Alfred Ostrander III. "Bud"

Alfred Ostrander III was an interesting guy.  He looked like he was in his 50's, weathered ruddy face, balding and was missing all but a few teeth.  Alfred loved the simple things in life, like strippers, pizza and pot. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't partake of at least one of those three things.  Bud would show up on the job, sit down with a vial of "bud" at 530am and that was breakfast. Needless to say he wasn't a bad sheetrocker, he could keep up just fine despite being stoned and being 20 years older than most of the guys. Bud had a good heart, he would buy company sweatshirts and give them to the dancers at caseys. Well that was fine for a while, but when the owner of the company was in Florida and he noticed a girl that he never met wearing a sweatshirt with his company logo on it, bud wasn't allowed to buy them anymore after that.

He wasn't the best with his finances, it seemed like every month he was on the verge of losing his home. One week he came in all happy, he said he went to the casino, and watched the people playing one armed bandits.  They pumped in money, would get frustrated then leave. He would sit down, put a few bucks in and sure enough he would hit a jackpot. He did that a few times until he had enough to pay his mortgage.  Problem is that only worked the one time.

He would always drive junk cars and trucks, he had his tools stolen from his work truck, so he installed spring loaded hinges on the topper windows.  They thieves came by opened the window only to have it slam back down as soon as the spring released.  He didn't need to worry too long about that, the truck died and the next vehicle he drove was a handicapped bus. The "Bud bus" even had a ramp for a wheelchair, which he tried to sell to various tradesmen.
He came in with dentures after a few weeks of complaining about his teeth hurting. With the nice white teeth he didn't look like the same person. He looked normal, until a day later he dropped them and broke one of the front teeth.  Alfred gave up on them after that.

Bathroom remodel

Sometimes when your working in a warehouse you do desperate things when it's a huge open room with bathrooms few and far between.  We were remodeling a restroom in an assembly warehouse, it seemed as big and wide as 3 football fields, and in the dead center of it all was the restrooms.  Hundreds of workers at desks and tables, with a tiny 4 person bathroom for the women's, and the same for the men's,  they desperately needed updating, no ADA, no urinals for men's, 1 sink and 1 paper towel dispenser.  We went in and demoed, expanded, and added durarock to keep water from wicking up the walls. The old color scheme was 70's lime green and baby poop brown, classy just like the 70's.  It took us 10 minutes to walk towards the area, so if any tools were left behind it was a trek to go get them. We brought carts and on a quiet day we stole a golf cart to help make transportation faster, which only happened once.

After we finished with the work one day we noticed a strange office chair sitting near the outside of the men's room, as the weeks went on we noticed the chair would move a little bit from behind the bathrooms then closer to the front door.  We had to leave for a week while the other trades moved in, then we came back to install door hardware and closers.  One of the guys brought everything he needed, except the ladder, so seeing the chair he grabbed it, wheeled it inside then stood on it to install a closer.  He would periodically step on and off the chair to make adjustments and every time he did his shoes would squeak on the new vinyl flooring, and he didn't think anything of it. Making his last adjustment he got down, pulled the door open sat down, then watched it close at a nice even smooth speed.

As it closed his smile from a job well done slowly went away, and when the door latched he jumped out of the chair yelling various profanities.  His jeans were soaked, and he smelled like a wet diaper. Evidently the "chair" wasn't used for sitting while the restrooms were being remodeled, it was used as a urinal by a mad employee, his jeans were a perfect sponge to soak up a month of urine.

Psycho steve

It was another early morning, it gets so hard to go out and start the car, scrape the frost off the windshield and what long enough to go to work.  The hardest part was knowing that in a matter of 8 hours it would need to be done again, and even worse is it will be dark before I am back home.  Long commutes and redundancy really gets old this time of year.  How many sheets of Sheetrock can a guy hang before he can't deal with it anymore. Screw guns running full blast all day long, screaming and clutch grinding non stop.  To make matters worse it's even harder on the body, joints and muscles ache, skin covered in dust.

It takes a different kind of person to do this job, some guys have made poor choices, some get started and never find something else, some actually like it, and those are the ones that you watch out for.

Steve was a older guy, he spent most his life in Vegas, working on the casinos and hotels that millions of people would see and visit over the years.  In a town like that where anything that happens stays in Vegas only the walls can tell the tales they see.

He seemed normal enough, avg height and build, smoked like most his age did, not married yet not available. He came to work one day missing his shoe, he said he was at the bar, and met a nice lady, they began talking when he told her he liked varicose veins and stretch marks, and legs.  He though he was an artist I guess, he would take a sharpie marker and draw little homes,and roads.  When he came to a vein he would draw a bridge so the car could cross the river. Evidently when he told this wonderful young lady his plans for later, she got a little upset.  The ensuing commotion involved a bouncer that in turn called the cops who in turn chased him through downtown Minneapolis, only to lose him when he jumped a fence and ducked behind a dumpster.

He woke up early morning realizing he was missing more than his date from the previous night, somewhere along the way he lost a shoe.  With no time to go home he went to the job site and put in a full day of work on one red wing and a very dirty sock.

We always thought it was strange how he loved oranges, he would easily eat 10-12 a day, and as the day went on he got dumber.  It wasn't until we were cleaning up one of the guys noticed the smell, vodka. Inspecting the peels we noticed tiny holes, almost a pin prick in the skin.  Steve was mainlining vodka into his oranges, and as the day went on he would get more and more hammered. Needless to say he wasn't on the job the next day.