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Rant: That one Tuesday where everything that could go wrong did go wrong
Last spring I had a job building a deck in Baton Rouge. We started leveling the ground at 7am and by 9am my auger hit a buried gas line nobody flagged. Took 4 hours for the gas company to show up and clear us. Then my crew chief got stung by a bee and had to go to urgent care. By 2pm we finally got the posts set and a thunderstorm rolled in. Lost a whole day's pay plus had to buy lunch for everyone. Has anyone else had a single job day that just spiraled like that?
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emmawood10h ago
Lost a whole day's pay plus had to buy lunch for everyone" - man that part really stings. I actually read this article a few weeks back about how construction workers in the south deal with buried utilities getting hit all the time because of old maps and stuff. It said something like 1 in 4 digs hit something unmarked. Makes me wonder how many other people have had their Tuesday ruined like that.
Your story about the auger hitting the gas line and then the bee sting on top of it is wild. I hate it when everything stacks up like that. The thunderstorm at the end just feels like the universe was personally out to get you that day.
Did you ever find out who was supposed to flag that gas line? I would have been so mad. Hope your next job went smoother. Nobody deserves a day like that.
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uma_martinez4h ago
That 1 in 4 stat means a lot of us are basically gambling with our backhoes every morning.
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7 years ago I flagged my own line after that. @emmawood always get gas company to mark it twice now.
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