What is the oddest side “job” you’ve don
jensenaw
| Posted in General Discussion on
The other day I was working and the HO came over and said she had caught a pack rat in a trap, handed me a .22 and asked if I would go shoot it.
What have you done on the side?
Replies
I got a call from a regular client that had a squirrel running around in the house. Apperantly it had come down the chimney of the fire place. I chased it outside and fixed the screen on the chimney. And charged for the time! DanT
Doing a remodel for a college profeesor (woman) who lived alone, I would take stuff out of the fridge and put it in the oven to start supper.
Helped a ranch hand lasso two horses and get them into the trailer to go to the vet.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
"Doing a remodel for a college profeesor (woman) who lived alone, I would take stuff out of the fridge and put it in the oven to start supper."Did you make her breakfast too? ;-]
converted a underground bomb shelter, to an addon rumposs room, complete with brick walls and floor ,exposed heavy beams in the ceiling , a brick fire pit, and heavy chain mancles and leg irons attached to the walls and floor, customers furnished all extra hard rubber and latex add ons. Nice folks but just a tadd strange.
Doing a remodel for a college profeesor (woman) who lived alone, I would take stuff out of the fridge and put it in the oven to start supper.
That reminds me of an odd job I was called to look at in Warwick, NY, back when I was in my mid-twenties, just getting started. The HO was a famous Broadway star, about twice my age, who'd recently purchased an older home there, a few miles from where I lived.
She said that there were some discolorations in the old pine floor in her bedroom and invited me upstairs to have a look. When it became clear to me what she was really after, I told her that I didn't have any idea how to solve her problem but that I knew another guy who would be glad to take care of her.
I remember doing a roof repair for a young divorce` back when I was young and dumb. She said I did that really well.
So then she wanted to know if I could do some roof repairs to the old family cottage at the lake on Saturday.
Turned out all the repairs she had ion mind were inside.
I did that really well too.Then I figured out a couple weeks later what she had in mind.
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"Then I figured out a couple weeks later what she had in mind."The story of my life...
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"said she had caught a pack rat in a trap, handed me a .22 and asked if I would go shoot it."I had to shoot a fox that was in a Hav a Heart trap. I really would have preferred to release it miles away from the owner's chickens, but he (fox) was having none of that. I then get a call two weeks later, possum this time.
You shot an animal in a Hav-a-heart trap? Bahaha They probably won't use you as a company spokesman for those traps.On my last basement remodel job, I had to keep putting the baby chickens back in their pen. Apparently if there was a cover on it they would peep till my ears bled. And if the cover was off......well they were the kind that can fly, so just imagine the fun. Nothing like laying baseboard with a chicken as a helper.
When I was in college, I was doing a remodel for a HO that required an upright piano to be moved from the downstairs to the upstairs. So the HO hired some professional piano movers to relocate the piano.
No problem, until the piano movers couldn't push the piano up the moderate grade hill, so they asked my to help. Sure. I jumped in and started pushing at their direction and things were going good until the piano started tilting off the 2x6s they were using as runners. And being like Wile E. Coyote, I jumped under the piano to stop it from falling. Have you ever had the opportunity to lift a piano let alone catch it? As I found out, DON'T DO THIS! I cushioned the piano from hitting the ground too hard and only bruised my shoulder.
But I did make $150 for about 5 minutes of work.
Impossible is an opinion.
Luka, are you listening to Dana Lyons again?
Impossible is an opinion.
When I worked at a landscape nursery, the owner had a farm and his useless kids' horses would get out and the landscape crew (including me, a city boy with no experience with horses) would have to drive out and get the horses out of the road and get them back in the paddock. Then one day we went out to weed the nursery stock he had out there and his uselss kids' German Shepherds were trying to kill the owner's little mongrel dog, so I stopped them while the other guy sat in the truck!
This week we were on a kitchen remodeling job where there was a dog that was blind and had Alzheimer's. I'd let it out when it needed to, and then I had to help it get back in--sort of herding it. Then yesterday the lady asked Marc to move his truck so she could take the dog to be "put down." I asked if she needed help and she asked me to carry the dog out to her car. Sad day--I felt bad even though I had only known the dog for less than a week.
