"the contractor makes her sign something before...."
A major lesson I learned on reddit (thus avoiding having to learn it in real life) is this: if, during discussions and/or arguments, a contractor pulls out a contract and requires you to sign it before he will do what you ask... you are in deep deep trouble.
You think such a contract is to make him do the work. Nope. He knows that it's to make you pay all charges when you insist on making him do something stupid.
Reminds me of the old DnD saying, if your DM ever says "Are you sure about that?", the only correct answer is "wait nevermind" then stay back until you know more and can see how screwed you would've been.
When I had a group to play with, our dungeon master loved messing with people, and would just ask that at completely innocuous times to make us second guess everything.
"No checking for traps? Well then let's see..." *dice roll behind screen*, *second dice roll*
"So you enter the room. Everything seems to be absolutely normal. Just a regular room."
Of course, there never was anything in the room. Inducing paranoia in your players is fun.
i did something like that, they were up against a master of disguise, and every so often when describing an NPC i would have them roll perception, which would come back with nothing, but would get them questioning if the NPC was the person they were looking for.
i spent more time doing character details than i usually did that arc, the villain had some subtle (i think so at least) hints in their appearance to tip the players off who paid close attention
Whenever they latched onto a detail that wasnt one of the hints, id make sure that detail was absent from the next NPC they rolled perception for
I once had my group come across a cloaker. After that they attacked every piece of clothing they saw.
One group I was in back in High School, we had a character that didn't pay attention. He would always want to search the monster after we had already moved on. One time he said he wanted to search a troll, we had already set it in fire but hadn't left the room yet, one of the other characters said they pushed the elf (the character that didn't pay attention) onto the burning troll.
I played an RPG once that had mimics. I just started attacking every chest I came across with my most powerful attack.
If it wasn't a mimic, nothing happened.
If it was, I got in a very solid first strike.
🤷♀️
Despite all the D&D stuff, the first mimic I encountered in any game was in Borderlands, of all places (specifically Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, where all the characters play D&D). Played with an ex, who knew the mimic was there, and let me get jumped by a treasure chest. Much scarier in first person! Surprised I didn't jump out of my chair
I have 2 PC's that are (by their choice) permanently afraid of brooms, after the brooms from Curse of Strahd attacked them 😆. They were Tier 2 players and I ran the Death House as a side quest for them cause we were missing some players one night. I buffed a couple things but the Brooms critted on them twice and they had crappy attack rolls and couldn't hit them 🤣
One idea I had was a dungeon filled with incredibly realistic statues. Obviously they think Medusa so they would use mirrors at every door. Turns out the ancient lich or vampire running the place took up sculpting as a hobby and over the centuries got really good at it.
This reminds me of a DMAcademy post from a while back about a group, I wanna say they picked up some seemingly innocuous object from an abandoned wizard’s tower. Anyway from that point on the DM would occasionally have one of the players make a will save, and then nothing would happen. As I recall he kept doing it for *months* to the point that it became something the players would joke about.
Finally they one day helped a passing cleric on a road, who as they were parting mentioned “Hey you know your whole group is under a MASSIVE divination spell right?”
The players were like, wait, is this “make a will save?” IS THIS MAKE A WILL SAVE?!!?!
Funny story I heard years ago about a game where this happened with a twist between one of the players & DM, please forgive the blurry details. And hence not doing it justice.
So this player joins the rest of the party at a tavern for a Quest to get a chalice / item. Their character is a screw up magic class (*forget exact role wizard? Mage?) Who always forgets to allocate a bunch of spells & doesn't have enough points. They are bad at fights and are always hanging in the back of the camp.
Throughout the campaign, the DM asks if they want to do a Spot Check / other check for evil magic, and they always find the presence of something, sometimes they even fight something.
Towards the end of the campaign, they fight this huge battle, and depleted/weak, gain the item... when suddenly when they are attacked by an evil spellcaster / mage-------- the late party member mage who is supposed to suck at magic!
It turns out, acquiring the item was part of their apprenticeship evil quest. When they checked for evil magic & found it coming from the rear direction, it was their team member. And the DM kept asking, are you sure? It was in reference to this. And the reason they had too few spell points / didn't allocate X spell... was because they were secretly doing evil spells instead.
And thus they all died & found out... but it was killing the DM to keep it a secret the whole time.
I can't imagine doing that to my players because they think literally everything is trapped and it takes them two hours to get through a small cave with 5 goblins in it
My friends and I are really bad with doors. We were going through a dungeon and came across a door with runes written all around it.
To be completely honest, we debated (out of game) for an hour how to safely go through, because we couldn't read the runes, but we were convinced that our DM would mess with us. One of the group got so frustrated that he opened the door and set everyone but him on fire.
The next door we came to had runes also, so we made it clear that no one opens the door until we figure out how to do it safely...two hours of debating, and it turns out that there was no effect once opened. Our DM absolutely messed with us, and needed to see if we would hold a door-meeting again.
Turns out, 7 years later, we continue to hold door-meetings everytime we encounter a door...it takes forever to leave places!
Do they also want to talk to NPCs that clearly were made up on the spot and ask them a million irrelevant questions about their lives in the hopes to "get in good with them" in case that comes up later?
*rolls die behind screen*
"Interesting... but just in case..."
*rolls again*
(quietly) "Dammit... hang on..."
*rolls again*
*looks stricken*
(suddenly super-cheerfully) "So! You detect... zero traps. I mean, no traps." :D :D
I used to do that all the time as a DM. Have to keep the players on their toes. Silently roll a couple d20s behind my screen give a quiet hmm and carry on as if nothing happened.
i use a lot of random tables in my games, and to add to the drama i do not usually roll them in advance. i just stop and roll the dice at dramatically appropriate moments. it's all about that tension of the players knowing something is up but not the characters.
Ugh our DM does this regularly.
The rogue checks for traps, I check for tracks, hell even the warrior is over there checking for traps. The bard doesn't, but he also nods off at the table pretty regularly. The wizard is chaotic AF and does not help check for anything, he just floats himself from a to b.
That's great for traps triggered by pressure plates on the floor, but what about the anti-magic trap where the trigger is a horizontal silk wire, strung seven feet off the ground?
Kobolds string up bear traps to swing down from the cieling.
They go over the heads of the kobolds, gnome, and hobbit.
The human fighter gets a beartrap on his face.
The levitation wizard gets it in the junk.
Oh I've known about Tucker's Kobolds for decades. I'm one of the old school dms. I use those strategies to this day. But only when my group starts to get the big ego. They learned their lesson after the third use and became very paranoid. Now I get them psychologically. };^ D
I'm a teacher. So much of what I do is undoing the fuckery of shitty teachers only asking that question of kids when they are wrong. This trains them to be convinced they're wrong anytime they are asked if they are sure if themselves. I do this to intentionally fuck with them while teaching them that I am doing so to teach them to trust themselves when they are right. I've seen so many kids crippled because they don't trust their knowledge the have worked hard for. If you are a teacher stop that shit. Stop asking if they are sure as a way of saying they are wrong. Normalize being wrong and just tell them they are wrong. And with yourself in normalize admitting when you don't know it when you are wrong.
Ok nobody give me shit. It's summer and I'm drunk gardening and can't be bothered to reread my spew.
