Displaced Beachbums

Normally, I wouldn’t talk about someone’s deficiencies at work; mainly because I’m the first to admit I’ve had my share of goofy mistakes. But, the other day, when a repairman came to the house to fix the faulty flourescent light in the kitchen, I started thinking I was on a candid camera show. It just got worse and worse the more he got involved in the light repair.

After apologizing for the delay (it’d been three weeks), he explained he went to the wrong house a week or so ago and the woman there said “Light is fine” and he never bothered to double check the address. Nice of him to admit it. Then he got the cover off the light, had the wirecutters ready and the wires pulled. Meanwhile, the power is still ON. Just as I was about to say “Do you want me to cut the power?”, the door bell rang and thank goodness it was the supervisor coming to help. 

OK, we cut the power then they started doing the rewiring. When the supervisor said “cut the yellow wire” the other guy said “I’m colorblind, can you tell me left hand or right hand.”  Really? Is this a joke? How did he plan to fix this without being able to see the difference in wires. Then he admitted he did the same job once before but the woman at the house was an electrician so she walked him through it. I was trying very hard not to laugh at the conversation. He was such a NICE guy and so honest about the whole thing. 

Thankfully, as they were leaving I heard the supervisor say “You need to let them know you can’t do anymore electrical jobs because you’re color blind.”  That’s the best advice I heard all day!