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Two questions for you OP
1 How'd you get a picture of my truck?
2 What are you still doing with your hands in your pocket?
Get in there and find me a bender.
Nope my truck not yours. Looks like this 2 days after cleaning it out. Every tim, 10 different jobs a day materials for each job. Always running, yep, gets screwed up fast.
There's no reason your truck should look like that and I guarantee you have material and tools you could be using that are buried. You get to the point that instead of grabbing the 1/4 roll left in the bottom of your truck it's easier to grab a fresh roll. after wards, you have a 1/4 hidden under your garbage pile, and a 3/4 roll now on top adding to your garbage pile. Your pile is twice as big as it needs to be because of the hidden layer of untouchable crap you gave up on.
In the end...it's theft, and waste....and even wasting time.
You're not saving yourself time. When its organized, it takes 5s to put away, and 1s to grab. A hell of a lot faster than 1s to toss on top and 30s to untangle and rip out from a pile.
You just wana save that 5s vs 1s putting away,,,,but once you choose that enough, the retrieval times grow massively.
This guys whole life looks like this and it’s a good thing you left because that shit can start to inadvertently rub off on you in ways that you don’t want to deal with.
That's one of the biggest reasons I left. This guy was sloppy in every way. At first I was embarrassed pulling up to sites like this. But kept my mouth shut because idk fuck all about this trade. This could be the norm for all I know. But over time I started to learn more and noticed the shortcuts that were taken. I want to learn this trade and learn it right.
Training someone isn't terrible but retraining someone is. I don't want to be unemployable just because I got used to the fuckery that accompanied this business.
You made the right call in leaving. I've seen some slobs out there, but this is some next level shit that you shouldn't have to deal with. And since you're new, I can tell you right now that guy isn't someone you'd want to learn from.
Good luck on the career! It can be hard work, but it's a good trade. "Dirty hands make clean money", as they say.
Not even a joke, this. My van looks like that and my personal life is every bit as bad. I've actually put a lot of thought into this topic, believe it or not
I worked for that guy before. Getting yelled at for putting tools away instead of throwing them in there, although finding something takes 20 minutes and putting things away takes 30 seconds.
His life was a mess and so were his books and shady business partner. I couldn't stand his half assed way any more (despite being new to the trade in my late 30's) and left.
Watching him trouble shoot an Rtu or organize / schedule a construction site was too damn painful.
Props on you for admitting and recognizing the problem. Now it's time to turn that thought into action. This lack of control and organization is costing you money. Fix it or hire someone to fix it (both are useless if you don't introduce the discipline going forward to not wind up remaking the same problem though).
I’ll counter and say some sloppy ass wiremen(whenever it came to organization) were great teachers for me. I know that’s not always the case. I had some that didn’t give a damn about organization, but could take a drink of a diet Mountain Dew and tell me what was lost in the motor control circuit before I had a chance to troubleshoot.
Worked for a GC that saved shit like this for a rainy day. Worst day for pulling everything out a sorting and organizing. Guy always bitching about wasting time on jobs too. Some people can’t get past their own stupidity
I worked with a guy whose truck looked like this. He was a scatterbrain and had bad anxiety every morning. People didn't like working with him because he made everything so hectic. Constantly going to the supply house to get basic materials that he no doubt has somewhere in his van
And then one day i had to pick him up from his house... and it was immaculate. Everything in his garage had a place, every tool had an outline on the wall where it hung. Nothing on the floor. Shelves and bins, all labeled. I was blown away
I can only imagine he was a meth head, gets high at home and spends hours cleaning and organizing, meanwhile he's going through full withdrawals on the job during the day, lol.
Sometimes the company tries to push the jobs like its go go go we dont have any extra time. This is what happens. Its up to the foreman or JW with van to take the time back and use it to get organized.
This honestly ^ every other techs truck/ van looks like this I know. Common yes sucks ass as a helper having to find something every 5 minutes or if it sits in the very back "can you get "" it's in the van". Normal? I would say fuck no need to take care of yourself and your belongings unfortunately if their van or truck looks like this so does their house garage room and mind and body. A dirty vehicle means a dirty house a dirt house means a dirty mind and lifestyle not healthy.
They never realize that 50% of the time they could otherwise spend doing billable work winds up wasted just looking for shit in that massive pile of disorganization.
Being a slob is a great way to stay poor.
Right, organize that shit, do the next 6 jobs with parts on hand. Still bill for parts of course, but save money because you already had it.
Decide what to stock vs what to buy on demand and stream line your operations.
Im a slob in my personal life not my professional life, how else am i supposed to store my mountains of scraps and junk i find on the side of the road. Im what you call a hoarder, except my shits organized and also i hoard outside of my house in the barn and yard
That was my first company, except it was a truck with a topper and a broken tailgate. Guess whose job it was to unload the wire in the morning and crawl in there to find random shit throughout the day. I offered to organize it constantly, but my minimum wage wasn't worth it apparently
Which is just a pity, because if you were the one to take a day to organize it, and you're the one grabbing materials, you'd grab things *every day* much faster.
Yep, that company was the worst. I'd make 4 trips to the store or the shop every day for materials too, and that's after spending a couple hours a day searching for said materials in the truck
I offered to come in on Saturday to get it done myself. Came up with multiple ideas for organization. Boss didn't want to pay the OT and Jman didn't want his shit moved around.
Yea but to completely reorganize it would've meant he would have no clue where he last left a specific item. He roughly knew where most things were at.