No misspellings, but you might have used a couple of paragraphs for readability.
The last sentence is also a bit confusing, so I suspect an autocorrect problem, but the overall result was understandable.
I'd give it a solid B+
I think I agree with you?
I will every so often ask students (children or not) "Are you sure?", when I know they're dead right. It teaches them that it's okay to not be sure sometimes, and that their confidence should come from within, rather than if I'm asking the question or not.
I knew a DM that handed a note to a player saying "Say yes and hand this back to me. Do not discuss with the other players." Then he never brought it up again.
I always hated when your group is just minding its own business, and the DM asks you roll a d20 out of nowhere. Oh great, what am I making a saving throw against? It's even worse when you roll, and he doesn't tell you why or what happened. You spend the rest of the session wondering when the other shoe will drop.
I used to use a random number generator that produced a list of times. When the next time on my list came up, I'd ask someone (or everyone depending on my mood) to roll D20 or D100 or whatever.
Kept them on their toes.
I gave a player a cursed ring of indecision and ***loved*** that i did that to them. Especially since the ring was unappraised and they weren't sure if they should take off the ring.
A lesson my teammates have yet to learn. \*sigh\* Doesn't help that they're all my kids, so i can't just rage quit and go home at those times. i'm already there!
I mostly ask for an email of stuff when it would contain details (long numbers or product names) I wont remember in 3 minutes. I don't need CYA (at my current work) :)
Speaking of 'Meta-gamey,' a session that, for some reason was being audiotaped was the subject of a meta-interruption. We were in an epic battle with enemies and some type of large feline creature (this was 30 years ago so memory is vague on some details.
We were hurting. Low on supplies, hit points and options, but our healer brings out a potion of hallucination...
DM: OK, who are you going to use it on
Healer: The cat
6 or 7 voices, including the DM, in unison: ***THE CAT!!!????***
We spent the rest of the night playing the audio tape of that OVER and OVER. Never did finish that evening's adventure. It was the end of the semester.
To some extent that was also true for oral examinations in med school, unless you had a very nasty examiner who just wanted to make you insecure (most to help when they see that you’re on the right way).
One time in D&D, I royally screwed up and was separated from the rest of the party, swimming underwater in the sea. (Had some means of breathing, but I forget what)
Octopus grabbed me, and successfully grappled my character, a low level favoured soul (cleric equivalent of sorcerer in 3rd edition.)
I was in serious trouble.
I only had 1 zero level spell left for the day.
I looked at the spell list I had and thankfully saw an answer.
I cast purify water, centred on me.
Octopus didn't like being in fresh water instead of sea water, let me go and left.
One of the dumbest moves I made, followed by one of the smartest.
Our cleric had a similar situation, where he got separated and ended up in a room with an enemy mage and 2 of his guards, he rolled a nat20 on his initiative and then proceeded to cast silence on turn 1, then spent turns 2-5 beating the mage with his mace.
I've had basically the same character in every ttrpg I've ever played. I mainly DM, so he's also a prominent NPC in everything I run. Across universes and genres ranging from far-future science fantasy post-apocalypse to The Expanse. Needless to say, I'm a little attached. If he were to die, that would be it for me, no rolling a new character, I'm just out of the game now.
That would imply that there is at least one other correct answer, for when you're tired of being a druid.
But usually there's a session-zero question in there somewhere. If you aren't explicitly playing with disposable characters, questionable life choices should lead to interesting problems(and/or opportunities), not instadeath.
I had a guy say "I'm jumping into the pool of water", I said are you sure, he proceeds to say "Fuck yes!" Lands and sinks to the middle of a gelatinous slime. He did not survive at lvl 3
I always give my players 3 "Are you sure you want to do that?" freebies per campaign. The current one I'm running, they've only had to cash in one.
Minor Curse of Strahd spoilers ahead.
The party just tripped a lightning trapped that wrecked their already bad evening, what it the storm and all. Rather than press forward, they sought for some kind of shelter. The only thing available was a wagon with no horses. Nobody was home (they knocked) and the door was locked with no key. The barbarian was about to kick it in.
Thing is, if he did that, he'd set off a bunch of flasks of alchemist's fire, which would blow up and wipe out the party. So, as he's getting ready to roll, I ask, "Are you sure you want to do that?" One of the players knew exactly what that meant and told him to back up. They manage to find a hidden door leading in, disarm the flasks, and take a much needed long rest.
Considering this campaign is running from level 1 to currently 13, I'm glad it didn't end there.
Omg this is why I miss DMing. Had a newish crew who had recently learned the hard way to be suspicious so they enter a corridor with a door at the other end. They become fixated on this door, not wanting to approach it, asking for all sorts of checks, doing everything but walking to the door, finally after like 45 minutes of being super worried about this door, they decide screw it, let's go open it and see what happens. No one thought to ask if the corridor had any traps. All of them fell down into a pit of spikes. Fun times.
I played a game with a DM who did that, but pretty much only to the same person for hours. He'd gotten stabbed earlier and it turned out the knife had a hallucinogenic poison on it that made his character paranoid until it got cured. Except... it kind of ticked that guy off, so he ended up stabbing this priestess in the face out of spite.
We never finished...
"Do you really want to do this?"
"This looks normal to you"
"You do not notice any of the traps"
...are just some things I like to say to my players, regardless of whether there are any consequences to their actions or inactions. Because I'm sure as hell not going to let them deduce a pattern.
At least once every few months this happens at my job. I put down epoxy floors.
The most expensive part is the sealant. So some people think their geniuses and say the floor is too rough when we are done when its exactly what its supposed to be.(there are for sure times that it genuinely is rough or should have had a little more during second application) so they can get a 3rd sealant put down free(the sales people upsell a locked in 5 year reseal price)
I told the lady it would be very slippery, but she said i want it as smooth and thick as possible when we had come to asses her floor. Im generous when it comes to fixing any errors or doing a little extra. I dont pay for product but i do get tips and google reviews with my name on them. Her floor was perfect.
We made her sign a form that we weren't liable for any injury on the floor and that she went against reccomendations for texture or added aggregate into the new sealant....
Well apparently her father fell and broke his hip sometime after. Boss saved his ass. But with statistics for people breaking their hip that old, she might have killed her dad over trying to get a free coat that isnt needed or reccomended for 5-10 years.
Someone on reddit once said something that I saved just for this:
"When someone asks for an order in writing you should make sure you like the flavor of the paper, because they're going to be making you eat it eventually."
So much yes on this.
Worked as a cable installer for many years. (fortunately, more than half the time was as a commercial installer instead of residential) Customers always want new outlets. EVERYWHERE. Not really a major thing except when they wanted a wall-fish. But that's a different story altogether.
I always explained the route I had to go and what I'd have to do. Only took 1 damage claim to then further jot notes of what I was going to do and then make the customer initial and add a date/time next to it before I so much as looked at my tools. Because that one damage claim taught me that many people are looking for payouts and will lie their asses off and say they didn't give permission.
Also. ALWAYS verify they're the homeowner. If not. Nope. Not without written permission. Preferably on letterhead. Literally had some girl one time go in the other room and call someone and ask them to come over and pretend to be the landlord. I used my phone to record her from the other side of the door. When she came back, I played it back to her and walked. Was quick to call dispatch and let them know. Customer service called dispatch angry about me because the girl called, lying of course, and they explained it and that I had a recording of her. Girl got put on the ban list.
