As a teenager I witnessed (and was involved in) many pranks and jokes on site. The company I worked for at the time was a large-ish regional contractor who used chiefly their own labour, so arriving on a site for the first time often meant seeing familiar faces. This made for a - now I think of it – a nice, almost family-like atmosphere. I’m not sure this atmosphere exists any more on site, as the industry becomes more and more fragmented, less labour-intensive and the use of subcontract labour almost total. There is an up-side to this, in that sites are generally safer, more healthy places to work. I will not endorse any horseplay that risks injury or ill-health, but have decided to tell a few stories from the ‘bad old days’.
I was a trainee manager, on a 12-month ‘secondment’ from head office, to gain site experience. I ostensibly reported to the site manager, but was aware that he considered I worked for head office, and so gave me quite a free rein. The result was that when I fancied acting like management I could, but when I wanted to act like a ‘boy’ apprentice I could do that too. In the event, I actually spent 3 years on site because I enjoyed it so much.
There are a lot of things that a young apprentice can be sent to fetch, to amuse the older guys: sparks for the grinder, a skirting ladder, tartan paint. My favourite was ‘go and see Phil, and ask him for a long weight’. Phil is supposed to say ‘OK just hang on here for a bit’. I don’t think I was actually personally caught-out by any of these.
One site manager with whom I worked, just before Christmas this particular year brought to work three massive turkeys. At lunchtime – whilst everyone else was trying to eat – he set about gutting, plucking and cleaning these birds in preparation for giving them as presents to his family. The stench was pretty rank and he wasn’t popular at all. I along with many others ate outside that day in the freezing cold, but I still thought it was hilarious. Later in the afternoon Denis called me over, and with a cheeky grin said ‘watch this’. There was an unfinished soakaway chamber – about 3 metres deep – with a ladder sticking out of it, and two of our men were working at the bottom. On Denis’s instruction I pulled-up the ladder. Denis then threw the stinking guts, feathers and unformed eggs he had removed from the turkeys down the hole. The noise that came from that chamber was horrific and a learned a few new swears that day. We let them out after about 15 minutes.
On another project, I worked with some specialist renderers, using a product that was ready-mixed and in large 25 litre buckets. It was trowelled over a basecoat to achieve a range of different colours and textures, and was pretty much like very thick paint. I witnessed one of their labourers carry two of these buckets from their van to the building they were working on. He approached the bottom of the ladder then placed the buckets on the floor. He seemed to be weighing-up his next move – eyeing the ladder, then the two big buckets he had to carry. He clearly decided that two trips up the ladder would be a waste of time, and he could manage both at once. He picked up a bucket in each hand, (these are large, very heavy buckets, remember) put one foot on to the bottom rung of the ladder, then – amazingly – hooked his CHIN onto the ladder and then placed the other foot on the ladder. For a couple of beautiful seconds he just remained there, grimacing, both feet on the first rung, about 25kgs hanging off the end of each arm, and just about hanging on by his chin. Not one to give up, he actually tried to take another step. His chin came straight off the ladder and he fell backwards. Thankfully he didn’t make it any further up before falling otherwise he would have really hurt himself.
The SAME guy some weeks later tried to pass an opened, lid-less bucket up to a colleague on a scaffold at about shoulder-height from the ground. He fumbled this quite badly, and ended up with head and shoulders completely covered in cream-coloured render. His colleagues of course were very sympathetic: ‘Paul! That’s the last time I buy you an ice-cream!!’
On the same job, one of the specialist paint products being used was called ‘Demandit’ (Google it – I promise I’m not making this up). It was a large site - LegoLand Windsor since you ask - and the various gangs kept in touch using two-way radios. I overheard a conversation on the airwaves one afternoon when a labourer was being told to get some paint from the stores. The labourer sounded pretty confused and his colleague – growing impatient - radioed back, ‘Tell Phil (the storeman) you need the paint - Demandit!’ I didn’t actually hear what happened next, but I am reliably informed that the labourer grabbed the storeman by his collar, forced him against the wall and shouted ‘Kurt said GIVE US THE F***ING PAINT!!’
My all-time favourite prank has to be this. One of our guys was wearing particularly massive overalls one day – he had the cuffs rolled-up to make them functional, but they still hung-down quite low between his legs. One of his ‘mates’ stood at the foot of a ladder waiting for him to come down, holding a long length of tile-batten. With brilliant timing, the end of the tile batten was thrust between his friend’s legs, and spun around so that the overalls gathered around the end, tightening around his crotch until he couldn’t move. An accomplice armed with a hammer and nails then fixed the free end of the batten to the timber ladder. Hey presto this guy was stuck to the ladder and couldn’t move up or down. We all retired to the canteen to watch him try to extricate himself. It took him only a few minutes, but the sheer genius of the plan and fact it had been worked out well in advance was really impressive.
I am much older now, married with children, so fun is just a distant memory.
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