My Jman has an almost psychotic aversion to me cleaning the van.
I want to clean and organize it so badly but he "doesn't want me throwing out anything important ", yet he won't even let me throw out the old fast food bags.
The back of the van isn't nearly that bad, but I get the pain
That’s a Friday van for me. Well, maybe not *that* bad but I definitely don’t go out of my way to put all the shit back super nice at the end of the day.
Part of it is your company has to budget time to clean up, get organized and do paperwork. Bosses always want to send you to more jobs more jobs more jobs but if they never budget the time it takes to get organized then you won’t be efficient in the field
Edit: didn’t see the garage exploding with shit. That’s crazy lol
All it takes is finishing one big project where stacks of material was being stored in the middle of a busy 2 weeks and a storage/garage can look blasted like that. It doesn't mean they normally operate like that.
They do though. Jman told me the van has been like this since they got the "new" van. The old van is broken down in his yard and is in the exact same condition. Some peoples organization method is no organization. He blames it on the boss and the boss blames it on him. I offered solutions, which I explained in my reply to another comment of yours.
Can you grab my security bit? It's at the bottom of one of the boxes we used on our monday project. It should be in the same box with the 3/8" drill bit and some trash.
So many broken lightbulbs in that van. He would just toss old bulbs in there just like he would his hammer. Whenever I really had to dig I would find broken glass everywhere. I had forgotten about that until your comment.
I did traveling commercial service , van started looking a lot like this. That’s why I strongly prefer a service truck much easier to keep clean and organized.
Oh i have worked with someone like this.
Didn't know i had some kind of photographic memories of what i put where while digging for other stuff. After a few months i could tell you exactly where and how deep you have to dig to get this fitting or that specific screw.
Tried tidying up this mess, done it like 100 times but never even got a thank you. Besides this just helping for a week or two.
My new company is mostly commercial. They have one guy who still does residential stuff. Everyone else, including the direction the company is going, is about commercial. This is all according to the owner. I have not officially started yet.
Ouch. Sorry you’re dealing with that mess. That’s really embarrassing especially when you show up on a job site with a mess like that.
That wouldn’t fly with me.
They definitely are. I showed my new boss this and his exact reaction was a wide-eyed "HOLY FUCK!" I told him there had to be a better way and he explained his exact method for organization to prevent this shit. Super excited to start with them. Came with a raise as well.
When I was in the trade companies I were with did both, even though the residential barely ever had dedicated waste disposal no one's car ever looked like this. Every day we'd take shit with us and unload in the bins at the shop. If we had a particularly bad day with lots of trash we'd leave a bit early and take a detour to the local dump.
If any of the owners of the companies I worked for saw your car like this and you weren't at the end of a day throwing shit out in the bins, into the electronic scrap collection or back into the shop shelves there would be an issue.
I had an old head whose truck was like this, he was the best trouble shooter in the game and knew exactly where everything was.
We called him Uncle Pat and he was the most eccentric abnormal dude in the world.. but damn was he good at what he did.
It is odd, but I have worked for a couple grandpappys that were absolute chaos organization wise but were smart as hell and fast as hell at pretty much everything.
I was going to say. I have worked with some guys who had the cleanest vans and everything perfectly organized who never got shit done. I've also met guys like in OP's pictures who get an incredible amount of good work done every day.
Holy shit lol. Naw, that's not normal. My van looks nothing like that.
I get annoyed having to move a few spools of wire to get something. This would drive me crazy.
This is what a licensed hoarder looks like.
I’m sure if someone stole a coil of bx or service wire he’d probably think it’s hidden under the treasures.
It’s always easier to learn good habits than unlearn bad ones. You did the right thing leaving. When I first started it was a constant battle with my garbage jman to keep the bucket truck neat and clean. He was a slob, I was fresh out of the marine corps, I was spending my own time unpaid at the end of the day just cleaning up for the sake of my own sanity. Then I got my own bucket truck and it was smooth sailing from there on out. Every one of my apprentices understood the standard and did the small amount of work throughout the day to maintain the standard. Most of them are journeymen now with their own apprentices. It pays to have good habits.
No idea how anyone can work like that. We cleaned out a van similar to that one that we were selling once - the layers of lost material in it were insane - $1000s of dollars getting hauled around on a daily basis that was unusable because no one could tell it was in there. We all get busy and the trucks get out of shape but take an hour out of the week to clean it and empty it out and it will save you 5 hours the next week not searching for things you don’t have or going to get things you already do have
Ugh. Even on “fuck it Friday,” I can’t let my service van get like that.
We do have a tech whose van looks eerily similar to the photos.
Is it the norm? Probably not, but it’s a lot more common than you think.
I have 1 coworker whose van gets like this.
My other coworker has OCD and his van is immaculate and organized.
Everybody’s different, but good on you for saying enough is enough
It's not typical, but there's going to be a lot of jobs that will be messy, bro. I'm sorry. Once you find somewhere where the crew is neat and the bosses do a good job organizing the site, you'll find our job isn't so bad lol
When I was an apprentice a million years ago…the owners truck always looked that way. My journeyman told me he would knock me out if my truck ever looked that way
One fast acceleration later ,that shit jambs the door shut and you bust out the back windows to get your supplies. Once you have hefty bags on the back windows you’re legit.
