Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

[krm]

1- correctional facilities. I was left by my guard alone for a while with inmates talking to me as I fixed a machine. It was low security, mostly insane types. I was concerned though. They were heavy medicated types.
2- searched at a Muslim Mosque even though they called us. This was before 9-11.
3-crossed a picket line and almost had to fight my way out. There was a cop, but he's union too.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Retirement homes. We have copiers in one of the nicest ones in town and it is still depressing. Old people propped up in wheel chairs that can barely hold their heads up. But there is a low budget home, out in the country, sitting in the middle o a large open field that is in the trees. It used to be a school, now long abandon. Seemed to full of a mix of disabled and mental. Very run down and depressing, like the place you would film a movie. Rule in my family is "Nobody goes to a home!" We will care for each other til we die in our own space surrounded by family.

Nothing bothers me like a retirement home.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

I think the worst were:

Macomb Oakland Center (the nuthouse)
The copier was near the caged in check-in area. There is a 20ft x 20ft room with corrugated steel over the windows and doors. So I'm a youngster new on the job, and I hear a voice over my shoulder:
Guest: Do you have a cigarette?
Me: No, I don't smoke.
(after a while)
Guest: Hey, do you have the key?
Me: No, you'll have to talk to the check-in nurse (she looks like a professional wrestler).
Guest: I really need to get out of here. Open up! Open up! Ahhheeeeee!
(The gentleman starts freaking out, and bashing his face into the steel caging two feet from me. It isn't long before there's blood running down the outside of the steel. It seems like forever, but probably was actually only less than a minute, before two large gentleman in white coats lumber out of a side door and carry off the bloody man, one on each arm, and him flailing around like a ragdoll.)
Welcome to the wonderful world of copier service.

Correctional Faciilities
The hardest thing to get used to is the pace. You cannot rush anything and it's better not to try. If the guards get the idea that you're nervous or in a hurry, they'll make the check in process take half a day. When you get used to the process, it's 90 minutes in and 45 minutes out, and no shortcuts if you need something from the car, so you'd better be prepared. I had made up a special abbreviated tool kit and registered the list of items to speed up the process.

When I was on vacation a buddy of mine took over my calls at the prison. He was kind-of nervous, and tried to get pushy with the guards. Bad move. It took him all day to do one call, and got the strip search.

Nursing Homes
The copier was in the main office, but you can hear the wailing the moment you come in the door. It's got to be the most depressing place I've ever been. I guess the old folk don't care for bathing much, and let out the most piteous wails when they get washed, like you're killing them. It ripped my heart out just to listen. I could never send a parent to a place like this.

[Hansoon]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Back in the early 70’s I was living in good old Amsterdam where my boss had a customer in “China Town” (basically one large road with Chinese food and clothing shops). This customer had a travel agency specialized in travel from-and-to Hong Kong. In those days the drug business in Amsterdam was in the hands of Chinese not like today being managed by Turks, Arabs, African blacks and Eastern European gangs and God knows what other critter.

However, my boss asked me to do a PM at one of his personal customers so I went there, a very tiny shop with yellowed and paled posters of Hong Kong behind the window. Since I found nobody in the shop I went up a small stair marked with a sign “Office” When my head arrived at the level of the first floor able to overlook the office, I saw a bunch of Chinese men standing around a desk with sitting behind it a guy with a huge, wide scar on his cheek. The guy, on seeing me, moved very quickly his hand in the drawer of his desk while the bunch of Chinese jumped far away from him. I explained that I came for a PM on the copier but he told me, keeping his hand on the for me visible gun in the drawer, to come back later cause “now it is not a suitable time”.

Needless to say I never went back and felt a little shaky afterwards because in those days the sight of a gun in the hands of any other than police was extremely unusual. (I know this sounds very strange to you US guys but to see a gun for us Dutch those days was as exceptional as a solar eclipse. That time NOBODY except police and military possessed guns under the very restrictive weapons law in Holland).

Hans

[JR2ALTA]

[Tonerbomb]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Solitary confinement in the Nebraska state Pen.
A very bad nursing home in north bugaha
and going into the VFW in the black side of Bugaha, as I'm just a skinny white guy......

[Eric1968]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Not the worst place, but a strange place...

Last year I went to a guy who has rooms for rent. But not for poor students, but for people who want to get laid and don't have a room or some other space to do that. And this guy was explaining to me that he made a good profit out of it. He told me he was away for three years and his printer was not functioning ok when he returned. He did some time in prison because he was caught for posessing a substantial amount of cocaine and other illegal stuff. He also had some problems with his taxes (which he didn't pay, I think)...

But the strangest thing was, that it was a really nice guy...

