TheSnowman
New Member
My wife joked about wrapping a casket w/ flames, cause it'd look cool, but we figured that'd be a bad "representation".
-
I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...
Craziest thing you've done for a customer...?
- Thread starter thesignexpert
- Start date
My pregnant wife and I left on a Friday afternoon and Drove 14 hours to Florida. Checked into a room and slept for 2 hours. Woke up and installed the 5' x 5' monument sign with 1" thick waterjet cut aluminum letters mounted to it that we had fabricated and brought with us. Drove home and was back to work on Monday. This was all because there was a photographer coming to take photos for a magazine the next week.
Another time we loaded up a truck and trailer with our scaffolding/install tools and drove 6 hours away to letter a car hauler for a Hooters Cup team. When we got there, it started raining and there was no where to pull the trailer inside. We layed a tarp on top of the trailer with 50 pound blocks of lead (ballast for the race car) stacked on top to hold it in place and then draped the rest of the tarp over our scaffolding to create a dry area to work. This worked ok until the wind picked up and things really got exciting. That's when instead of rain drops, we were dodging the blocks of lead as the tarp turned into a huge sail.
A couple of times during the shooting of the movie Evan Almighty in our area, I had to wake up in the middle of the night to go letter trucks to make them look like news and police vehicles. They would literally bring the vehicles to us and take them straight to the movie set to shoot a scene. They didn't mind paying and I didn't mind charging. It ended being the most expensive comedy ever made at $200 million. We only got about $10k of that.
Another time we loaded up a truck and trailer with our scaffolding/install tools and drove 6 hours away to letter a car hauler for a Hooters Cup team. When we got there, it started raining and there was no where to pull the trailer inside. We layed a tarp on top of the trailer with 50 pound blocks of lead (ballast for the race car) stacked on top to hold it in place and then draped the rest of the tarp over our scaffolding to create a dry area to work. This worked ok until the wind picked up and things really got exciting. That's when instead of rain drops, we were dodging the blocks of lead as the tarp turned into a huge sail.
A couple of times during the shooting of the movie Evan Almighty in our area, I had to wake up in the middle of the night to go letter trucks to make them look like news and police vehicles. They would literally bring the vehicles to us and take them straight to the movie set to shoot a scene. They didn't mind paying and I didn't mind charging. It ended being the most expensive comedy ever made at $200 million. We only got about $10k of that.
chopper
New Member
I drove 300 miles to Hand letter 36 inch tall letters on the side of two 50,000 gallon propane tanks that were in a different state, the year that this was happening there were sever storms and flooding in the area, and his customer who owend the tanks wouldnt pay him till it was lettered ( he refurbished the tanks) I get there Friday after noon and letter one side, get up in the morning and letter the other side, at this point it is raining all around where I am but not where the tanks are, I finnish the job and tell the guy who owns the tank that I was done, he replies I sapose you want a check, and he hands me a check for 50K for the guy who refurbished the tanks, and I left later that night it flooded where the tanks were and the water level was midway up the tanks, I hit the perfect window of opportunity there !!!
//chopper
//chopper
chopper
New Member
I have one more that is not sign related but I think you can feel for this situation, I was working for my fathers metal fab / repair shop one of his customers come in with a broken garbage truck in the middle of july hotter than hell with a full load of garbage on it the unloading hopper broke and it couldn't dump its load, I had to open the front hatch on the side of the truck and swim through the garbage used baby diapers etc... to get to the rear of the truck, stood in the hopper up to my calves in dumpster gravy and pushed the broken parts back together with a Porto power and welded it up I spent three days in back of that truck and while I was in the back of the truck the owner stoped by and asked if I was done yet, I replied do you think I would be in here any longer than I had to,,(this had to be the worst job I have ever done)
//chopper
//chopper
Pat Whatley
New Member
Does that mean that you had to stand in the back of a garbage truck in July and not even get paid extra for it? :ROFLMAO:
weaselboogie
New Member
Hope you were well compensated.!!!
Jillbeans
New Member
I have never really done anything that exciting or financially beneficial.
I just get to do stupid cheap sh!t (in years past mainly)
Re-lettering old crappy client-provided signs
Changing one gilded initial on a leather box so it could be re-gifted
Re-lettering repainted embossed milk cans
Replicating hideous nephew art because the client insisted it was what was best for him
Painting a 10'x50' mural on concrete block for $250 my first year in the biz for a relative, while having horrible morning sickness
Going up in a scissors lift and painting wall lettering during another pregnancy with my belly sticking out between the rails
Using my truck bed with a ladder in it under a sign to paint something
Luckily I don't do anything like that any more. I am too old.