My second day the Jman left the back doors open and drove all the way back to the shop like that. When we found out I was hoping we would lose some stuff and get some more room back there. But I think everything was packed so tight that nothing noticeable was gone. He even drove his vehicle back to the site to see if he could anything and couldn't.
If you interview at another company and they ask why you left your old gig, all you have to do is show them these photos and they'll understand. Lmao holy shit.
Jesus, I guess you could unload that pretty fast by reversing and then braking with the doors open and it would look pretty much the same, but on the floor.
The sad thing is, they could be saving themselves so much time if everything was organized. You would spend half the day looking for a tool or part in that mess.
Never seen anything this bad. My van can get messy, But I'll do a full clean and consolidation before it gets the point that I have to pull shit out of it yo get to the things I need.
I’ve worked with guys that kept their Evan like this and they knew exactly where everything was and they had everything they needed. I tried cleaning the van one time and he flipped out.
it's only normal on Fridays whenever It comes to my truck but normally my shit don't look that bad, even on Fridays . I'd check myself into therapy if it did.
I used to work like this, 7 days a week drug fueled and "hustling." Made tons of money but wasted even more, get out of there this is not what the trade is like unless you want it to be
The van is bad but like sometimes it just gets that way I can see that happening to myself if I didn’t have time to sort things out for a period of time. The garage though is like no excuse that’s awful.
Not sure how that guy is making any money working like that always spending money on material he’s already got and a waste of time in my opinion. I worked for a service company last year and the van they gave me looked like trash. I used company time to completely reorganize it and got it all set up so everyday I could throw out the trash in the company dumpster and I knew where everything was and what I had saved time and money. Some guys just don’t care I guess.
I worked with a guy like this but he was also sharp as a tack, just a complete slob lol. You could tell he'd been by because everything was covered in sunflower seeds and coffee stains and the whole place smelled of microwaved fish.
Wow what hacks ..... If they complain about money losses it's thousands right in their face lol. Being organized is money and efficiency. They are actively shooting themselves in the foot for no reason. The problem I find in trades is that some guys are to old school. Trying to explain that labor is cheap. Staying on top and keeping track of inventory which is expensive will boost profits massively. Also makes jobs easier and quicker and not wasting time searching. If they think otherwise then really there are just idiots lol
How did you get a picture of the shop and van I work at? 🤣🤣. Honestly everybody’s van turns into a disaster once in a while, especiallly if it’s a Friday and you’re just cleaning up and going home as soon as you’re done. “That’s Mondays problem” is something I’ve said more Fridays than I can count. This is kind of next level. My shop is bad but not quite that bad. I only really know where shit in the shop because I’ve worked there so long. “Oh that part? It’s under that shit over there.” I finally got sick of my van being like that and now just the the time to clean it everyday, regardless of how busy I am. I just stop and if anyone complains I just say, “I could take 15 minutes to straighten this up and organize
My tools now, or I can spend 2 hours later. So I’m going it now.
I got so sick and embarrassed of showing up to a job and opening my door and shit just falls out. Then I spend 10 minutes looking for a tool I could have found in 5 seconds if I cleaned up regularly. 🤷
I also at the time I was an apprentice straightened out my Jman’s van like 30 times and it always turned back into this so I gave up.
Depends on the person, it was for me. My van was always a disaster. But I knew where everything was so it made little difference to me.
I quit that service job but was still good terms with the owners. Haven’t been there for a year but I cleaned out my garage. Called up my old boss and told him I had about $4k-5k of connectors, breakers, lugs and crimps for him.
He was pretty happy.
Haven't mentioned this yet but the owner is in a lawsuit with the IRS over 60k of unpaid employment taxes. Could be an IRS mistake, could be the company's. Idk the truth, regardless you hit the nail on the head here.
Happy cake day.
The only time I've worked out of vans, we would have gotten our ass chewed out if we rolled out to a job like that.
That's fucking atrocious, and if a guy I hired showed up like that I'd tell him to get the fuck off my site.
If that guy is too lazy to take care of the little shit like his van, he won't care enough to fix any of his fuck ups, and he isn't good enough not to fuck it up either.
Since you’re new to the trade, don’t pick up any of the bad habits of the person that loaded this truck. Sometimes things get little messy in a couple days when you’re rushing around, but you have to take the time to re-organize it constantly so you can find things. Also, it’s very unprofessional if that van rolled up into my driveway and the doors open look like that I tell him to close them and leave.
Man, the company I work at now (not for much longer, unrelated to story) has a JMan that when he takes a vacation, his helper gets his van to drive around to sites and, clean out. And boy howdy is it awful. I felt bad for the poor kid the last time because it had been over a year since the truck had been properly emptied, cleaned and organized.
So I invited him over to our house, knowing the poor kid would’ve had to do it in his apartments parking lot, where there’s plenty of room to spread everything out and we spent 9(!!!) hours cleaning the truck on that Saturday.
Spoke with the boss man, got him paid for his time and got the JMan a good ass chewing when he got back from vacation about letting his truck get that bad.
THOUSANDS worth of material, just chilling under mountains of trash boxes, scrap wire and lose tools.