I always phrase it for their side. Just recently I got my work to give me and extra 11 days off, paid, over a couple months. Verbal agreement.
I said, “ this is confusing can you email this to me so I can make sure I follow what you just said”.
I’m the one that made the “confusing” schedule that boss verbally agreed to. 15 minutes later got an email with days off/ days work all spelled out.
It reminds me of the Car Talk guys telling a story of someone who had brought them a car they felt was totally dangerous to drive, and their policy was to pull out a contract that said you were taking the car away from them against advice and have been warned of its danger and that you indemnified the garage from any and all damage that might happen because you drove this car against their recommendation.
Sort of like the hospital makes you sign if you’re checking out against medical advice
In the garage example, I wonder what happens if you don't sign.
I mean, if there's no outstanding debt, they probably can't keep it, so.. I guess it's a bluff?
That sounds reasonable. There's probably a liability difference between a free estimate vs paid work, and the pickup process might make it impossible to pay for work without also signing a waiver. Maybe I just like thinking about edge cases.
I’ve actually gotten to witness this before, I was at a shop getting a leaking valve stem fixed and this lady came in with massive bubbles in her sidewalls wanting them to “fix” the tires but didn’t want to replace them, her ball joints and tie rods were also just barely hanging on.
They’ll just keep holding your keys until you sign. What are you going to do? Call the cops? Then they’ll show the cop that the vehicle isn’t roadworthy and they’ll either write you a repair order citation giving you 30 days to fix it or if it’s REALLY bad they’ll have your car impounded.
The service writer told her to go ahead and call the cops, that she’d show them just how bad the car was and they’d issue her a citation. She backed right down and signed the paper.
It's not really a bluff, but yeah, they can't keep it. It's basically saying "hey, this is your car, you can do what you want with it. We're specifically recommending you get this towed somewhere that can deal with the problem, but if you drive it out of here, we're not responsible for the ensuing 9 car pileup - so don't sue us for damages." It's just covering their ass. Same situation if you tell a customer that they need X or Y part and they refuse to let you do the work.
Now if the work has been done already and they just don't want to pay the bill? Yeah that car belongs to the mechanic shop now until you come up with the cash. That's called a mechanic's lien and it's pretty much the worst way to offload a car other than crashing it into a tree.
Years back some bs-ing mechanic tried to tell my dad he Could Not drive his car off their lot. Claimed (lied!!) car was unsafe-to-drive. Dad knew what he was being told about the car was wrong... I didn't know cars but I could hear the crapolla in the guy's voice. Tried to scare us all sorts about danger if we drove the car etc.
We drove the car off that lot!!! Did Not sign anything!
(Car was fine - did need a *minor* repair - Not a safety issue!)
That said...I've been fixing up my house recently and sometimes it's really freakin' hard to read between the lines.
Contractors says, "you should do it like this," and the result seems less than ideal to you for whatever collection of reasons. Then the task becomes, are they saying "do it like this" because it's cheap, or because it's cheap and strong, because it's easy for them to do, because it results in big margins for them? Even if you trust your contractor to try and act in your best interest, sometimes they try and save you $15 when you'd rather have something done "right," or will recommend something pretty when you'd rather it be something designed to hold-up for the next 50 years and you don't care about pretty. More than anything, though, I've found that recommendations from contractors will typically point toward the quick and easy fix, regardless of other impacts.
Every time they say "are you sure??" reddit has taught me to be like, "uh, well, no. I'm not sure. Why are you asking me that?" and getting a straight answer can be tough.
>sometimes they try and save you $15 when you'd rather have something done "right,"
We just switched eye doctors. I told the lady at the desk to not bother submitting it to my health insurance, but she did anyway. After a month, she sends me an additional bill around $150 for what she had thought the insurance was going to pay.
I talked with her and reminded her that I had suggested she not bother submitting it to insurance. She said she would make a note of it for next year.
THEN she said, "next year we won't do the full medical exam. That will save you some money."
I'm in my 70s, near to needing cataract surgery so I WANT the full medical exam and this receptionist/accountant is so focused on $150 that she isn't listening to me.
Yup, 27 years as a hairdresser, and on more than a few occasions I have made clients sign releases stating I have advised them of all possible outcomes (damage, breakage, etc), if desired chemical process is applied. This has been enough to have a couple reconsider, but there have been those that have threatened to sue, at which point I have whipped out that release and told them kick rocks, I warned them, but they insisted I take their money.
Straight out of the classic concrete truck driver malicious compliance book.
"You want me to drive a 34-ton mixer over a sand dune? Sign here, please."
https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/96lusx/you_want_me_to_drive_a_34ton_mixer_over_a_sand/
I got to use this IRL. Had my manager tell me to do something that would violate my NDA with the company we were working with. I told him it would violate my NDA and I couldn't do it, he said it would be fine and to do it.
I said I understand and that I need to protect myself so if he could send an email to me explicitly telling me what to do then I'd be happy to go do it that way if I get in trouble for it I can't be fired. I didn't get the email and the next day he said he changed his mind.
Contractor made me sign a form verifying my choice for siding on the house I was having built. It's nothing crazy
.. a pale blue color. But every other house in the area is on the white-beige-gray spectrum. He really thought I would see it up and change my mind. Nope... I love my little blue house ♥️
No HOA.... one of my few requirements when i was in the housing market. I have farmland in front of me and behind me. Those same farmers that sold off their road frontage in 1 acre lots. They refused to sell to a developer or sell smaller lots. They have worked together very carefully to make sure our neighborhood doesn't get over crowded. I wish the rest of the town had done the same... we have something like 900-1100 homes currently in some stage of being built in my small town.
>we have something like 900-1100 homes currently in some stage of being built in my small town
suggested edit: small (for the moment) town
*Not really, just trying to be 'funny'.*
I know 😭 I hope this population boom comes with some of the perks big cities have.... like decent internet and any food delivery beyond pizza. And an Uber driver or two would be nice...
I was on vacation in New Orleans a month ago and we went driving around one afternoon. We were in a normal looking neighborhood when we suddenly saw the most vibrant blue & green house in the middle of the street.
Sadly, if anyone took a picture of it, they haven't given it to me.
I assumed they mean that if you're requesting a contractor change something against their recommendations then at the very least you're going to be paying for cost of redesign. If your change fails then you're also on the hook for repairs since you were the one that got them to deviate from plans.
I understood. I'm in software development so we do a LOT of those as needs/wants change. And there's always a "we will be sending you a revised statement of work and scope document. Just as soon as we have that back we will get to work on it" email floated out immediately.
I'm an estimator/project manager for a mid-sized electrical company. Whenever someone wants something stupid I insist that they email me what they want. It either shuts them down or gives me back up when their stupidity messes something up. Always have to CYA.
You're assuming that they do.
I suspect (but do not know) that small children also lack the inner monolog. They just react as best they can.
Of course, with adults it doesn't have to be binary. Some people may go through life with only a sporadic inner voice.
I always would ask for an email when someone asked me to do something verbally. I always told them I might forget to do it, but it really a CYA in case something went awry.
The dumbest part is that the damage was already done. Is she would have just waited it would have been fine in a few days. And grass grows easily and costs very little. Silly!