I thought you were going to tell us that Marc backed over the dog.TFB (Bill)
THAT would have really made my day!
As it was, Marc kept playing a game of hide and seek-- "Danno puts the paint tray full of paint somewhere where Danno thinks it's out of the way and Marc immediately goes to where Danno has put it and starts stripping the old, crumbly insulation off the wiring, or Marc sands the drywall, or Marc trims the molding, right over the tray (or wherever Danno has just finished painting)." (Or Marc decides to patch the ceiling that Danno has just finished painting, or he rams a piece of quarter round against the freshly mudded and painted ceiling, putting a quarter inch wide by two inch long gouge in it. Or he decides after Danno cleans his brush that there should be two coats of latex paint on the wall above the window, and after that is done, decides there should be two coats of oil-based enamel on the window frame--the frame that Danno has just overlapped the water-based wall paint on, figuring he would be priming the bare wood next week. No, has to be painted with enamel, no undercoat, before we leave for the day. You can imagine how wonderful that looks!) Tra la, tra la.
You bet !
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So, I'm sitting at the bar in a casino on Paradise Island and this blonde babe sits down next to me and starts chatting me up.
Still regret not asking her "How much" as everything else there was fairly pricey. $5 for a beer, $5 for just about anything and this was late '70s.
Joe H
sounds like you are saying you were gonna be HER side job
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I am helping an owner builder cutting a timberframe. The neighbor started yelling at me from the window last week. I went over and he told me a dead cat had appeared in his yard overnight, and asked if I could remove it (he is barely mobile).
Of course, I went and told the guy I am working for that it was very important to have good relations with the neighbors (he's never built anything before, let alone a house) and I sure as s*&$ wasn't going to deal with the neighbors dead cat.
He got right on it.
He got right on it.
Chuck it across the street into a different neighbor's yard?
jt8
Put it in the oven for supper.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
I had to change a baby diaper for a customer once.
They were all out of depends ?
What a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power, to reason away
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Yeah, I've been asked to do that as well. Another time a woman had me cut the bedposts off a nice old four poster bed. She was annoyed at her husband for always hanging clothes on them.
You were working for someone that wore diapers?
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
I said baby diaper ... as on a baby.
Mom was doing 100 other thinks and I figured it was the only to shut the little poop machine up. It did work and I could get back to what I was doing in peace.
Extracted a nest of dead baby snakes from inside a framed out basement wall on a house we had built a few years earlier. I had gotten a call about an odd odor in one of the basement bedrooms. Turned out they had added an outside wood boiler and didn't seal around the pipes that came into the wall. Evidently momma snake crawled in there & couldn't get out. Not very pleasant. Was paid well and given beer & supper tho.
Another time, HO asked me to keep an eye on her baby while she ran into town to get her other kids from school. And if she wakes up, there's a bottle of breast milk in the frig . . . OK. . . Of course she did wake up. Got plenty of giggles out of the other guys working there when they came in and saw me holding a baby.
When I lived in Albuquerque we use to help hold down the hot air ballons that landed close by during the International Balloon Fiesta. At least until their ground crews got there.
I hired a 19 year old college student from craigslist to help with some painting around my house. He had quite a bit of experience painting working for his uncle (a painting contractor), and he did good work.
The second day he was working with me I asked him how much response he got from posting on craigslist. He said he got more than a few responses, but that one was particularly weird.
A retired contractor hired him to help with some project at a client's home that took about four hours. On the drive back, the contractor explained to him that he was starting a nude handyman crew and asked him if he was available to work nude (he declined).
An uncomfortable silence followed. We both continued painting while choked back laughter. At least a full minute later the kid turns to me and says, "I think he was ####."
(Note: I don't know why that last word was censored. It wasn't a derogatory term, and I would have self-censored it if it was. The whole point was how naive this kid was. I don't think he would have used a slur.)