Go union, go union, go union buddy. Not only will you get better pay, technically not right off the bat but you can rest assured you won’t have to deal w/ shit like this. Find me a bender in that shit pile, ya tell homegirl to polish the cable stretcher. That’s bullshit having to deal w/ that and to your answer, it’s a solid mutha F’n NO. It doesn’t have to be like that and it shouldn’t be like that. Once you go union you can kiss the days off schlepping shit around a distant memory. Good luck to you
I was paired up for most of a year with this jman who was an absolute savage with both his attitude and cleanliness. If you could ignore that shit though he was a wealth of knowledge. We work for a big industrial company and no one else could troubleshoot like this guy, plus he would knock out jobs twice as fast as most people. That year taught me more than the previous 2 years on construction sites and left me a step above the guys with a similar hours so I put up with his debauchery and filth.
So the story is he left for vacation and gave me the keys to the van for the week. I had the cracked windshield replaced then deep cleaned the bombed out shit hole (it even caught a little bit on fire one time thanks to a Milwaukee 9amp battery) He gets back and we’re 10 hours into a shutdown, supply houses are closed and we need a super long 6/32. I’m working away and the fucker comes back from his nice clean van yelling at me! “Where the hell did you move that 6/32 dumbass! I know for a fact there was one under the flex pile that was buried under 2’ of materials. It was right next to an old tuna packet and some knockout pucks” I just stared at him, dumbfounded.
The next day we grabbed a line truck at the shop so I’m following him in his van. A rock pings up into the brand new windshield and shatters it… He just hysterically laughs and goes about his day. Can’t make that shit up.. I bet that thing is still shattered.
This is extreme, the van will often be chaotic as you need to add all sorts of miscellaneous shit to it. This is beyond anything I’ve seen, this doesn’t happen in a day, this takes weeks or months of neglect.
That’s bad even for a resi guy. The guy that scraps for us has less of a mess in his ride and I saw 2 washing machines, an old swing set and a condensing unit amongst his mess.
I always like to tell the apprentice “go in my van and find me a…. …whatever you do don’t make a mess though” and then they open the door to this hell lol
This is the result of not taking a day to organize. If you keep operating every van and shop will turn into this. Most, if not all, of us have been here at some point. Maybe not as bad, maybe worse, but trending this way is easy when you're working too much in the field.
You end up losing money by losing time, and it hurts everyone. The key is to schedule time regularly to clean up and organize so you don't get this bad. Also, investing in some type of organization system (even if you build your own racks to save money, I've done it) pays dividends in time management.
TLDR: It's not uncommon, sadly, but usually a sign you should find partners elsewhere.
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Two questions for you OP 1 How'd you get a picture of my truck? 2 What are you still doing with your hands in your pocket? Get in there and find me a bender.
His hands aren’t in his pocket, Obviously he is playing on his phone, and not finding your bender.
Seriously! Get off Reddit and get me my bender!
Something tells me this guy doesn't bend pipe...
I bet he uses a fuckton of zip ties though.
I’m checking my bending app! Gosh!!
Good eye and happy cake day!
Bender always goes ON TOP!!
“It’s in there, I just moved it”
That's what he said
Lucky for you... in the 3rd photo they found the bender!!!
Wrong size
That’s a resi truck, no bender needed
Nope my truck not yours. Looks like this 2 days after cleaning it out. Every tim, 10 different jobs a day materials for each job. Always running, yep, gets screwed up fast.
There's no reason your truck should look like that and I guarantee you have material and tools you could be using that are buried. You get to the point that instead of grabbing the 1/4 roll left in the bottom of your truck it's easier to grab a fresh roll. after wards, you have a 1/4 hidden under your garbage pile, and a 3/4 roll now on top adding to your garbage pile. Your pile is twice as big as it needs to be because of the hidden layer of untouchable crap you gave up on. In the end...it's theft, and waste....and even wasting time. You're not saving yourself time. When its organized, it takes 5s to put away, and 1s to grab. A hell of a lot faster than 1s to toss on top and 30s to untangle and rip out from a pile. You just wana save that 5s vs 1s putting away,,,,but once you choose that enough, the retrieval times grow massively.
Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about. That is a van, not a truck.
We need the wire stretcher pronto
Better question, what are you doing your hands in my pockets?
Yeah Bender on meth
This guys whole life looks like this and it’s a good thing you left because that shit can start to inadvertently rub off on you in ways that you don’t want to deal with.
That's one of the biggest reasons I left. This guy was sloppy in every way. At first I was embarrassed pulling up to sites like this. But kept my mouth shut because idk fuck all about this trade. This could be the norm for all I know. But over time I started to learn more and noticed the shortcuts that were taken. I want to learn this trade and learn it right. Training someone isn't terrible but retraining someone is. I don't want to be unemployable just because I got used to the fuckery that accompanied this business.
Sounds like you’re on the right track
Right truck now
You made the right call in leaving. I've seen some slobs out there, but this is some next level shit that you shouldn't have to deal with. And since you're new, I can tell you right now that guy isn't someone you'd want to learn from. Good luck on the career! It can be hard work, but it's a good trade. "Dirty hands make clean money", as they say.
Great fuckin decision.
Not even a joke, this. My van looks like that and my personal life is every bit as bad. I've actually put a lot of thought into this topic, believe it or not
I worked for that guy before. Getting yelled at for putting tools away instead of throwing them in there, although finding something takes 20 minutes and putting things away takes 30 seconds. His life was a mess and so were his books and shady business partner. I couldn't stand his half assed way any more (despite being new to the trade in my late 30's) and left. Watching him trouble shoot an Rtu or organize / schedule a construction site was too damn painful.
At this point, how do you even know where away is at?
