer. We got a call that the toilets in the offices were overflowing. This then spread to the restrooms on the production floor. Grabbing the plunger, one of my staff went to the sign of the first blockage. With a few deft thrusts of the plunger, the blockage was moved further in the sewer pipes and all of the drains started flowing again. I called the janitor to clean up the floors. We went to the manhole cover (which is actually in part of our warehouse) and opened the access up to see if we could find the blockage. (We have found garbage bags and other items flushed in the past) Peering into the dark, we see what may be the obstruction. I grab a flashlight, garden hose and climb down the ladder into the abyss. I "fished" from the waste stream, a very soiled pair of size 13 ladies underwear. Seems someone made a poopie in their drawers and flushed them away, blocking the pipes. It took me a long time to feel clean again...

For those that do not know, women's underwear are typically sized differently than other women's clothing. No idea how big a 13 is, but it must be at least a 50" waist :Q

Thanks, I was wondering... and jesus christ :Q

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Ummm, one word....

DUCT TAPE!

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Mine is pretty much nothing compared to everyone else's. I simply shook around a gallon of muriatic acid which was used for cleaning pools, and inhaled quite a bit of the fumes.

 

[Ulfwald]

I use muriatic acid for cleaning the driveway. I do dilute the heck out of it though.

 

[PCMarine]

This wasn't at work, but I was helping a buddy change his oil in my garage. Everything went smoothly and we hopped in the car to start her up for a test drive. So my bud starts his car and 5-10 seconds later we heard some metal on metal grinding / the engine is running really rough. So he immediately turned off the car and we looked outside only to find 5 quarts of motor oil spilled all over my dad's recently cleaned garage floor.

Turns out my friend bought the wrong filter, and it only screwed on half the way (but you couldnt see the filter once it was installed because it was dark and in an odd location)...

 

[Afro000Dude]

Spilled some liquid nitrogen on the floor... Now that was a b!tch to clean up!!

 

[DainBramaged]

Cleaning up a toner mess that I stupid copy machine operator caused. Seriously, that sh!t was EVERYWHERE.

 

[Gulzakar]

muriatic acid is hydrochloric acid...not a good idea to be cleaning a driveway with it...they use that stuff to lower the ph in a pool.

 

Bump, anyone else?!

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: bradruth
Where would I start?

Did you ever accidentally shoot a bunch of people? Or hit them with your cop car?

I KNOW this isn't the worst mess I've ever made, but it was still pretty funny. Once when I was working concessions in high school, some idiot had put the cans of coke in the FREEZER, and they were rock solid. For some reason I took one out and was holding it in my hand to melt it. All of a sudden the thing EXPLODES in my hand...literally explodes, shredding the aluminum and sending bits of frozen coke all OVER me and the snack stand. Then a split second later it explodes again and sends the bottom end flying off. I didn't know they even did that.

 

[chrisms]

My first week at my first job I thought I was a genius for combining bleach+degreaser in the mop bucket (my co-workers disputed which one was most effective), only to find out a few weeks later that doing this can kill you.

Another time while cutting pizzas I sliced myself pretty good and bled all over the place, actually this happened more than once along with various burns.

Driving into work in the snow my car slid out and smashed into my co-workers vehicle.

On various occassions I would get called into work but I'd be drunk at the time, and go anyways because my job was simple. I remember one time being there when the room was spinning.

For a few months the oven vents were clogged because we'd throw balloons and other random crap into them, and so the entire restaurant would get really smokey. It got really bad at some points, if you looked in from the outside it would look like the place was one fire.

 

[eigen]

I once knocked over multi thousand dollar piece of machining equipment with forklift .I also ran into an airplane with a piece of equipment.

 

[Toastedlightly]

Well Ill make mine quick. Those dishwashers in resturaunts that use the really basic and condensed cleaning formula... yea. A friend and I were dishboys and we were tasked with cleaning the floor (chinese resturaunt). We were out of degreases so our boss told us to use the 'wed chemicols!" We told him it was corrosive and would damage the floor. His response was "they don't know what they are talking about!" So we have this bucket of chemicals with a lid on it that has a small hole. We lift it up, and pour some on the floor. All goes well adn we start cleaning. My friend is bringing it back and he starts slipping so he drops it. Right onto the floor (bottom first) so it splashed up the hole in the lid and went up his nose, in his mouth and in his eyes. His nose starts bleeding, his mouth starts bleeding and he goes blind in one eye. I was a little freaked, but luckily a cook had vinegar on hand and we helped him. Suffice to say, that woudl eb the stupidest thing I have done at work.