Edited 9/26/2008 11:50 pm ET by JDLee
I do a lot of work for a kind (and generous) older gentleman, who is very savvy financially, but not too mechanically inclined.
I got a call once that one of his two beloved Simese cats had died during the night. So I went over, cleaned up the mess, and buried the cat.
Later that same year, when I arrived at the house to make some repairs, he told me the swan that had been sitting on a nest in the pond on his property had died, and what should he do about it. After I verified the bird was dead using binoculars, I told him it should be disposed of, as it was relatively close to the house, and the smell might get bad.
I asked if he had a boat, or knew of where we could borrow one, but he hadn't a clue. A month earlier a large storm had washed a 12 ft. alum. row boat onto his beach from Long Island sound. We dusted it off, emptied to out, then lugged it to the pond. About half the rivits were missing. He insisted on going with me. I used a shovel for an oar, shoved off, and water began filling the boat. I rowed as fast as I could, got to the nest, and we put the dead bird in a plastic bag. I was able to row back, the boat about 1/3 filled with water.
Same guy, I remodeled his kitchen, putting in new 30" trivection double ovens. I made him meat loaf to show him how the ovens work.
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.
I was working for an Episcopal Priest renovating a kitchen. He called about nine one evening after I had been home for awhile. One of his parishioners had been murdered the previous day. Seems he had a secret lifestyle and had some questionable items in his house. The Reverend asked me to help him cleanse the home before any relatives showed up. He asked me to bring the truck as there might be alot of stuff.
I showed up at the good Reverend's house and he handed me a loaded 45 and told me to stuff it in the back of my waistband. We drove to the house and it was pitch black, not a light on. We opened the door and probed for the light switch and turned on the lights. There was still blood everywhere. The guy was hit over the head with a lamp and killed.
There was evidence that EMS had been there and balled up crime scene tape in the corner. The tension in the air was thick. We came upon a room with a mannequin dressed up in biker gear. All around the room were magazines and videos that showed what a nut case this guy was.
I backed the truck up to the side bedroom window and we started tossing out all of this poor guy's sordid past. It was a whole truck full! Chains, hand cuffs, costumes, whips, magazines and the biker. When we had the truck half full we heard someone in the living room. The Rev. and I both reached back for our 45s and started towards the living room. As soon as I had my hand on the 45 I heard a voice say in the darkness, Atlanta Police. My client who was in his collar responded loudly, Chaplin Coleman. The two chatted it up for awhile as I finished loading the truck.
We covered everything with a tarp, including the biker, as I would have to go through Mid Town Atlanta on the way back, and I really didn't want anyone following me. I parked the truck in the Rev's garage overnight and in the morning drove to the dump. I waited there for almost an hour so I could dump this stuff in private. I did leave a handcuffed biker boy standing waving hello with a riding crop to the next users of the dump.
Constructing in metric...
every inch of the way.
I think that wins first prize. Makes me wonder about the job description for being a REV tho...Reminds me when I was doing a stint in an ER room for part of my EMT training. Ambulance brought in a DOA ( not official yet) that was a guy in the black and a collar. He'd had a heart attack while climbing over a cyclone fence ten feet tall, and fell.
So he had torn flesh from the wire tips at top of the fence, and a bruised up head from landing on it, along with the heart attack.So why was he climbing over a fence at a car dealership at midnight?
Was he even a priest, or just wearing the uniform?I dunno - never heard the tail end, just helped in the STAT room untill they called it DOA. And that wasn't the weirdest thing I saw that night either...;)
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working a basement remodel one day ... the neighbor comes over.
said he had a cottage that may need some work before he sells it.
I'd just wrapped something up and he asked if I could run up with him quick and take a look. He said he'd pay me for my time, I said OK. at the time, I was charging $30/hr.
so ... we hop in his old "x-hippie / now rich guy" Volvo.
he saus it's right down down the turnpike, and he wanted to stop at a volvo junkyard first ... so we drove there ... an hour away ... He picked up what ever part he needed.