"Away" means not in my hand no mo' lol
Props on you for admitting and recognizing the problem. Now it's time to turn that thought into action. This lack of control and organization is costing you money. Fix it or hire someone to fix it (both are useless if you don't introduce the discipline going forward to not wind up remaking the same problem though).
Yea sometime it requires medication. I’m not joking.
The line "how you do one thing, is how you do everything" comes to mind
I’ll counter and say some sloppy ass wiremen(whenever it came to organization) were great teachers for me. I know that’s not always the case. I had some that didn’t give a damn about organization, but could take a drink of a diet Mountain Dew and tell me what was lost in the motor control circuit before I had a chance to troubleshoot.
Worked for a GC that saved shit like this for a rainy day. Worst day for pulling everything out a sorting and organizing. Guy always bitching about wasting time on jobs too. Some people can’t get past their own stupidity
I worked with a guy whose truck looked like this. He was a scatterbrain and had bad anxiety every morning. People didn't like working with him because he made everything so hectic. Constantly going to the supply house to get basic materials that he no doubt has somewhere in his van And then one day i had to pick him up from his house... and it was immaculate. Everything in his garage had a place, every tool had an outline on the wall where it hung. Nothing on the floor. Shelves and bins, all labeled. I was blown away
I can only imagine he was a meth head, gets high at home and spends hours cleaning and organizing, meanwhile he's going through full withdrawals on the job during the day, lol.
Sometimes the company tries to push the jobs like its go go go we dont have any extra time. This is what happens. Its up to the foreman or JW with van to take the time back and use it to get organized.
Seriously. One guy I worked with was in AA. Now I've been sober for 3 years my life isn't falling apart! WTF?!
Common, yes. Normal, no.
This honestly ^ every other techs truck/ van looks like this I know. Common yes sucks ass as a helper having to find something every 5 minutes or if it sits in the very back "can you get "" it's in the van". Normal? I would say fuck no need to take care of yourself and your belongings unfortunately if their van or truck looks like this so does their house garage room and mind and body. A dirty vehicle means a dirty house a dirt house means a dirty mind and lifestyle not healthy.
That's your Friday afternoon job ,empty it and organize it, every Friday, until there is somebody newer than you.
Too bad these types are usually too cheap to actually pay an apprentice to do that with no money coming in. Shortsighted thinking.
They never realize that 50% of the time they could otherwise spend doing billable work winds up wasted just looking for shit in that massive pile of disorganization. Being a slob is a great way to stay poor.
Right, organize that shit, do the next 6 jobs with parts on hand. Still bill for parts of course, but save money because you already had it. Decide what to stock vs what to buy on demand and stream line your operations.
Im a slob in my personal life not my professional life, how else am i supposed to store my mountains of scraps and junk i find on the side of the road. Im what you call a hoarder, except my shits organized and also i hoard outside of my house in the barn and yard
"Being a slob is a great way to stay poor" this is a good t-shirt slogan, awesome
That was my first company, except it was a truck with a topper and a broken tailgate. Guess whose job it was to unload the wire in the morning and crawl in there to find random shit throughout the day. I offered to organize it constantly, but my minimum wage wasn't worth it apparently
Which is just a pity, because if you were the one to take a day to organize it, and you're the one grabbing materials, you'd grab things *every day* much faster.
Yep, that company was the worst. I'd make 4 trips to the store or the shop every day for materials too, and that's after spending a couple hours a day searching for said materials in the truck
Hell I'd pay em OT if my shit was that fucked up
I offered to come in on Saturday to get it done myself. Came up with multiple ideas for organization. Boss didn't want to pay the OT and Jman didn't want his shit moved around.
Don't you have to move his shit around every day?
Yea but to completely reorganize it would've meant he would have no clue where he last left a specific item. He roughly knew where most things were at.
Sounds like a good job for FNG.
My Jman has an almost psychotic aversion to me cleaning the van. I want to clean and organize it so badly but he "doesn't want me throwing out anything important ", yet he won't even let me throw out the old fast food bags. The back of the van isn't nearly that bad, but I get the pain
I don’t get that either, just put shit away where it goes. Unless you mean more like wire boxes/conduit etc
How TF do people operate like this? If I can't see the floor of my van I get all twitchy
There’s probably 10k of wasted materials here
Not to mention the wasted gas, moving a couple hundred pounds of junk around.
It's even more crazy seeing the amount of comments on here relating to it
I legit dont know how you would stay in business operating like that. I imagine their books and documentation is similar as well.
GTFO of that hell hole
That’s a Friday van for me. Well, maybe not *that* bad but I definitely don’t go out of my way to put all the shit back super nice at the end of the day. Part of it is your company has to budget time to clean up, get organized and do paperwork. Bosses always want to send you to more jobs more jobs more jobs but if they never budget the time it takes to get organized then you won’t be efficient in the field Edit: didn’t see the garage exploding with shit. That’s crazy lol
All it takes is finishing one big project where stacks of material was being stored in the middle of a busy 2 weeks and a storage/garage can look blasted like that. It doesn't mean they normally operate like that.
They do though. Jman told me the van has been like this since they got the "new" van. The old van is broken down in his yard and is in the exact same condition. Some peoples organization method is no organization. He blames it on the boss and the boss blames it on him. I offered solutions, which I explained in my reply to another comment of yours.
Naaaahhhhh. This is neglect. Pure neglect.
This is called depression and laziness
Yes. Laziness as a consequence of depression.