That or having 'lightsaber' fights with old florecant bulbs...

 

[archiloco]

marking out some trees, ran into a problem where the ground was so tough that the wooden stakes would not go in, so i had an empty can of spray paint (or so i thought) to drive them in.... :shocked:


instant mess :- )

edit for spelling::::::

 

[Tea Bag]

When I used to work at a grocery store, I accidentally bumped into an unsecured pallet of prego (glass) spaghetti sauce with an electronic pallet jack and knocked the entire thing over except for the bottom row.. I swear there was only like 4 or 5 salvage-able cases, the rest had the labels falling off or were covered in a glass shard / spaghetti paste conglomeration. That happened half way into my shift, and with no one helping me (I don't know why, probably cause they were all laughing too hard), it took the remainder of the day to clean up about 30+ cases of spaghetti. Nothing like scooping up sauce with a dustpan and throwing it in the trash compactor!

I witnessed someone do the same thing to a pallet of Sunny D that fell off the top of another pallet (stacked like 3 high.. Hello, OSHA? are you there??). There was a HUGE stain (from the citric acid eating the sealant and dirt off the floor from the stuff! The brought in the shop vacs and the floor buffers, and it looked like someone stripped the floor! I never drank Sunny D after that!

 

[jagec]

I thought of a couple more.

One time I was working as a TA for the Chemistry teacher. Anyway, he was having me make up a bunch of 6M sulfuric acid, from the PURE stuff in the cabinet. It was like a 10:1 dilution with water or something, the fumes from that stuff were INCREDIBLE. Anyway, I was pouring it into a graduated cylinder with a plastic base. Turns out the glass was cracked at the very bottom, but you couldn't tell because of the plastic. So..it spilled all over the counter, the floor, and my shoe. INSTANTLY the tile floor starts forming yellow bubbles as the acid eats away at it. I yelled for the teacher, and he threw base from the spill kit all over. Luckily it didn't soak through my shoe. The floor was a spotless white where the acid had been, in stark contrast to the surrounding aged tiles.

Another time I was mixing up a smoke bomb, in the same lab (the teacher was pretty cool). It was going to be used for a bomb drill the next day. Anyway, I have this little crucible with about 20mL of sugar+other stuff in there, and I'm heating it over a bunsen burner. Next thing I know it tips over, and as soon as the flame touches the stuff, the ENTIRE lab was filled with thick white smoke. Smelled a little like popcorn...the teacher's only words were "Well, it works!"

 

[cerebusPu]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: bradruth
Where would I start?

Did you ever accidentally shoot a bunch of people? Or hit them with your cop car?

I KNOW this isn't the worst mess I've ever made, but it was still pretty funny. Once when I was working concessions in high school, some idiot had put the cans of coke in the FREEZER, and they were rock solid. For some reason I took one out and was holding it in my hand to melt it. All of a sudden the thing EXPLODES in my hand...literally explodes, shredding the aluminum and sending bits of frozen coke all OVER me and the snack stand. Then a split second later it explodes again and sends the bottom end flying off. I didn't know they even did that.

woah..didnt know that was possible

 

[Glavinsolo]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: bradruth
Where would I start?

Did you ever accidentally shoot a bunch of people? Or hit them with your cop car?

I KNOW this isn't the worst mess I've ever made, but it was still pretty funny. Once when I was working concessions in high school, some idiot had put the cans of coke in the FREEZER, and they were rock solid. For some reason I took one out and was holding it in my hand to melt it. All of a sudden the thing EXPLODES in my hand...literally explodes, shredding the aluminum and sending bits of frozen coke all OVER me and the snack stand. Then a split second later it explodes again and sends the bottom end flying off. I didn't know they even did that.

That and putting a pop tart in the toaster way beyond toasting phase will make it blow up!