I said, so it's close? having just spend an hour ... which was about 1/2 longer than I thot we'd be driving. He said ... sure ... we're about halfway there!
so ... I sank into the seat.
we made it to the cabin ... we walked around and he showed me all the repairs that'd been done. Asked me if I thought they were good enough.
Uh ... sure? I was just wondering why I was there.
that seemed to be a good enough answer for him. We got back into the car and drove back to the jobsite. He went to his house and cut me a check.
all in all ... it took 5 hrs. I got paid $150 for keeping a guy from getting lonely on his drive thru the countryside. Weird, to say the least.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Edited 9/27/2008 12:40 pm ET by JeffBuck
I had a days worth of handyman-type work booked for a regular client. She was having a winter soltice party that night and had a full list of interior repairs and sprucing up to do. It was a beautiful early winters day with about 8 inches of fresh snow on the ground - she decided that an igloo built around a bonfire pit would be the perfect focal point for her party.
She ditched the list and we spent the day outside building an igloo. We never got the 'roof' on it but it was tall enough to block the wind (about 7ft). She decorated it with Xmas lights and made a big fire inside. My wife and I went back for the party and it was shirtsleeve toasty warm inside the igloo. And it was a huge hit, it was the focal point - there was a line inside the house all night waiting for an opening inside the igloo.
I got a full days pay for playing in the snow, alot of conversation about the igloo, and a couple of new customers out of the event.
-Norm
Babysit the kids. Wash the family dog...they paid me my carpenters rate.
One time I was doing some side work for this contractor I didn't know, but the house was owned by a very well known Hollywood actress at the time. I had to have access to the attic and the only way was through the closet of her bedroom. So I had to pick up alot of her scanties and dirty clothes and rifle through her other personals to get a ladder under the hatchway.
It only lasted one day.
We were installing a new A - coil and outdoor a/c unit at older ladies house . At the end of the day she asked me if I could fill her car with gas . I told her I had a date that night and didnt have time to take her car out and fill it up . She said no problem take the car and return it in the mourning when I came back to finish the job. Ok I said she gets the keys and hands me an amex gold card and opens the garage . There sits a brand new Trans am GTA with less than a thousand miles on it . I started thinking this would not be such a great idea ( I had a cr#p driving record back then) but she insited . All I can say man what a fun ride .
Was working for a recently divorced woman who was trying to fix up the POS house that was obviously neglected for the entire marriage. She was in the process of moving out and was using another friends POS pickup truck to move the last of her stuff. The final load was a queen sized mattress that she laid across the bed of the truck (curved up on the sides).
As she was departing, she asked if I could do her a favor. Apparently, the family dog had expired the day before and was located out behind the barn. She was taking the dog to another friends farm to bury it but she needed help loading the carcass into the pickup truck.
What could I say.
So, she drove the pickup out behind the barn and sure enough, there was ol' yellar, quite dead and stiff as a board. I hauled him out from under some wooden steps and we wrapped him in an old sheet.
I put the dead dog on top of the mattress and off she went.
She got to the end of the driveway and gunned it to get up the hill onto the street. The tailgate flew open and out slides the dog, followed by the mattress. Poor lady made it another hundred feet or so before she slams on the brakes and realizes that she just dropped her entire load on the street.
I stood there watching the whole thing, just shaking my head.
She starts to back down the hill. As she's backing up, I realized that she's slowly speeding up, I can see her brake lights but truck is not slowing down. Back down she comes, runs over the mattress, and the dog, and comes to a whump against the dirt embankment in front of the house.
Apparently, when she slammed on the brakes she ruptured a rusty brake line.
When she realized she had no brakes, and no way to get the dog and her mattress to whereever it was that she was going, she asked if I could put everything in my truck and give her a lift. What do you think I said???
Good story. And they wonder where authors get their material. Some of this stuff you just can't make up.
Life can be much stranger than fiction.
Went back to adjust a slider off the master bedroom, when the homeowner asks me if I could hang a swing for him. Normally not a problem, but the mirrors over the bed, were in the way of where he wanted to hang it.
Yes, this couple were swingers, in the true sense of the word.