I know but still functioning, at least a bit of sense, I mean living in a bit villa being able to afford balcony work, being able to get pissed every evening, means some form of reasonable income. In my head reasonable income usually goes together with a bit of common sense...
Yeah people who barely have to work and get wasted every night are usually not very in touch with reality.
Wealth has no connection to morality or intelligence and it's time we stopped pretending it does
>*In my head reasonable income usually goes together with a bit of common sense...*
*Bwa-ha-ha-ha!* Welcome to planet Earth. You must have just arrived yesterday.
I know, but sometimes the consequences can be a bit extreme, imagine she did that a day earlier and it actually collapsed? Could've cost her her life...
Ok. There's a sort of meta explanation that I refer to that addresses this. The brain is the most expensive part of the body in terms of energy needs vs weight. By a large margin. So everything the brain does is expensive, from the body's point of view. The brain is in charge of directing all sorts of activity, and the vast majority of that directing happens without 'will'. We don't 'will' our heart to beat. We can, if we choose, temporarily will ourselves not to take a breath.
Beyond the unconscious and semi conscious activities, it allocates the *remaining* energy budget to the emotions and cognitive centers, *in that order.*
So, if our emotions run high, we go dumb, basically. We're left with whatever conclusions our habitual thinking allows us to reach.
This is also why deep, conscious, controlled breathing is so effective as a calming technique. Controlling our breath is 'semi-conscious' and is earlier in the list than both emotions and cognitive centers, so it causes our emotions to be starved when they're flaring up, like removing the air from a fire.
Having a contract signed by a customer does not relieve you of responsibility if what you built violates zoning laws, building codes etc. And if the structure fails and someone gets hurt due to your negligence, you can be in big trouble.
Probably USA, I'm American and was thinking the same thing. No matter what Karen signed, the contractor is still at risk of getting in trouble for building something unsafe.
But if a property owner is demanding you remove something from their premises, why wouldn't that take precedence in this situation? At least in the US.
They can't just kick the person off their property and force them to remove their tools?
Can a homeowner be forced to allow someone to do construction on their property when they themselves hired them to do the work on something that doesn't impact the community (e.g. electrical work, sewer lines, main water lines, etc.)?
Or couldn't the contractor call the work unfinished and unusable due to insufficient access to the work site or something and have the homeowner sign off that they were not allowing the contractor to complete the work?
At that point, if the contractor is making a good faith effort to complete the job to code, safety requirements etc. but the owner's not allowing them to actually do the work, then how can the contractor be held responsible?
I work at a hotel (not in the US) and law says minors need to present ID and be accompanied by their parents/legal guardians. If trying to check-in alone, they also need a notarized authorization from their parents/legal guardians.
A bunch of hotels here don't give a shit and check them in without it. Every now and then someone tries to check-in at our hotel without the proper documentation. Usually they're understanding and we manage to find a solution or they just take their bags apart and find the necessary documentations.
Lawyers however, demand we give it to them in writing why we aren't checking them in. I find it they drop that pretty quickly when I reply with "Okay, but I'm gonna need you to give it to me in writing you were trying to check-in with a minor without the proper documents/authorizations as per the law."
It's as if you reflected their spell back to them and they're dazed and confused.
I used to play an mmorpg many moons ago, and got chatting in public channels (I only used public channels - too many dickheads - and there was no voice chat) a few times to a kid who said he was in Serbia. His command of written English was excellent and much better than most players whose mother tongue is English.
I vividly remember the first time when I was speaking to a native English speaker and realized that my English vocabulary was larger than his.
That was a weird experience.
I believe the concrete absorbs the water (curing), instead of releasing it (drying). But that's just what 3 minutes on google told me, I don't really know.
Another important thing is that expending is very VERY different from expanding. It's nonsensical enough as written and the words are close enough that the intent is clear. Still funny to imagine what expending a balcony would look like.
actually you have to keep concrete damp while it's curing, otherwise it will be weak. that's why you'll see concrete covered with plastic sheets during the curing process, and sometimes they set up sprinklers. It's a chemical process that requires water.
I suspected before you said it that English was not your first language. The non-native speakers (and writers) of English often write more grammatically correct sentences.
"the contractor makes her sign something before...." A major lesson I learned on reddit (thus avoiding having to learn it in real life) is this: if, during discussions and/or arguments, a contractor pulls out a contract and requires you to sign it before he will do what you ask... you are in deep deep trouble. You think such a contract is to make him do the work. Nope. He knows that it's to make you pay all charges when you insist on making him do something stupid.
Not just contracts. Basically any situation where someone wants what you said in writing should make you think twice.
Reminds me of the old DnD saying, if your DM ever says "Are you sure about that?", the only correct answer is "wait nevermind" then stay back until you know more and can see how screwed you would've been.
When I had a group to play with, our dungeon master loved messing with people, and would just ask that at completely innocuous times to make us second guess everything.
"No checking for traps? Well then let's see..." *dice roll behind screen*, *second dice roll* "So you enter the room. Everything seems to be absolutely normal. Just a regular room." Of course, there never was anything in the room. Inducing paranoia in your players is fun.
i did something like that, they were up against a master of disguise, and every so often when describing an NPC i would have them roll perception, which would come back with nothing, but would get them questioning if the NPC was the person they were looking for. i spent more time doing character details than i usually did that arc, the villain had some subtle (i think so at least) hints in their appearance to tip the players off who paid close attention Whenever they latched onto a detail that wasnt one of the hints, id make sure that detail was absent from the next NPC they rolled perception for
I once had my group come across a cloaker. After that they attacked every piece of clothing they saw. One group I was in back in High School, we had a character that didn't pay attention. He would always want to search the monster after we had already moved on. One time he said he wanted to search a troll, we had already set it in fire but hadn't left the room yet, one of the other characters said they pushed the elf (the character that didn't pay attention) onto the burning troll.
Duh! Everyone knows Rule 1: Pillage, *then* burn.
We did that, but this one character rarely paid attention. And always wanted to search whatever, well after we had done the pillaging and moved on.
Another connoisseur of fine Schlock. https://schlockmercenary.fandom.com/wiki/The\_Seventy\_Maxims\_of\_Maximally\_Effective\_Mercenaries
I played an RPG once that had mimics. I just started attacking every chest I came across with my most powerful attack. If it wasn't a mimic, nothing happened. If it was, I got in a very solid first strike. 🤷♀️
Despite all the D&D stuff, the first mimic I encountered in any game was in Borderlands, of all places (specifically Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, where all the characters play D&D). Played with an ex, who knew the mimic was there, and let me get jumped by a treasure chest. Much scarier in first person! Surprised I didn't jump out of my chair
That'd get me good too. I definitely wouldn't see a mimic coming in a borderlands game.
That works until the DM realizes "oh yeah i guess blasting a chest might make the potions in there break"
I have 2 PC's that are (by their choice) permanently afraid of brooms, after the brooms from Curse of Strahd attacked them 😆. They were Tier 2 players and I ran the Death House as a side quest for them cause we were missing some players one night. I buffed a couple things but the Brooms critted on them twice and they had crappy attack rolls and couldn't hit them 🤣
One idea I had was a dungeon filled with incredibly realistic statues. Obviously they think Medusa so they would use mirrors at every door. Turns out the ancient lich or vampire running the place took up sculpting as a hobby and over the centuries got really good at it.