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: jumpr
I worked at a local country club...

Some people might have just tried to stop the leak.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: maximus maximus

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Guy I was working next too hit himself in the face with a chainsaw. Made a mess out of his face for sure!

Yuck :thumbsdown:

I've also a couple of guys cut their fingers off with a skill saw and another shoot himself in the kneecap with a nailgun. The worst though was when a heavy duty forklift (a Pettibone) tipped over and crushed the Foreman of the Job to death.

My parents used to work for Pettibone. My stepfather tested the cranes.

use that as your worthless fact for the day.

 

[IAteYourMother]

I came on my bed.

 

[Bushwicktrini]

I had just got out of the Navy and got a job as a jr boiler service man in NYC. The main mechcanic and I wher at a call on 70th st on the westside of the city nice building with a door man and everything. The call was boiler failing to light off and it was a gas boiler. Well the mechanic tell me to pull the clapper on the burner to make it contact and open the gas vavle as he thought it was just a weak pilot and if giving gas it would light. Well We did this about 5 times each time the boiler would fail to light. On the 6th time I was sitting right infront of the boiler and BOOM! it lights and blows the side panels off and the boiler breaching right into the ceiling I get blow back about 6 feet and the mechcanic also hits the floor. There was dust everywhere and I couln't hear anything for about 15min. My boss who was upstairs came running down with the doorman and the buldings super he had to write everything he was saying cause I couldn't hear sh!t and I would yell back the answers. Thank God it was a sectional boiler other wise that might have been it for me

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: cavemanmoron
I was at a building at my work,driving a trash truck.

There was about 250 gallons of paint to be thrown away,most in 5 gal buckets,
i put about 20 5 gal pails into the back of the truck,and cycled the packer,
and then put the rest in the back,and squished the rest.

All of a sudden the paint started to leak out into the parking lot.:shocked:

I go oh crap,and jump into the truck and start to drive,as fast as possible to the landfill,
about 4 miles away.

I had paint pouring out of the truck,on the road for about 1/2 mile.

I got back from the landfill,and on the way back had noticed sand in the road.??WTF ??

Somebody had seen the mess,and it took like 10 co-workers 2 hours,throwing sand from
the back of 2 dump trucks,to try and absorb the paint.

This was about 1985 or so;nowadays this would be a Major problem.Back then
the biggest problem was the fact that the boss drove thru the paint,and got some
on his car.

I had all the co-workers that were there that day mad at me for a very long time.

We were talking about this the other day,and one man still gets Very upset when we
talk about it.He had new sneakers on that day,and they were ruined.

Now adays you'd have the state and municipality on your ass and would be fired immediately if you took paint into a garbage truck, let alone have it drip all over the road.

<----works in the "Waste and Environmental Services" business

 

[ggnl]

Back when I was delivering pizza, we had just finished cleaning everything up for the night and were about to go home when the shift manager checked the walk-in cooler, only to find that a stack of 5 15 lb. tubs of sauce had tipped over and emptied thier contents onto the floor.

Needless to say, it took a while to clean up 75 lbs. of spilled pizza sauce.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: Landroval

Originally posted by: compudog
I am the facility maintenance manager (and IT Manager) at an indutrial manufacturer. We got a call that the toilets in the offices were overflowing. This then spread to the restrooms on the production floor. Grabbing the plunger, one of my staff went to the sign of the first blockage. With a few deft thrusts of the plunger, the blockage was moved further in the sewer pipes and all of the drains started flowing again. I called the janitor to clean up the floors. We went to the manhole cover (which is actually in part of our warehouse) and opened the access up to see if we could find the blockage. (We have found garbage bags and other items flushed in the past) Peering into the dark, we see what may be the obstruction. I grab a flashlight, garden hose and climb down the ladder into the abyss. I "fished" from the waste stream, a very soiled pair of size 13 ladies underwear. Seems someone made a poopie in their drawers and flushed them away, blocking the pipes. It took me a long time to feel clean again...

For those that do not know, women's underwear are typically sized differently than other women's clothing. No idea how big a 13 is, but it must be at least a 50" waist :Q

It's obvious you don't know, because 13 on a women is like 30-32" on a man.