[gwaddle]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

I think the worst were:

Macomb Oakland Center (the nuthouse)
The copier was near the caged in check-in area. There is a 20ft x 20ft room with corrugated steel over the windows and doors. So I'm a youngster new on the job, and I hear a voice over my shoulder:
Guest: Do you have a cigarette?
Me: No, I don't smoke.
(after a while)
Guest: Hey, do you have the key?
Me: No, you'll have to talk to the check-in nurse (she looks like a professional wrestler).
Guest: I really need to get out of here. Open up! Open up! Ahhheeeeee!
(The gentleman starts freaking out, and bashing his face into the steel caging two feet from me. It isn't long before there's blood running down the outside of the steel. It seems like forever, but probably was actually only less than a minute, before two large gentleman in white coats lumber out of a side door and carry off the bloody man, one on each arm, and him flailing around like a ragdoll.)
Welcome to the wonderful world of copier service.

Correctional Faciilities
The hardest thing to get used to is the pace. You cannot rush anything and it's better not to try. If the guards get the idea that you're nervous or in a hurry, they'll make the check in process take half a day. When you get used to the process, it's 90 minutes in and 45 minutes out, and no shortcuts if you need something from the car, so you'd better be prepared. I had made up a special abbreviated tool kit and registered the list of items to speed up the process.

When I was on vacation a buddy of mine took over my calls at the prison. He was kind-of nervous, and tried to get pushy with the guards. Bad move. It took him all day to do one call, and got the strip search.

Nursing Homes
The copier was in the main office, but you can hear the wailing the moment you come in the door. It's got to be the most depressing place I've ever been. I guess the old folk don't care for bathing much, and let out the most piteous wails when they get washed, like you're killing them. It ripped my heart out just to listen. I could never send a parent to a place like this.

If I have to spend 90 minutes checking in, they can move the copier or fix it themselves.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Two more:

A small construction company, office located in the owners home.The owners wife let me in ... well it went something like this:
Me: Where's the copier?
She: It's over here (leading me across the living room .. I'm about 20 ft behind)
(suddenly she turns around ... ) Get away from me.
Me: Wha ... ?
She: Don't get any closer!
Me: Hey, I'm just here to fix a copier. I don't know what you think ...
She: (shrieking)
Me: OK. I'm out of here. If you change your mind call the office. (backing out of the house)
She never did call back.

A small church in the bad part of town:
Fred and I were paired up on a little tabletop Mita DC-111C. It was summer, and 100F outside, maybe 30F more inside. I notice some unusual posters on the way in, but make no mention of it just yet. It was back in the day when we were wearing white shirts, ties and suit jackets. Essentially we were suffering heat stroke.
The pastor invites us in:
Pastor: It's hot in here, make yourself comfortable. You can take of those hot jackets. (off go the jackets)
about 10 minutes later
Pastor: It's OK to loosen up that tie (off goes Fred's tie, mine loosened)
another 10 minutes later
Pastor: I'm dying. You can take off the shirt (off goes Fred's shirt, I grin)
I couldn't resist any longer. I take Fred aside and point out some of the unusual posters: "God doesn't care about your sexual orientation."
Me: What do you suppose this is about?
Fred turns a lovely color of purple, dresses himself, then goes and waits in the car while I finish the call. After all these years I doubt that he would talk about it, even now.

=^..^=

[Canon.Tech]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Nothing worst than spening hours in trafic traveling to to customer only to find they're out or closed!

[Ollie1981]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Worst place ever is back in the day when I used to repair home appliances. I have a few horror stories about some of the filthy squalid pits I had the misfortune to visit but one always sticks in my mind for a few reasons.

The first thing I remember was the fact that this house was situated in a very expensive affluent neighbourhood, as I was driving through the neighbourhood towards the address I was passing some very well appointed neat, tidy houses with very expensive cars parked outside (even amongst the plethora of Mercs, BMWs and Jags, there were Ferraris and Rolls Royces!). Then I get to where I'm going and the first thing that I noticed is my customer's house stands out like a sore thumb, as among these well kept houses with perfectly manicured lawns is a run down looking house with a severely overgrown garden. I double check my work ticket to see that yes.... this is the house I'm going to....I wasn't feeling great about this already!!

I parked on the road and got halfway up the drive before I could smell ammonia, by the front door it was seriously strong. I also noticed that there were cats everywhere. Cats in amongst the overgrown grass and garden, cats inside the upstairs and downstairs windows peering out at me. When I rang the doorbell and the woman answered I nearly puked there and then at the overwhelming smell of cat piss and shit. I followed her inside the house holding my breath and it looked like a f**king bomb full of shit had hit it, filthy piles of stuff all over the floor. I remember I kept looking down at my feet to check I wasn't treading in any cat shit and I vividly remember the fact that as I put my foot down and let it bear my weight, I was actually squeezing a little puddle of filthy liquid out of the carpet around my shoe.