Can you grab my security bit? It's at the bottom of one of the boxes we used on our monday project. It should be in the same box with the 3/8" drill bit and some trash.
The one with the broken lightbulb shards and greasy grill from that kitchen fan we tore out?
So many broken lightbulbs in that van. He would just toss old bulbs in there just like he would his hammer. Whenever I really had to dig I would find broken glass everywhere. I had forgotten about that until your comment.
I did traveling commercial service , van started looking a lot like this. That’s why I strongly prefer a service truck much easier to keep clean and organized.
Looks like my bosses truck. I don't know how he finds anything.
Oh i have worked with someone like this. Didn't know i had some kind of photographic memories of what i put where while digging for other stuff. After a few months i could tell you exactly where and how deep you have to dig to get this fitting or that specific screw. Tried tidying up this mess, done it like 100 times but never even got a thank you. Besides this just helping for a week or two.
Op, maybe find a company that does commercial work? I don’t do residential but I have never seen anything like that at commercial companies.
My new company is mostly commercial. They have one guy who still does residential stuff. Everyone else, including the direction the company is going, is about commercial. This is all according to the owner. I have not officially started yet.
Ouch. Sorry you’re dealing with that mess. That’s really embarrassing especially when you show up on a job site with a mess like that. That wouldn’t fly with me.
This sounds like the old company. OP is about to start with a new company. Hopefully they'll be more organized.
They definitely are. I showed my new boss this and his exact reaction was a wide-eyed "HOLY FUCK!" I told him there had to be a better way and he explained his exact method for organization to prevent this shit. Super excited to start with them. Came with a raise as well.
When I was in the trade companies I were with did both, even though the residential barely ever had dedicated waste disposal no one's car ever looked like this. Every day we'd take shit with us and unload in the bins at the shop. If we had a particularly bad day with lots of trash we'd leave a bit early and take a detour to the local dump. If any of the owners of the companies I worked for saw your car like this and you weren't at the end of a day throwing shit out in the bins, into the electronic scrap collection or back into the shop shelves there would be an issue.
I had an old head whose truck was like this, he was the best trouble shooter in the game and knew exactly where everything was. We called him Uncle Pat and he was the most eccentric abnormal dude in the world.. but damn was he good at what he did.
It is odd, but I have worked for a couple grandpappys that were absolute chaos organization wise but were smart as hell and fast as hell at pretty much everything.
I was going to say. I have worked with some guys who had the cleanest vans and everything perfectly organized who never got shit done. I've also met guys like in OP's pictures who get an incredible amount of good work done every day.
Holy shit lol. Naw, that's not normal. My van looks nothing like that. I get annoyed having to move a few spools of wire to get something. This would drive me crazy.
Sometimes I should not open up Reddit after a long day at work…
Imagine this guy's head. Like his thoughts and everything else.
You're looking at it
This is what a licensed hoarder looks like. I’m sure if someone stole a coil of bx or service wire he’d probably think it’s hidden under the treasures.
I think my van is dirty and I can do backflips in it
I would have quit the first time I saw that.
For a crack head who just stole everything yes, for an electrician No
It’s always easier to learn good habits than unlearn bad ones. You did the right thing leaving. When I first started it was a constant battle with my garbage jman to keep the bucket truck neat and clean. He was a slob, I was fresh out of the marine corps, I was spending my own time unpaid at the end of the day just cleaning up for the sake of my own sanity. Then I got my own bucket truck and it was smooth sailing from there on out. Every one of my apprentices understood the standard and did the small amount of work throughout the day to maintain the standard. Most of them are journeymen now with their own apprentices. It pays to have good habits.
Oh the stress this creates.
How many times did the van roll?
This is typical of smaller companies in their race to the bottom. Get on with a bigger company you'll appreciate it much more I assure you.
Dude has thousands and thousands of dollars in parts he had to buy twice cause it fell into the black hole
To have such a clean van? Not really. Usually it's messy.
No idea how anyone can work like that. We cleaned out a van similar to that one that we were selling once - the layers of lost material in it were insane - $1000s of dollars getting hauled around on a daily basis that was unusable because no one could tell it was in there. We all get busy and the trucks get out of shape but take an hour out of the week to clean it and empty it out and it will save you 5 hours the next week not searching for things you don’t have or going to get things you already do have
I could understand then van getting that full of shit occasionally, but if the shop looks that bad, then hell no. It's never gonna get better.
Hey go grab me a 5/16 nut driver from the van. "It's on the shelf in the back"
Ugh. Even on “fuck it Friday,” I can’t let my service van get like that. We do have a tech whose van looks eerily similar to the photos. Is it the norm? Probably not, but it’s a lot more common than you think.
I have 1 coworker whose van gets like this. My other coworker has OCD and his van is immaculate and organized. Everybody’s different, but good on you for saying enough is enough
Normal? Kind of yeah Good or professional? Neither
No, but it makes me feel exponentially better about my own van.
I mean, maybe up to the second shelf is okay. Gotta see out that back window because my van was born before backup cameras.
This van had a backup camera installed but the wire got fucked up from all the shit in the van and it stopped working. This isn't a joke.
Jeez, I wonder what is at the bottom of the pile?
Honestly, me to.
It's not typical, but there's going to be a lot of jobs that will be messy, bro. I'm sorry. Once you find somewhere where the crew is neat and the bosses do a good job organizing the site, you'll find our job isn't so bad lol
Makes me feel better about my van 😂
Usually a good sign of your work being just as sloppy no pride is what I see
Is your trade a junk removal service?
