r/MaliciousCompliance - How Did The Company Get The Maximum Fine

welcome to our slash malicious compliance where we share stories of people conforming to the letter but not the spirit of a request and today's first story is you don't have a wash out for me no problem I brought my own as I mentioned in my last post sometimes contractors can be a bit Sh about washouts and as bad as the ones who get all proprietary about their wash outs can be the absolute worst are the ones who don't bother to provide any wash out not even a wheelbarrow when that happens the driver has three options the first is to just wash out on the ground and hope they don't get caught this is a suboptimal solution as the fines for wash out water reaching a storm drain can be ten thousand dollars if it goes into a federal water course it can hit twenty five thousand dollars and this whole valley is a checkerboard of BLM and reservation land you really only see this happen when the driver can wash out into an empty form like a nun poured sidewalk or rubber pile the second option is to scrape down the chutes as best you can then make a mad dash for the plant where you can hopefully wash the concrete off the drum spins if the plant is too far away the concrete will get too hard and make a complete mess of the drum drums can be chipped out but we try to do that as infrequently as possible ie once you have so much build up that you can't hold ten yards without spilling because that means turning the chippers loose on your drum chipping a truck means crawling into a cramped hot damp steel echo chamber and firing up a jackhammer chippers do this every night shippers are more jaded than Lucian's burial suit shippers never bother to say something when they punch a hole in the side of a drum rather leaving it to the driver to discover the following morning hopefully before a bunch of concrete goes into said drum we do not scrape down unless we are near a plant and have no other option the third option is the bucket most drivers have at least one five-gallon bucket somewhere on their truck if they have one that is not currently filled with the caustic witch's brew used to clean their truck a driver can stick that bucket at the bottom of their chute wash down a bit carry the bucket up the ladder dump the contents into the hopper and repeat imagine climbing a 10-foot ladder while carrying a good-sized medicine ball about six or eight times it takes forever is back-breaking and miserable work and sometimes there's just no other choice unless you are Bob before Bob became our wonderful manager he was a lowly mixer driver bob was a driver for a very long time and he started before they began putting automatic transmissions and mixers between working the clutch and climbing in and out of his truck bob has completely voided the warranty on his left knee the man totters around like a semi corpulent Long John Silver this is not an uncommon injury in the industry so bob is patching the V gutter at a storage unit when they finish the job they've left his chutes packed with concrete and they have no watch out they don't even have a wheelbarrow bob has nowhere to scrape all that concrete out of his chutes let alone wash down when he asks the Foreman what to do the guy just shrugs and says figure something out bob is less than pleased it's considered bad etiquette to leave a driver chutes packed like that a good chute man will stop the pour a little short then do a basic scrape down to fill the rest there in the middle of the city or an asphalt drive so he can't just wash down uncontained it's the middle of summer and too far to get back to the plant so he can't make a run for it and anyone who thinks bob is about to hobble up that ladder with a bucket full of concrete several times before he even gets to the point of washing down into said bucket is tripping balls like a drunken tanuki Bob does not get his Homer bucket instead Bob goes back to his cab and pulls out a big wad of pink plastic the air tanks on our trucks had petcocks on the bottom to drain water water can precipitate out of compressed air as it cools slowly filling the tanks with an uncompressible liquid we don't really need them since we work in a desert but they give a ready supply of air at 120 psi he slips a rubber valve over the end of the petcock opens up the tank and boom bob has created his own washout and it is absolutely fabulous it turns out that every fall as the various stores began dumping their summer inventory Bob wanders around town and picks up a few kiddie pools on some extreme discount just to make his point he always goes for the brightest colors and most garish patterns occasionally he would even find a bootleg MLP knock off or something sparkly when bob has to make a washout he makes the most awesomely eye watering washout he can so Bob washes down into this pink crime against the visual arts making sure to fill it all the way if he had to pay good money for it sure as heck he was going to use it and he leaves he just folds up the chutes and gets out of there leaving the kiddie pool sitting on the asphalt providing a washout is ultimately the contractors responsibility and if they didn't order the job as a scrape down