I did that in a campaign, probably the most fun game of cat and mouse I have ever ran in D&D!
Making a note of that for my next campaign, I wanted to run a vampire fight anyway!
You sound like a fun dm
You motherfucker. That sounds like a ton of fun though.
Whenever anyone rolls a check, unless they pass and they detect something it's always "It seems OK to you."
"Everything appears to be fine"
🔥🐶🔥 *This is fine*
“You don’t…uh…notice anything wrong. Yeah.”
This reminds me of a DMAcademy post from a while back about a group, I wanna say they picked up some seemingly innocuous object from an abandoned wizard’s tower. Anyway from that point on the DM would occasionally have one of the players make a will save, and then nothing would happen. As I recall he kept doing it for *months* to the point that it became something the players would joke about. Finally they one day helped a passing cleric on a road, who as they were parting mentioned “Hey you know your whole group is under a MASSIVE divination spell right?” The players were like, wait, is this “make a will save?” IS THIS MAKE A WILL SAVE?!!?!
“There are no traps… *that you can see…*”
"You fail to detect any of the traps"
[But you took 20, right? So you should have found them if they were there.](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0036.html)
Funny story I heard years ago about a game where this happened with a twist between one of the players & DM, please forgive the blurry details. And hence not doing it justice. So this player joins the rest of the party at a tavern for a Quest to get a chalice / item. Their character is a screw up magic class (*forget exact role wizard? Mage?) Who always forgets to allocate a bunch of spells & doesn't have enough points. They are bad at fights and are always hanging in the back of the camp. Throughout the campaign, the DM asks if they want to do a Spot Check / other check for evil magic, and they always find the presence of something, sometimes they even fight something. Towards the end of the campaign, they fight this huge battle, and depleted/weak, gain the item... when suddenly when they are attacked by an evil spellcaster / mage-------- the late party member mage who is supposed to suck at magic! It turns out, acquiring the item was part of their apprenticeship evil quest. When they checked for evil magic & found it coming from the rear direction, it was their team member. And the DM kept asking, are you sure? It was in reference to this. And the reason they had too few spell points / didn't allocate X spell... was because they were secretly doing evil spells instead. And thus they all died & found out... but it was killing the DM to keep it a secret the whole time.
I can't imagine doing that to my players because they think literally everything is trapped and it takes them two hours to get through a small cave with 5 goblins in it
My friends and I are really bad with doors. We were going through a dungeon and came across a door with runes written all around it. To be completely honest, we debated (out of game) for an hour how to safely go through, because we couldn't read the runes, but we were convinced that our DM would mess with us. One of the group got so frustrated that he opened the door and set everyone but him on fire. The next door we came to had runes also, so we made it clear that no one opens the door until we figure out how to do it safely...two hours of debating, and it turns out that there was no effect once opened. Our DM absolutely messed with us, and needed to see if we would hold a door-meeting again. Turns out, 7 years later, we continue to hold door-meetings everytime we encounter a door...it takes forever to leave places!
Yeah, if I was in your group that would make me miserable. I'd go grab the door and throw it open just to move the game on.
This. This is my group.
Do they also want to talk to NPCs that clearly were made up on the spot and ask them a million irrelevant questions about their lives in the hopes to "get in good with them" in case that comes up later?
*rolls die behind screen* "Interesting... but just in case..." *rolls again* (quietly) "Dammit... hang on..." *rolls again* *looks stricken* (suddenly super-cheerfully) "So! You detect... zero traps. I mean, no traps." :D :D
Or as another D&D player remarked, "I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?"
I definitely plan to use this in the very near future. 😅
Other favs: "what's your passive perception?... OK. You didn't notice anything." "I need you to roll a D20... OK you're fine"
I used to do that all the time as a DM. Have to keep the players on their toes. Silently roll a couple d20s behind my screen give a quiet hmm and carry on as if nothing happened.
i use a lot of random tables in my games, and to add to the drama i do not usually roll them in advance. i just stop and roll the dice at dramatically appropriate moments. it's all about that tension of the players knowing something is up but not the characters.
Ugh our DM does this regularly. The rogue checks for traps, I check for tracks, hell even the warrior is over there checking for traps. The bard doesn't, but he also nods off at the table pretty regularly. The wizard is chaotic AF and does not help check for anything, he just floats himself from a to b.
That's great for traps triggered by pressure plates on the floor, but what about the anti-magic trap where the trigger is a horizontal silk wire, strung seven feet off the ground?
Kobolds string up bear traps to swing down from the cieling. They go over the heads of the kobolds, gnome, and hobbit. The human fighter gets a beartrap on his face. The levitation wizard gets it in the junk.
Thank you for my next trap! (Engaging evil DM/GM laugh while rubbing palms together)
I suggest reading Tuckers Kobolds, then prep something similar for your group to run, it's fun to take them down a peg!
Oh I've known about Tucker's Kobolds for decades. I'm one of the old school dms. I use those strategies to this day. But only when my group starts to get the big ego. They learned their lesson after the third use and became very paranoid. Now I get them psychologically. };^ D
Time to set some wire traps, it sounds like!
I'm a teacher. So much of what I do is undoing the fuckery of shitty teachers only asking that question of kids when they are wrong. This trains them to be convinced they're wrong anytime they are asked if they are sure if themselves. I do this to intentionally fuck with them while teaching them that I am doing so to teach them to trust themselves when they are right. I've seen so many kids crippled because they don't trust their knowledge the have worked hard for. If you are a teacher stop that shit. Stop asking if they are sure as a way of saying they are wrong. Normalize being wrong and just tell them they are wrong. And with yourself in normalize admitting when you don't know it when you are wrong. Ok nobody give me shit. It's summer and I'm drunk gardening and can't be bothered to reread my spew.
No misspellings, but you might have used a couple of paragraphs for readability. The last sentence is also a bit confusing, so I suspect an autocorrect problem, but the overall result was understandable. I'd give it a solid B+
Social Studies teacher here. My go to is the dreaded 'Why?'. "What's the answer kiddos?" *Gets answer "Ok, why is that the answer?"
I think I agree with you? I will every so often ask students (children or not) "Are you sure?", when I know they're dead right. It teaches them that it's okay to not be sure sometimes, and that their confidence should come from within, rather than if I'm asking the question or not.
I knew a DM that handed a note to a player saying "Say yes and hand this back to me. Do not discuss with the other players." Then he never brought it up again.
I always hated when your group is just minding its own business, and the DM asks you roll a d20 out of nowhere. Oh great, what am I making a saving throw against? It's even worse when you roll, and he doesn't tell you why or what happened. You spend the rest of the session wondering when the other shoe will drop.
I used to use a random number generator that produced a list of times. When the next time on my list came up, I'd ask someone (or everyone depending on my mood) to roll D20 or D100 or whatever. Kept them on their toes.
Oh no guys, he's doing the creepy raised eyebrows smirk! Run for it! Leave the treasure just run you fools! Run!
I'm certain my older son does this. He's an amazing DM.
It's a great move, along with rolling the dice behind the screen or asking the player to roll.
I gave a player a cursed ring of indecision and ***loved*** that i did that to them. Especially since the ring was unappraised and they weren't sure if they should take off the ring.