Greg in Connecticut
when i was very young working for a small contractor on his parents custom house the neighbor asked if she could "borrow me" to do repairs to the drip system on her avacado orchard.
not that unusual, but when i finished with the repairs she had taken a liking to me and asked if i would weed the entire orchard. she said she felt uncomfortable around the spanish speakers since she didn't speak that language.
i told her it was a huge job, and that i would need help and permission from my boss. she was an influential neighbor to my boss, and told me i could bring all my friends.
she made all of us lunch every day and we took home all the avacados we could eat since they can't sell the ones that are already lying on the ground.
after we had already given all our families and friends all the avacados they would take and there were still more left over we decided to take the handle out of a polanski and use it for a bat, and have batting practice with avacados.
it was a lot of fun. a huge explosion with every hit. the seed would go about as far as a golf ball, and there was the biggest pile of guacamole i have ever seen marking home plate.
Not so much a side job but an odd job none the less. As a teenager I worked for a carpet installer one summer and we had to carpet the apartment for the Carilloner (the guy who controls the bells) in the top of the Peace Tower which is the central portion of the Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. At the time it was being refit with an inclined elevator (to whisk tourists to the observation deck). I had a terrible cold or flu and I had to carry the carpet roller, a 50 lb. drum of steel up to the top. I felt like Quasimoto.
Referring to your deceased dog story-
I was asked to drop a Newfoundland to be cremated. Middle of winter and I have to back down a slope right up to the door,because
the dog was to heavy to carry in.
Well everything went fine until I tried to leave. No more weight in the back, I
wasn't going anywhere!
Strange scene -
Four guy's in medical smocks pushing me up the hill,
This is a great thread. I love some of the stories. And I thought, "everything happens to me..."
My one rule is I don't do widows...AitchKay
That was a baaaad pun, but good for a chuckle!
I just re-read these and had a good chuckle. Just thought I would give this a bump to see if there are any new stories out there!?
These still make me laugh! Any new stories out there?
Worked as a teen at a used car delarship that was part owned by an auto recycler...I was there to clean the cars. One they brought in was bought in chicago off the insurance company. It had been found in a parking lot with a guy stuffed in the trunk for a couple of months....we tore the entire interior out and scrubbed that thing till we were blue in the face but never could get the smell out entirely.
When you are detailing a car, you always do everything including the trunk...well a trunk is one heck of a big piece of real estate when its comes to a car especially when you are 1970's early 80's cars...think Lincoln Continentals, Caddilac Fleetwoods lots of carpet to scrub and then the trunks themselves were metal on the sides that you would always get cut up trying to clean...remember back then they did have carpet panels on the sides or the wheel wheels...anyway the dril was you would pull the carpet and scrub it on the ground and then crawl in the trunk and beat the H out of your hands scrubbing the rest of it...a lot of times it was quicker and easier to just grab a couple cans of spray paint and spray the inside of the trunk.....never knew what huffing was back in the day but you sure did get light headed spraying inside a trunk.....a lot of times if the carpet was badly stained and or glue down, we just sprayed the carpet too...actually works great and looks great too makes the carpet stiff but who the H feels the carpet inside the trunk? If you want to spruce up your car before you trade it in or sell it....painting the trunk is a quick way to do it
The oddest Job?
The oddest "job"? Oh, man, I have stories to tell! I was knocking down ceiling plaster, when the "petrified" carcass of a squirrel fell onto my head. The first thought that entered my head: here's your perfect chance to get even with your mischievous friend. So...um...I packed the long-dead critter in a box and UPS'd the poor creature to my unsuspecting friend. He's promised me to get even. I am waiting in fear and trembling.
The oddest Job?
The oddest "job"? Oh, man, I have stories to tell! I was knocking down ceiling plaster, when the "petrified" carcass of a squirrel fell onto my head. The first thought that entered my head: here's your perfect chance to get even with your mischievous friend. So...um...I packed the long-dead critter in a box and UPS'd the poor creature to my unsuspecting friend. He's promised me to get even. I am waiting in fear and trembling.