there requirement so is disposing of the washout one of the reasons will barrows are so popular for emergency washouts is because they're so easy to clean up after all the whole thing is readily mobile and once nobody is looking it can be wheeled over to any patch of dirt or lawn and just flipped over sadly I see this happen often that isn't the case here watching someone try to move a full inflatable pool without spilling is an instant cure for melancholy they are not rigid and just about anything you do is going to dump muddy water everywhere which then has to be cleaned up the only real solution is to leave it sitting there in plain sight until enough water evaporates that it can be moved without making a mess and in this case there was still at least 100 pounds of concrete to deal with now that he's manager Bob makes sure we all have hideously pink wads of plastic shut behind our seat the second story is you want us to violate engineering specs and EPA regulations that'll be $35,000 one last story about maliciously washing out concrete mixers I was going to move on to something else but one of the commenters from last week made me remember this chucklehead so I Drive concrete mixers and for those of you who didn't read my last post or the one before that concrete washouts and the policies in laws surrounding them are a breeding ground for malicious compliance Portland cement is nasty evil stuff it's about two-thirds calcium oxide also known as quick lime or caustic lime which has a pH of 12.8 if it gets on your skin or in your lungs it can cause chemical burns as such there are serious regulations surrounding the containment of the water used to wash down any equipment used in concrete work the site operator is ultimately responsible for providing the wash out container whether it is a rented metal bin or a purpose-built pit lined with plastic because the water isn't supposed to touch the dirt fines for failure to comply can be ten thousand dollars per incident per day or more if federal land is involved sometimes contractors develop reputations among drivers this is rarely good because drivers don't chat pleasantly about previous jobs they'd be if you end up as the subject of conversation it's generally because someone is venting about you or warning other drivers that brings us discuss dealing with skies was like getting attacked by a drop bear you came away from the encounter with nothing but headache disbelief and possibly chlamydia on my first encounter with them he decided to randomly pull out his phone and show me the naked pictures his girlfriend just texted him and left me with the nagging urge to get the can of Clorox wipes out of my truck and wiped down anything he touched when it came time to wash out he told me to go over a couple blocks and use the dirt because it was all ends over there and nobody would care I washed out in a bucket this was before I learned of the kiddie pool trick and made sure to pass that helpful information along to the driver bringing the next load less less looks like the love child of Grace Jones and King Kong Bundy and has the unconscious ability to feel all available space in the room the man can loom while kicked back in a lazy boy he's something of a gentle giant so derpy simplex did not get fed through his own pump but he failed to impress the big man with his antics any more than he had me and the reputation started to build so it's a couple years later and scuzz company has hit a big score they are doing both the grading and concrete for a local resort by this point nobody likes working with this company primarily thanks discuss on smaller jobs the senior drivers beg off and toss the rookies under the bus unfortunately this new job is going to be too big for that but hopefully we won't have to deal with scuzz putting him in charge of a job like this would be like appointing Thomas Midgley jr. to head the EPA so scuzz is of course chosen as the on-site manager and there's no way that this will not end in tears trouble starts from day one on the concrete pours there's no washout instead he digs a hole with a backhoe has the truck wash out in the hole then buries it this is incredibly illegal but for the drivers part there aren't too many other options it's the height of summer and nobody is even going to attempt to wash out into a bucket which involves climbing a ladder with the 20 to 30 pound bucket several times in 115 degree heat we don't have time to do that with the required yardage anyway things come to a head halfway into the project it's blisteringly hot outside and scuzz has vastly overestimated his crews ability to work in the heat trucks are stacked up on the job for hours before pouring the loads should be rejected and probably would be if the inspector were on site scuzz doesn't want to reject the loads however because that's going to reflect very badly on him each rejected truck will cost the company about a thousand dollars so he instructs drivers to add water to three hour old concrete normally you're not supposed to add water after the 90 minute mark when the concrete has started to set in that heat the cutoff she'd probably been closer to 60 and has the crews pour it I had the second-to-last