I'll add another one.

When I lived in Alaska, we did oil & gas construction in the winter using ice roads and ice pads so we wouldn't damage the tundra. I worked 12 to 14 hour days all winter, and the snow/ice started to melt (i.e. construction stopped) so I took a 2 week vacation. Of course, several days prior to leaving for vacation I notified everyone in Alaska as well as at headquarters. This time, my vacation was a week in Hawaii and a week in Central Coast California.

I'm in Napa sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for the bus for the winery tour, and my cell phone rings. It was the staffing coordinator in headquarters and supposedly his job was to find employees their next project before their current project ends. He starts off by saying that he has a meeting about this "opportunity" in 30 minutes, he's known about this for 3 weeks, and needs a yes or no answer from me. In other words, the slacker dipshit knew before I left for vacation but has been procrastinating until the last minute. He starts to describe the "opportunity", can't answer any question I ask, and as he describes what little he knows I realize it's a project that's been cancelled twice at the earliest funding gate. I'm working on a fully funded project, my scope has a year left, and my scope has a budget 15x larger than the "opportunity." I tell him that he needs to ask questions (even tell him specifically which questions to ask) instead of saying yes or no to this "opportunity."

Winery tour bus shows up, but now I'm nervous that the staffing coordinator is going to get me transferred to Texas. My employer won't move wine so if I buy any during the tour I risk having to give it away. I had fun on the winery tour, but bought zero bottles of wine while everyone else on the tour bought several cases of wine.

The following week, I'm back in the office and the staffing coordinator calls to tell me I was right and it was a poor opportunity. No shit Sherlock!

Has the project ever been funded? Nope.

The foreman requested that four of us go to the basement and pick up several thousand gallons of Corn Oil that was on the floor. An operator fell asleep and forgot to close a valve. Some idiot used the aluminum pumps to pick up caustic so they were not an option. Just hip boots fifty five gallon drums and shovels. One of the older guys suggested using a squeezee to push the oil into the elevator shaft. I just went along. Several weeks later the foreman tried to go to the basement via the freight elevator. It was stuck quite a ways from the basement. Since it was a union job nothing happened. And people wonder why stuff costs so much.

Working in a cabinet shop the shop foreman comes to me and sends me on a parts run across town which took about 45 minutes... Shortly after returning to the shop the actual shop owner came to me in the shop area and proceeded to rant and rave(voice elevated and agitated) (within ear shot of other employees) that I was hired to stay in the shop and not leave my work assignments in the shop for any reason..... Well approx 1 hour later was called to the shop foremans office with the owner standing there when the shop foreman asked me to take the company pu truck and proceed to interstate weight scale station (approx 50 miles distance) to rescue our 25ft box truck that had been stopped and put out of service because the driver did not have the proper (class D) drivers license.. Only a standard issue drivers license (personal vehicle and not commercial level).... When I looked the owner in the eye he sort of dropped his eyes and asked if I could do this rescue of the delivery truck.... Replied ok and completed the request... Nothing more was ever said if I left the shop on shop errands as required by shop foreman or owner.. And approx 1 month later had to go rescue this same box truck that was put out of service again (approx 50 miles opposite direction) because driver was caught by state police without a proper drivers license..... The sad part is that I had been telling the shop foreman as well as the owner for over a full year that the driver was not properly licensed and things like these events were going to happen. Actually happened 5 total times in 6 years. .......................................drill sgt.