Love....Jill
I just get to do stupid cheap sh!t (in years past mainly)
Re-lettering old crappy client-provided signs
Changing one gilded initial on a leather box so it could be re-gifted
Re-lettering repainted embossed milk cans
Replicating hideous nephew art because the client insisted it was what was best for him
Painting a 10'x50' mural on concrete block for $250 my first year in the biz for a relative, while having horrible morning sickness
Going up in a scissors lift and painting wall lettering during another pregnancy with my belly sticking out between the rails
Using my truck bed with a ladder in it under a sign to paint something
Luckily I don't do anything like that any more. I am too old.
Love....Jill
chopper
New Member
Pat and weasel,
that is correct I stood in the back of a garbage truck full of garbage
for three days and I didn't make one extra cent,....
but I will say it was a great weight loss program
//chopper
iSign
New Member
...oh yeah, I remember a young & foolish install like that. I couldn't set my 16' extension ladder below the wall I needed to hang a 2' x 6' MDO sign by myself because of a set of stairs...
...until I realized I could back my truck up, put a 2x12 between my tailgate & whatever stair was almost level with it, & set my ladder on the 2x12
deegrafix
New Member
Removed "big time cable co." logos and installed new "big time cable co." logos on 368 vans in 5 cities in 8 days with a crew of 5. All involved prospered. The vans came to each location in a steady stream, in most cases with drivers waiting. When the van was done, the guy changed his shirt and went back to work with a new identity.
weaselboogie
New Member
If I worked for my dad, the only way he'd get me to do something like that is if he was in there with me.
I don't ask anyone to do anything for me that I wouldn't do myself.
chopper
New Member
my Father worked in the shop with the rest of us and he would have gone in there and done the work, but I kinda did the crapy stuff so he wouldn't have to...
//chopper
HaroldDesign
New Member
Built a huge 15ft tall walk-through human heart model. Got to the museum in Lacrosse to assemble the four quadrants brought in a semi, and the "huge" doorway at the museum was a double door. A chainsaw purchase, two extra days time and having more materials shipped to work with later, and the children's museum now has the biggest heart in the world (at the time, anyway).
houseofgrafix
none
Married her
Bigdawg
Just Me
Mine is print, not signs.
We had a family real estate magazine 25 years ago - competing with the local big boys at the time. One ad had the wrong phone and my dad swore to the realtor that it would not print wrong again... so of course it did.
Me, My sister, my dad, the sales girl and one of the production guys sat there with a sharpie and crossed off the old phone number and wrote the correct one in... on 5000 magazines...
We had a family real estate magazine 25 years ago - competing with the local big boys at the time. One ad had the wrong phone and my dad swore to the realtor that it would not print wrong again... so of course it did.
Me, My sister, my dad, the sales girl and one of the production guys sat there with a sharpie and crossed off the old phone number and wrote the correct one in... on 5000 magazines...
Bradster941
New Member
Customer ran away & went into hiding after………
I received a call complaining the 12 14 x 48 billboards we just printed rush & delivered overnight were 2 feet too big.
I ran to the airport, jumped on the first flight $$$$, flew 2 hours to Boston, rushed to the billboard company to measure the boards. Oddly they looked correct but the tape measure said they were 2 feet too long.
Standing there totally confused with the customer ripping me a new a$$ hole, I noticed a big wad on masking tape wrapped around the measuring tape.
Went over to check……some idiot had broken the tape & re-tape it back together, missing 2 feet of the tape. It read fine till 17 feet…the next numeral was 19 feet.
My customer actually turned bright red and ran away to hide. I found my way back to the airport by myself.
And yes we did a lot more work for him and he never questioned my opinion or prices again.
I received a call complaining the 12 14 x 48 billboards we just printed rush & delivered overnight were 2 feet too big.
I ran to the airport, jumped on the first flight $$$$, flew 2 hours to Boston, rushed to the billboard company to measure the boards. Oddly they looked correct but the tape measure said they were 2 feet too long.
Standing there totally confused with the customer ripping me a new a$$ hole, I noticed a big wad on masking tape wrapped around the measuring tape.
Went over to check……some idiot had broken the tape & re-tape it back together, missing 2 feet of the tape. It read fine till 17 feet…the next numeral was 19 feet.
My customer actually turned bright red and ran away to hide. I found my way back to the airport by myself.
And yes we did a lot more work for him and he never questioned my opinion or prices again.