load on the job so my concrete was four hours and I've already added over 100 gallons to try and keep it wet enough to pour that is way past the allowable amount which is usually closer to 10 to 30 gallons and most of it was added past time the concrete is so far gone that it's hardening as it slides down my chute they have to get a couple of guys with shovels to keep it moving when I finish up I ask where to wash out and skies points over to the trench we were using the trench that is currently being filled in by the backhoe so instead scuzz tells me to drive down to the low point on the side a huge pit about 20 feet below grade and wash out there he'll have it scraped up with a skip loader later scuzz is not aware that the reason the backhoe was so furiously filling the trench was because the city inspector had just rolled up on site in fact he's standing on the edge pit looking down at me I decide I've had enough of scuzz I look the inspector in the I stick my shovel in the chute and without breaking eye contact slowly drag a small pile of concrete down onto the dirt as it plops into the dirt like corrosive cow Pat the inspector jumps into his truck and comes tearing down the ramp like Moses coming down the mountain and he looks about ready to break a stone tablet over my head honestly I'm not too worried while technically I could be in serious trouble what is on the ground is already dry and can easily be shoveled back into my chute unless the inspector goes on a complete power trip the worst I'm looking at is a dressing-down the inspector jumps out of his truck and starts swearing at me asking what the heck I think I'm doing and threatening me with any number of environmental regulations I kick the lump of concrete in it rolls then with all the sincere and heartfelt feigned ignorance I can muster I explained that my contractor told me to clean out there as they did not currently have a washout on site the inspector narrows his eyes and asks who my contractor is I tell him and the inspector starts wearing some more jackpot as much as they are the enemy and to be obstructed misled and stymied at every opportunity inspectors are not stupid they know exactly what kind of games scuzz has been playing on the job site and they have warned him more than once the inspector looks at the muck in my chute and pokes it with a finger it's hard and well over 100 degrees concrete heats up as it sets he asks if I have a hammer I do he tells me to knock out as much as possible and try to use this little wander as I can he then drives back up the ramp looking to unleash some holy wrath on scuzz the inspector doesn't find scuzz who heard the inspector yelling at me and it's currently cowering the far side of the backhoe instead he finds Jake Jake had the last load on the job and they didn't use all his concrete Jake has also been in the industry for 30 years and knows exactly what that concrete will do to his drum jake is standing in front of the very large pile of concrete he's spun out onto the ground and is filling his drum with the water trucks fire hose with luck by the time he reaches the plant all that water will hopefully have loosened up the craft stuck to the inside of his drum the inspector doesn't even look at the pile he just asks where is he and Jake helpfully points out where scuzz is hiding when I finally leave about 45 minutes later scuzz is in the skip loader trying to break up Jake's giant pile of leftovers the inspector is finally run out of breath and stop yelling but so long as he is there he decides he might as well check the concrete tickets it's not technically his job but he knows what is and isn't permitted as I pass his truck he's falling through the tickets and he's grinning there is nothing cheerful or comforting in this grin a crocodile would think it was a bit predatory the last half dozen concrete tickets all show more than the allowable water a few more show that the concrete was poured after the load was expired Jake's and mine both helpfully include time stamps showing that water was added after the load expired the waves of schadenfreude are almost visibly emanating from the inspectors body the inspector not only hit the company with two separate violations one for each truck he went for the maximum fine since there had been prior warnings and the violations had been willful on top of that he gave the general contractor a heads-up about the expired loads and overuse of water so in addition to the EPA fines scuzziest boss had to rip out and replace 150 yards of concrete we never saw us again I hope you liked these stories bye

Channel: Slash Start

Views: 126,680

Rating: 4.8871226 out of 5

Keywords: reddit, r/, sub, subreddit, best of reddit, reddit top posts, top posts, funniest posts, funny, comedy, funniest reddit posts, funny reddit posts, funny reddit, cringe, reddit stories, reddit post, reddit posts, reddit cringe, Malicious, Compliance, MaliciousCompliance, Malicious Compliance Stories, stories, /Start, fired, YOU ARE FIRED, r/idontworkherelady, r/maliciouscompliance, malicious compliance, Company, Maximum Fine, Fine

Id: nUJicLeDGN4

Length: 12min 48sec (768 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 04 2020