She had some fault with the VCR, I didn't even listen to what she was complaining about. I just picked the VCR up, connected the aerial back to the rear of her TV set (all the while trying to not touch anything as much as possible as it all looked filthy, definitely trying not to kneel on the floor at all costs) told her we'd be in touch. I must have put ten layers of shrink wrap on that VCR before I put it in my van. I then, sitting on the edge of the back of the van, doused the soles of my shoes in everything cleaning/disinfecting I had to hand, isopropyl alchohol, foam cleaner, even tried neat windscreen washer fluid, I don't know if the smell had gotten into my clothes or I still had remnants of it in my nose or what, but for the rest of that day I couldn't get rid of the horrible smell of that house. I threw the trainers and pants away that night.

I relayed this story to my boss as I was booking in the work tickets, he took one look at the VCR in question, mummified in shrink wrap, and threw it straight in the skip (dumpster for you U.S folks). Funnily enough, most manufacturer's warranties don't cover death by cat piss.

[Hansoon]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

A small construction company, office located in the owners home.The owners wife let me in ... well it went something like this:
Me: Where's the copier?
She: It's over here (leading me across the living room .. I'm about 20 ft behind)
(suddenly she turns around ... ) Get away from me.
Me: Wha ... ?
She: Don't get any closer!
Me: Hey, I'm just here to fix a copier. I don't know what you think ...
She: (shrieking)
Me: OK. I'm out of here. If you change your mind call the office. (backing out of the house)
She never did call back.

So from that on you changed the type of your Aftershave?



Hans

[krm]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

1- correctional facilities. I was left by my guard alone for a while with inmates talking to me as I fixed a machine. It was low security, mostly insane types. I was concerned though. They were heavy medicated types.
2- searched at a Muslim Mosque even though they called us. This was before 9-11.
3-crossed a picket line and almost had to fight my way out. There was a cop, but he's union too.

Ok yeah.I received a call in the country. A nice neighborhood and felt normal looking for the house. It ended up being down a dirt road, way down and isolated. As I progressed down the road there were rusted, abandoned cars and bags of trash. Oh sh** here we go I'm thinking. All of the sudden a dirt bike pulls up next to me with a huge guy on it and a creepy baby face. The dirt bike was small and he freaked me out. I could not turn around any where and stopping was not an option. So I proceeded to the house. I had visions of the movie Pulp Fiction in my head. The house was crap and trash bags half opened every where. I call the office and they say the guy called and we had no records with him or idea who he was. They said leave if it seemed dangerous. Of course, like most techs, I'm too proud or dumb to leave with my tail between my legs. Plus, I'm 200 pounds and not easily scared.
I go to the door, no answer, but can tell someone is in this mess of a house. I walk around back and there is an above ground pool that was pea green. All of the sudden a f****** rooster comes out of the woods and attacks me. Yeah a rooster. Those things are pretty nasty when pissed. It pecked through my pants and drew blood! I kept kicking it and it kept pecking at me. Finally, I got to the door and went in.
The guy had a machine and was pretty harmless. The big creepy guy showed up and it was his kid. A gentle, freak of nature. As for the rooster, the guy beat the thing to death after I told him what happened. He said "Chester" had been crazy for a while. I actually fixed the guy's copier with blood coming through my tan pants. I probably should have gotten a rabies shot.
Compared to Pulp Fiction, I got off easy.

[ZOOTECH]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

Ok yeah.I received a call in the country. A nice neighborhood and felt normal looking for the house. It ended up being down a dirt road, way down and isolated. As I progressed down the road there were rusted, abandoned cars and bags of trash. Oh sh** here we go I'm thinking. All of the sudden a dirt bike pulls up next to me with a huge guy on it and a creepy baby face. The dirt bike was small and he freaked me out. I could not turn around any where and stopping was not an option. So I proceeded to the house. I had visions of the movie Pulp Fiction in my head. The house was crap and trash bags half opened every where. I call the office and they say the guy called and we had no records with him or idea who he was. They said leave if it seemed dangerous. Of course, like most techs, I'm too proud or dumb to leave with my tail between my legs. Plus, I'm 200 pounds and not easily scared.
I go to the door, no answer, but can tell someone is in this mess of a house. I walk around back and there is an above ground pool that was pea green. All of the sudden a f****** rooster comes out of the woods and attacks me. Yeah a rooster. Those things are pretty nasty when pissed. It pecked through my pants and drew blood! I kept kicking it and it kept pecking at me. Finally, I got to the door and went in.
The guy had a machine and was pretty harmless. The big creepy guy showed up and it was his kid. A gentle, freak of nature. As for the rooster, the guy beat the thing to death after I told him what happened. He said "Chester" had been crazy for a while. I actually fixed the guy's copier with blood coming through my tan pants. I probably should have gotten a rabies shot.
Compared to Pulp Fiction, I got off easy.

So, when is the next chapter coming out?

[Canon.Tech]

Re: Where is the worst place your boss sent you?

I had to remind myself that you guys call your trousers pants, as pants to us in The UK are underwear, so I was imaging you getting pecked in your underwear area & drawing blood! ouch!!!!!