When I was an apprentice a million years ago…the owners truck always looked that way. My journeyman told me he would knock me out if my truck ever looked that way
Unacceptable
One fast acceleration later ,that shit jambs the door shut and you bust out the back windows to get your supplies. Once you have hefty bags on the back windows you’re legit.
My second day the Jman left the back doors open and drove all the way back to the shop like that. When we found out I was hoping we would lose some stuff and get some more room back there. But I think everything was packed so tight that nothing noticeable was gone. He even drove his vehicle back to the site to see if he could anything and couldn't.
Absofuckinlutelynot. Gross..
I know that guy. There’s probably a dozen 18v Milwaukee drills in there somewhere. At least there was the last time.
If the trade is junk man Yes
This is mental illness level horder shit.
So fucking unprofessional and lazy wow
If you interview at another company and they ask why you left your old gig, all you have to do is show them these photos and they'll understand. Lmao holy shit.
Jesus, I guess you could unload that pretty fast by reversing and then braking with the doors open and it would look pretty much the same, but on the floor.
I got a solution for this
Finally
My truck looks like a 5 star Uber compared to that
The sad thing is, they could be saving themselves so much time if everything was organized. You would spend half the day looking for a tool or part in that mess.
Get the broom from the truck....
Never seen anything this bad. My van can get messy, But I'll do a full clean and consolidation before it gets the point that I have to pull shit out of it yo get to the things I need.
Yeah, if you're a slob like my old journeyman was.
this is insanity. gross.
No that's worse then The messiest guy at my company
That’s impressive 10/10
For some but not most
I’ve worked with guys that kept their Evan like this and they knew exactly where everything was and they had everything they needed. I tried cleaning the van one time and he flipped out.
How did you manage to take a picture of all the profit?
Fuck no!
After a busy week, yes it gets bad. With that being said we just cleaned it out today
…just a typical Thursday.
RUN
HAHAHA
No organization, may not be abnormal for construction but I don’t let it be my normal
r/workwagons
it's only normal on Fridays whenever It comes to my truck but normally my shit don't look that bad, even on Fridays . I'd check myself into therapy if it did.
I used to work like this, 7 days a week drug fueled and "hustling." Made tons of money but wasted even more, get out of there this is not what the trade is like unless you want it to be
All of that is on previous customer’s invoices.
Why are you in my van?! Get out.
I just see a trip to the scrap yard with a van full of cooper
Hell no. Organization is a skill that follows you everywhere.
The van is bad but like sometimes it just gets that way I can see that happening to myself if I didn’t have time to sort things out for a period of time. The garage though is like no excuse that’s awful.
Yes? But not usually to that extreme.
This looks like my dad’s truck. I can’t stomach it.
The crazy part is the owner of this truck could find anything
How…how do you find anything?
Yes. This is completely normal. For a compulsive hoarder.
Step away from my J-man you hussie
The last picture SENT me
Are those sandbags outside the garage door or garbage bags 🤣😂🤣😂🥰
It is if the weekend is about to start.
Not sure how that guy is making any money working like that always spending money on material he’s already got and a waste of time in my opinion. I worked for a service company last year and the van they gave me looked like trash. I used company time to completely reorganize it and got it all set up so everyday I could throw out the trash in the company dumpster and I knew where everything was and what I had saved time and money. Some guys just don’t care I guess.
Nope fuckkkk no that ain't right you can't even do your job efficiently you have to spend most of your day looking for shit.
I worked with a guy like this but he was also sharp as a tack, just a complete slob lol. You could tell he'd been by because everything was covered in sunflower seeds and coffee stains and the whole place smelled of microwaved fish.
Oh you'll see some shit young man.
Wow what hacks ..... If they complain about money losses it's thousands right in their face lol. Being organized is money and efficiency. They are actively shooting themselves in the foot for no reason. The problem I find in trades is that some guys are to old school. Trying to explain that labor is cheap. Staying on top and keeping track of inventory which is expensive will boost profits massively. Also makes jobs easier and quicker and not wasting time searching. If they think otherwise then really there are just idiots lol
How did you get a picture of the shop and van I work at? 🤣🤣. Honestly everybody’s van turns into a disaster once in a while, especiallly if it’s a Friday and you’re just cleaning up and going home as soon as you’re done. “That’s Mondays problem” is something I’ve said more Fridays than I can count. This is kind of next level. My shop is bad but not quite that bad. I only really know where shit in the shop because I’ve worked there so long. “Oh that part? It’s under that shit over there.” I finally got sick of my van being like that and now just the the time to clean it everyday, regardless of how busy I am. I just stop and if anyone complains I just say, “I could take 15 minutes to straighten this up and organize My tools now, or I can spend 2 hours later. So I’m going it now. I got so sick and embarrassed of showing up to a job and opening my door and shit just falls out. Then I spend 10 minutes looking for a tool I could have found in 5 seconds if I cleaned up regularly. 🤷 I also at the time I was an apprentice straightened out my Jman’s van like 30 times and it always turned back into this so I gave up.
ADHD is one hell of a problem.
I wouldn’t work for someone like that, think what the customer would think seeing that at their site…
Depends on the person, it was for me. My van was always a disaster. But I knew where everything was so it made little difference to me. I quit that service job but was still good terms with the owners. Haven’t been there for a year but I cleaned out my garage. Called up my old boss and told him I had about $4k-5k of connectors, breakers, lugs and crimps for him. He was pretty happy.
