My boss isn’t the brightest bulb in the shed. He has his quirks just as everyone else but then there are these things he does that make you scratch your head. Sometimes he’ll get material ordered to his house instead of the job site like it’s some sort of Christmas gift. I guess it comes with the stress from the holidays.

I wouldn’t say he’s lost all of his marbles but I would admit that he has a few screws loose in his head. I mean it takes one to know one and the other day solidified it for me. Apparently he caught wind that some have been milking things at work and it struck a nerve with him. So much so he called me first thing in the morning to let me know he was coming out there.

Usually he just comes out to the jobs to bring us what he accidentally sent to his house. This was the first time that I knew of him coming out to “set the record straight.” I was intrigued by his choice of words and neglected to warn the rest of the guys he was coming. I figured this was going to be my little show to watch.

It was just before we were about to break off for lunch when he pulled up to the job site. There he was parking in the middle of the entire job site like he owns the place. I saw him through the window and went downstairs to help the guys move the plumbing material in our way to work.

My boss just happened to come at the worst time. There was no electrical work going on… which is exactly what he pays us to do. Instead we were using our time to move the plumber’s mess. Fortunately the plumbers weren’t complete assholes and were helping us. My boss, seeing first hand all of his money wasted on us moving boxes, set him off.

“What is this telephone company? I’m not paying you guys to all be hanging out like this.” It was the deepest I ever heard him use his voice. The worst part was he wasn’t generally yelling. He picked one guy out of the crew moving boxes to set an example off. He went on this whole spiel about how when they’re on his job they’re expected to work just as hard as we would if it was their own. Just in a little more R rated version than I’m paraphrasing. He was letting it rip to this guy. The only thing was that this guy didn’t work for us.

My boss spent ten minutes yelling at this plumber, who was helping us move his material, instead of tearing one of our guys a new one. I had to go back to working upstairs, unable to keep my composure. This poor dude was helping us out and then all of a sudden got cussed out for no reason. The plumber was so fed up with all the bullshit his company was putting him through, moving boxes and shit, our boss yelling at him was the last straw. The dude packed up his tools and quit on the spot. Maybe he should have been an electrician.