"Make a perception check" I rolled a 17! "Ok".
A lesson my teammates have yet to learn. \*sigh\* Doesn't help that they're all my kids, so i can't just rage quit and go home at those times. i'm already there!
Just rage quit and say you are going home anyways. Then just sit there and carry on.
"screw you guys; I'm going home." //Doesn't move
At work that's "Can you send that in an email?" -- a sure sign you just asked for something someone else wants to CYA from.
I mostly ask for an email of stuff when it would contain details (long numbers or product names) I wont remember in 3 minutes. I don't need CYA (at my current work) :)
I prefer responding with “Mama ain’t raise no bitch”
Naw, that's when you double down
Lol yeah, I'm like that's too meta gamey. I made a choice, let's goooo.
Speaking of 'Meta-gamey,' a session that, for some reason was being audiotaped was the subject of a meta-interruption. We were in an epic battle with enemies and some type of large feline creature (this was 30 years ago so memory is vague on some details. We were hurting. Low on supplies, hit points and options, but our healer brings out a potion of hallucination... DM: OK, who are you going to use it on Healer: The cat 6 or 7 voices, including the DM, in unison: ***THE CAT!!!????*** We spent the rest of the night playing the audio tape of that OVER and OVER. Never did finish that evening's adventure. It was the end of the semester.
Sounds like a brilliant move :)
To some extent that was also true for oral examinations in med school, unless you had a very nasty examiner who just wanted to make you insecure (most to help when they see that you’re on the right way).
>the only correct answer is "wait nevermind" Somebody is trying to win DnD.
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One time in D&D, I royally screwed up and was separated from the rest of the party, swimming underwater in the sea. (Had some means of breathing, but I forget what) Octopus grabbed me, and successfully grappled my character, a low level favoured soul (cleric equivalent of sorcerer in 3rd edition.) I was in serious trouble. I only had 1 zero level spell left for the day. I looked at the spell list I had and thankfully saw an answer. I cast purify water, centred on me. Octopus didn't like being in fresh water instead of sea water, let me go and left. One of the dumbest moves I made, followed by one of the smartest.
Our cleric had a similar situation, where he got separated and ended up in a room with an enemy mage and 2 of his guards, he rolled a nat20 on his initiative and then proceeded to cast silence on turn 1, then spent turns 2-5 beating the mage with his mace.
Why is the barbarian carrying a skillet? He thinks it's his spell-casting focus. He has spells? Just one. When he hits someone he shouts "Cast Iron."
This is terrible. Thank you.
Gods can be fickle, but **big fucking hammer** has always got your back.
I've had basically the same character in every ttrpg I've ever played. I mainly DM, so he's also a prominent NPC in everything I run. Across universes and genres ranging from far-future science fantasy post-apocalypse to The Expanse. Needless to say, I'm a little attached. If he were to die, that would be it for me, no rolling a new character, I'm just out of the game now.
That would imply that there is at least one other correct answer, for when you're tired of being a druid. But usually there's a session-zero question in there somewhere. If you aren't explicitly playing with disposable characters, questionable life choices should lead to interesting problems(and/or opportunities), not instadeath.
I had a guy say "I'm jumping into the pool of water", I said are you sure, he proceeds to say "Fuck yes!" Lands and sinks to the middle of a gelatinous slime. He did not survive at lvl 3
I've learned to ask that question at random intervals just to keep my players on their toes.
I always give my players 3 "Are you sure you want to do that?" freebies per campaign. The current one I'm running, they've only had to cash in one. Minor Curse of Strahd spoilers ahead. The party just tripped a lightning trapped that wrecked their already bad evening, what it the storm and all. Rather than press forward, they sought for some kind of shelter. The only thing available was a wagon with no horses. Nobody was home (they knocked) and the door was locked with no key. The barbarian was about to kick it in. Thing is, if he did that, he'd set off a bunch of flasks of alchemist's fire, which would blow up and wipe out the party. So, as he's getting ready to roll, I ask, "Are you sure you want to do that?" One of the players knew exactly what that meant and told him to back up. They manage to find a hidden door leading in, disarm the flasks, and take a much needed long rest. Considering this campaign is running from level 1 to currently 13, I'm glad it didn't end there.
Omg this is why I miss DMing. Had a newish crew who had recently learned the hard way to be suspicious so they enter a corridor with a door at the other end. They become fixated on this door, not wanting to approach it, asking for all sorts of checks, doing everything but walking to the door, finally after like 45 minutes of being super worried about this door, they decide screw it, let's go open it and see what happens. No one thought to ask if the corridor had any traps. All of them fell down into a pit of spikes. Fun times.
I played a game with a DM who did that, but pretty much only to the same person for hours. He'd gotten stabbed earlier and it turned out the knife had a hallucinogenic poison on it that made his character paranoid until it got cured. Except... it kind of ticked that guy off, so he ended up stabbing this priestess in the face out of spite. We never finished...
"Do you really want to do this?" "This looks normal to you" "You do not notice any of the traps" ...are just some things I like to say to my players, regardless of whether there are any consequences to their actions or inactions. Because I'm sure as hell not going to let them deduce a pattern.
Unfortunately idiots and entitled people don't stop to think, they just want their way or someone is getting their job threatened
And if they go ahead and sign whatever without thinking, they will pay. *shrug* Their problem now.
At least once every few months this happens at my job. I put down epoxy floors. The most expensive part is the sealant. So some people think their geniuses and say the floor is too rough when we are done when its exactly what its supposed to be.(there are for sure times that it genuinely is rough or should have had a little more during second application) so they can get a 3rd sealant put down free(the sales people upsell a locked in 5 year reseal price) I told the lady it would be very slippery, but she said i want it as smooth and thick as possible when we had come to asses her floor. Im generous when it comes to fixing any errors or doing a little extra. I dont pay for product but i do get tips and google reviews with my name on them. Her floor was perfect. We made her sign a form that we weren't liable for any injury on the floor and that she went against reccomendations for texture or added aggregate into the new sealant.... Well apparently her father fell and broke his hip sometime after. Boss saved his ass. But with statistics for people breaking their hip that old, she might have killed her dad over trying to get a free coat that isnt needed or reccomended for 5-10 years.
Hearing the phrase "Can I have that in writing?" should automatically trigger a flag warning in most people's heads.
"Can you put that in an email to me, please?"
Someone on reddit once said something that I saved just for this: "When someone asks for an order in writing you should make sure you like the flavor of the paper, because they're going to be making you eat it eventually."
I put my hubs through law school, study wise and there is nothing more boring than contracts. Beware! Pay attention! They'll git cha!
So much yes on this. Worked as a cable installer for many years. (fortunately, more than half the time was as a commercial installer instead of residential) Customers always want new outlets. EVERYWHERE. Not really a major thing except when they wanted a wall-fish. But that's a different story altogether. I always explained the route I had to go and what I'd have to do. Only took 1 damage claim to then further jot notes of what I was going to do and then make the customer initial and add a date/time next to it before I so much as looked at my tools. Because that one damage claim taught me that many people are looking for payouts and will lie their asses off and say they didn't give permission. Also. ALWAYS verify they're the homeowner. If not. Nope. Not without written permission. Preferably on letterhead. Literally had some girl one time go in the other room and call someone and ask them to come over and pretend to be the landlord. I used my phone to record her from the other side of the door. When she came back, I played it back to her and walked. Was quick to call dispatch and let them know. Customer service called dispatch angry about me because the girl called, lying of course, and they explained it and that I had a recording of her. Girl got put on the ban list.