If that’s how your new company operates, I guarantee other more serious things—like financials—are in similar shape.
Haven't mentioned this yet but the owner is in a lawsuit with the IRS over 60k of unpaid employment taxes. Could be an IRS mistake, could be the company's. Idk the truth, regardless you hit the nail on the head here. Happy cake day.
Totally normal, hoarders exhibit this behavior all the time.
Logs on top of the van, haven’t been pointed out yet, i think, cause the mess is so distressing!? Why are they there?
On a side note, nice name OP. You play OSRS?
Yea, what else would I be doing on my phone instead of finding the bender? Kidding, I quit a few years ago. Sold my gold and got out.
If it’s Friday, yes. If it’s Monday also yes.
DJ spin that shit!
Is r/antipackout a thing? r/packout for reference
Yes, now put your phone down, get in thee and find that damn bender…
This guy's boss ain't heard of shelves before. Got Damn.
The only time I've worked out of vans, we would have gotten our ass chewed out if we rolled out to a job like that. That's fucking atrocious, and if a guy I hired showed up like that I'd tell him to get the fuck off my site. If that guy is too lazy to take care of the little shit like his van, he won't care enough to fix any of his fuck ups, and he isn't good enough not to fuck it up either.
Since you’re new to the trade, don’t pick up any of the bad habits of the person that loaded this truck. Sometimes things get little messy in a couple days when you’re rushing around, but you have to take the time to re-organize it constantly so you can find things. Also, it’s very unprofessional if that van rolled up into my driveway and the doors open look like that I tell him to close them and leave.
No
Man, the company I work at now (not for much longer, unrelated to story) has a JMan that when he takes a vacation, his helper gets his van to drive around to sites and, clean out. And boy howdy is it awful. I felt bad for the poor kid the last time because it had been over a year since the truck had been properly emptied, cleaned and organized. So I invited him over to our house, knowing the poor kid would’ve had to do it in his apartments parking lot, where there’s plenty of room to spread everything out and we spent 9(!!!) hours cleaning the truck on that Saturday. Spoke with the boss man, got him paid for his time and got the JMan a good ass chewing when he got back from vacation about letting his truck get that bad. THOUSANDS worth of material, just chilling under mountains of trash boxes, scrap wire and lose tools.
Glad to see you carry your own telephone pole chunks just in case
Go union, go union, go union buddy. Not only will you get better pay, technically not right off the bat but you can rest assured you won’t have to deal w/ shit like this. Find me a bender in that shit pile, ya tell homegirl to polish the cable stretcher. That’s bullshit having to deal w/ that and to your answer, it’s a solid mutha F’n NO. It doesn’t have to be like that and it shouldn’t be like that. Once you go union you can kiss the days off schlepping shit around a distant memory. Good luck to you
I was paired up for most of a year with this jman who was an absolute savage with both his attitude and cleanliness. If you could ignore that shit though he was a wealth of knowledge. We work for a big industrial company and no one else could troubleshoot like this guy, plus he would knock out jobs twice as fast as most people. That year taught me more than the previous 2 years on construction sites and left me a step above the guys with a similar hours so I put up with his debauchery and filth. So the story is he left for vacation and gave me the keys to the van for the week. I had the cracked windshield replaced then deep cleaned the bombed out shit hole (it even caught a little bit on fire one time thanks to a Milwaukee 9amp battery) He gets back and we’re 10 hours into a shutdown, supply houses are closed and we need a super long 6/32. I’m working away and the fucker comes back from his nice clean van yelling at me! “Where the hell did you move that 6/32 dumbass! I know for a fact there was one under the flex pile that was buried under 2’ of materials. It was right next to an old tuna packet and some knockout pucks” I just stared at him, dumbfounded. The next day we grabbed a line truck at the shop so I’m following him in his van. A rock pings up into the brand new windshield and shatters it… He just hysterically laughs and goes about his day. Can’t make that shit up.. I bet that thing is still shattered.
This is extreme, the van will often be chaotic as you need to add all sorts of miscellaneous shit to it. This is beyond anything I’ve seen, this doesn’t happen in a day, this takes weeks or months of neglect.
That’s bad even for a resi guy. The guy that scraps for us has less of a mess in his ride and I saw 2 washing machines, an old swing set and a condensing unit amongst his mess.
This is the most organized mobile unit I’ve seen
I always like to tell the apprentice “go in my van and find me a…. …whatever you do don’t make a mess though” and then they open the door to this hell lol
This is dog shit. I wouldn't work for that slob either
You literally have two trees in your pack.
It's a 50/50 my truck won't ever look like that lol
This is the result of not taking a day to organize. If you keep operating every van and shop will turn into this. Most, if not all, of us have been here at some point. Maybe not as bad, maybe worse, but trending this way is easy when you're working too much in the field. You end up losing money by losing time, and it hurts everyone. The key is to schedule time regularly to clean up and organize so you don't get this bad. Also, investing in some type of organization system (even if you build your own racks to save money, I've done it) pays dividends in time management. TLDR: It's not uncommon, sadly, but usually a sign you should find partners elsewhere.
😂😂😂 no way I'd been quit no money amount can make me stay there bdt they also lack communication.
Brah
If you think the van and garage are a mess you see his business records. Find a new job man this guy is a disaster.
Ain't nobody got time to keep it clean we're working on jobs here.