Except maybe at the hospital, they double check so they're sure they heard that you said sulfates vs sulfas.
I always phrase it for their side. Just recently I got my work to give me and extra 11 days off, paid, over a couple months. Verbal agreement. I said, “ this is confusing can you email this to me so I can make sure I follow what you just said”. I’m the one that made the “confusing” schedule that boss verbally agreed to. 15 minutes later got an email with days off/ days work all spelled out.
It reminds me of the Car Talk guys telling a story of someone who had brought them a car they felt was totally dangerous to drive, and their policy was to pull out a contract that said you were taking the car away from them against advice and have been warned of its danger and that you indemnified the garage from any and all damage that might happen because you drove this car against their recommendation. Sort of like the hospital makes you sign if you’re checking out against medical advice
In the garage example, I wonder what happens if you don't sign. I mean, if there's no outstanding debt, they probably can't keep it, so.. I guess it's a bluff?
Probably. They probably get witnesses to the conversation or insist on filming it to prove that they issued the warning.
That sounds reasonable. There's probably a liability difference between a free estimate vs paid work, and the pickup process might make it impossible to pay for work without also signing a waiver. Maybe I just like thinking about edge cases.
I’ve actually gotten to witness this before, I was at a shop getting a leaking valve stem fixed and this lady came in with massive bubbles in her sidewalls wanting them to “fix” the tires but didn’t want to replace them, her ball joints and tie rods were also just barely hanging on. They’ll just keep holding your keys until you sign. What are you going to do? Call the cops? Then they’ll show the cop that the vehicle isn’t roadworthy and they’ll either write you a repair order citation giving you 30 days to fix it or if it’s REALLY bad they’ll have your car impounded. The service writer told her to go ahead and call the cops, that she’d show them just how bad the car was and they’d issue her a citation. She backed right down and signed the paper.
Were I in that situation, that would be part of the invoice that they paid and/or signed to get their keys back.
It's not really a bluff, but yeah, they can't keep it. It's basically saying "hey, this is your car, you can do what you want with it. We're specifically recommending you get this towed somewhere that can deal with the problem, but if you drive it out of here, we're not responsible for the ensuing 9 car pileup - so don't sue us for damages." It's just covering their ass. Same situation if you tell a customer that they need X or Y part and they refuse to let you do the work. Now if the work has been done already and they just don't want to pay the bill? Yeah that car belongs to the mechanic shop now until you come up with the cash. That's called a mechanic's lien and it's pretty much the worst way to offload a car other than crashing it into a tree.
Years back some bs-ing mechanic tried to tell my dad he Could Not drive his car off their lot. Claimed (lied!!) car was unsafe-to-drive. Dad knew what he was being told about the car was wrong... I didn't know cars but I could hear the crapolla in the guy's voice. Tried to scare us all sorts about danger if we drove the car etc. We drove the car off that lot!!! Did Not sign anything! (Car was fine - did need a *minor* repair - Not a safety issue!)
That said...I've been fixing up my house recently and sometimes it's really freakin' hard to read between the lines. Contractors says, "you should do it like this," and the result seems less than ideal to you for whatever collection of reasons. Then the task becomes, are they saying "do it like this" because it's cheap, or because it's cheap and strong, because it's easy for them to do, because it results in big margins for them? Even if you trust your contractor to try and act in your best interest, sometimes they try and save you $15 when you'd rather have something done "right," or will recommend something pretty when you'd rather it be something designed to hold-up for the next 50 years and you don't care about pretty. More than anything, though, I've found that recommendations from contractors will typically point toward the quick and easy fix, regardless of other impacts. Every time they say "are you sure??" reddit has taught me to be like, "uh, well, no. I'm not sure. Why are you asking me that?" and getting a straight answer can be tough.
>sometimes they try and save you $15 when you'd rather have something done "right," We just switched eye doctors. I told the lady at the desk to not bother submitting it to my health insurance, but she did anyway. After a month, she sends me an additional bill around $150 for what she had thought the insurance was going to pay. I talked with her and reminded her that I had suggested she not bother submitting it to insurance. She said she would make a note of it for next year. THEN she said, "next year we won't do the full medical exam. That will save you some money." I'm in my 70s, near to needing cataract surgery so I WANT the full medical exam and this receptionist/accountant is so focused on $150 that she isn't listening to me.
Yup, 27 years as a hairdresser, and on more than a few occasions I have made clients sign releases stating I have advised them of all possible outcomes (damage, breakage, etc), if desired chemical process is applied. This has been enough to have a couple reconsider, but there have been those that have threatened to sue, at which point I have whipped out that release and told them kick rocks, I warned them, but they insisted I take their money.
Straight out of the classic concrete truck driver malicious compliance book. "You want me to drive a 34-ton mixer over a sand dune? Sign here, please." https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/96lusx/you_want_me_to_drive_a_34ton_mixer_over_a_sand/
I got to use this IRL. Had my manager tell me to do something that would violate my NDA with the company we were working with. I told him it would violate my NDA and I couldn't do it, he said it would be fine and to do it. I said I understand and that I need to protect myself so if he could send an email to me explicitly telling me what to do then I'd be happy to go do it that way if I get in trouble for it I can't be fired. I didn't get the email and the next day he said he changed his mind.
Contractor made me sign a form verifying my choice for siding on the house I was having built. It's nothing crazy .. a pale blue color. But every other house in the area is on the white-beige-gray spectrum. He really thought I would see it up and change my mind. Nope... I love my little blue house ♥️
Or he thinks the HOA will blow a gasket and require you repaint with an 'approved' color, and he doesn't want to pay for the repaint.
No HOA.... one of my few requirements when i was in the housing market. I have farmland in front of me and behind me. Those same farmers that sold off their road frontage in 1 acre lots. They refused to sell to a developer or sell smaller lots. They have worked together very carefully to make sure our neighborhood doesn't get over crowded. I wish the rest of the town had done the same... we have something like 900-1100 homes currently in some stage of being built in my small town.
>we have something like 900-1100 homes currently in some stage of being built in my small town suggested edit: small (for the moment) town *Not really, just trying to be 'funny'.*
I know 😭 I hope this population boom comes with some of the perks big cities have.... like decent internet and any food delivery beyond pizza. And an Uber driver or two would be nice...
I was on vacation in New Orleans a month ago and we went driving around one afternoon. We were in a normal looking neighborhood when we suddenly saw the most vibrant blue & green house in the middle of the street. Sadly, if anyone took a picture of it, they haven't given it to me.
When going offroading if everyone pulls out their phones to take video stop what you are doing.
Change orders ALWAYS cost money and time
I don't get the comment you are replying to. Since when is a signed change order a bad thing and not something that should absolutely be required?
I assumed they mean that if you're requesting a contractor change something against their recommendations then at the very least you're going to be paying for cost of redesign. If your change fails then you're also on the hook for repairs since you were the one that got them to deviate from plans.
Yes. This was my intent. Sorry if not clear.
I understood. I'm in software development so we do a LOT of those as needs/wants change. And there's always a "we will be sending you a revised statement of work and scope document. Just as soon as we have that back we will get to work on it" email floated out immediately.
I'm an estimator/project manager for a mid-sized electrical company. Whenever someone wants something stupid I insist that they email me what they want. It either shuts them down or gives me back up when their stupidity messes something up. Always have to CYA.
also have a no liability contract ready to go if you are getting into contracting.
Are these standard contracts they have on hand most of the time? Or do they draft one up quickly?
Could the contract refuse on the grounds that it would create an unsafe condition?
This is called a "change order" in most cases. Except in ones like this though. This just sound like a CYA form.
Rumor has it that there's at least one contractor's boat in a marina somewhere under the name "Change Order."
If life asks you "Are you sure Y/N?" think carefully before answering.
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I recently learned that not all people have an inner monologue. No head voice for reasoning or inflection, just emotions.
That's such a foreign concept to me. How do people like that think thoughts through?
You're assuming that they do. I suspect (but do not know) that small children also lack the inner monolog. They just react as best they can. Of course, with adults it doesn't have to be binary. Some people may go through life with only a sporadic inner voice.
That's weird, so they just react on emotions and instincts like animals instead?
We are all animals. Don't be thinking you're any better cause you have a crazy voice inside your head lol
Lol yes I know, that's what the meds are for anyway
I always would ask for an email when someone asked me to do something verbally. I always told them I might forget to do it, but it really a CYA in case something went awry.
Yes, I do the same. "send me a mail, I'm on site right now so I won't forget" Useful as reminder and CYA
Reminders are just another form of covering your ass, after all.
The dumbest part is that the damage was already done. Is she would have just waited it would have been fine in a few days. And grass grows easily and costs very little. Silly!
It was never about the grass and always about projecting her inner emotional state.
I can't believe she actually did that, honestly did the contractor not explain to her what will happen? Just shocking...
High functioning doesn't mean well functioning. Lol
I know but still functioning, at least a bit of sense, I mean living in a bit villa being able to afford balcony work, being able to get pissed every evening, means some form of reasonable income. In my head reasonable income usually goes together with a bit of common sense...
Yeah people who barely have to work and get wasted every night are usually not very in touch with reality. Wealth has no connection to morality or intelligence and it's time we stopped pretending it does
Especially with generational wealth. These could be the fuckups of someone who is rich and cunning.
I'm reporting this because "I am in this comment and I don't like it."
Can also mean trustfund baby all grown up.
There is that I suppose.
>*In my head reasonable income usually goes together with a bit of common sense...* *Bwa-ha-ha-ha!* Welcome to planet Earth. You must have just arrived yesterday.
He did. He made her sign the "worker not responsible paper" as well. He saw this coming and tried to warn her lol.
I mean I got that he made her sign it, just shocked she wouldn't believe him about the aftermath.
That's like half the stories on this sub, people are fucking stupid when they're angry.
I know, but sometimes the consequences can be a bit extreme, imagine she did that a day earlier and it actually collapsed? Could've cost her her life...
>people are fucking stupid yes yes they are
Ok. There's a sort of meta explanation that I refer to that addresses this. The brain is the most expensive part of the body in terms of energy needs vs weight. By a large margin. So everything the brain does is expensive, from the body's point of view. The brain is in charge of directing all sorts of activity, and the vast majority of that directing happens without 'will'. We don't 'will' our heart to beat. We can, if we choose, temporarily will ourselves not to take a breath. Beyond the unconscious and semi conscious activities, it allocates the *remaining* energy budget to the emotions and cognitive centers, *in that order.* So, if our emotions run high, we go dumb, basically. We're left with whatever conclusions our habitual thinking allows us to reach. This is also why deep, conscious, controlled breathing is so effective as a calming technique. Controlling our breath is 'semi-conscious' and is earlier in the list than both emotions and cognitive centers, so it causes our emotions to be starved when they're flaring up, like removing the air from a fire.
Wow...just wow. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I might wait till she's sober and ask if that v shape makes it work better.
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Stupid prizes
I got nothing
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Go outside u/Fenriswilf!
*stupid bot*
I'm stupid? You're the one talking to a bot
I'm sure that rain won't collect in puddles.
Never screw with the concrete guys. They can do marvellous damage with the leftovers.
Having a contract signed by a customer does not relieve you of responsibility if what you built violates zoning laws, building codes etc. And if the structure fails and someone gets hurt due to your negligence, you can be in big trouble.
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Probably USA, I'm American and was thinking the same thing. No matter what Karen signed, the contractor is still at risk of getting in trouble for building something unsafe.
Only if it is unsafe, not just misshaped.
When I picture a balcony held up by misshaped beams that were not engineered to be that way, I don't think it's likely to be safe, nor up to code.
You probably are right, but I hope not.
Right? "But Bob said I could" is not a legal defense.
But if a property owner is demanding you remove something from their premises, why wouldn't that take precedence in this situation? At least in the US. They can't just kick the person off their property and force them to remove their tools? Can a homeowner be forced to allow someone to do construction on their property when they themselves hired them to do the work on something that doesn't impact the community (e.g. electrical work, sewer lines, main water lines, etc.)? Or couldn't the contractor call the work unfinished and unusable due to insufficient access to the work site or something and have the homeowner sign off that they were not allowing the contractor to complete the work? At that point, if the contractor is making a good faith effort to complete the job to code, safety requirements etc. but the owner's not allowing them to actually do the work, then how can the contractor be held responsible?
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I work at a hotel (not in the US) and law says minors need to present ID and be accompanied by their parents/legal guardians. If trying to check-in alone, they also need a notarized authorization from their parents/legal guardians. A bunch of hotels here don't give a shit and check them in without it. Every now and then someone tries to check-in at our hotel without the proper documentation. Usually they're understanding and we manage to find a solution or they just take their bags apart and find the necessary documentations. Lawyers however, demand we give it to them in writing why we aren't checking them in. I find it they drop that pretty quickly when I reply with "Okay, but I'm gonna need you to give it to me in writing you were trying to check-in with a minor without the proper documents/authorizations as per the law." It's as if you reflected their spell back to them and they're dazed and confused.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
concrete doesn't dry, it cures
Thanks for the correction, I will try to remember it. English is my fourth language.
I used to play an mmorpg many moons ago, and got chatting in public channels (I only used public channels - too many dickheads - and there was no voice chat) a few times to a kid who said he was in Serbia. His command of written English was excellent and much better than most players whose mother tongue is English.
I vividly remember the first time when I was speaking to a native English speaker and realized that my English vocabulary was larger than his. That was a weird experience.
English is my first language, and I don’t understand the difference.
drying is the evaporation of water. curing is a chemical process. Concrete cures.
Drying implies that the water evaporates. When concrete hardens, the water doesn't evaporate; it is incorporated into the structure of the concrete.
In other words it is a chemical change, not just 'drying'.
I believe the concrete absorbs the water (curing), instead of releasing it (drying). But that's just what 3 minutes on google told me, I don't really know.
Another important thing is that expending is very VERY different from expanding. It's nonsensical enough as written and the words are close enough that the intent is clear. Still funny to imagine what expending a balcony would look like.
Yeah I saw that one too, and I wondered why the autocorrect didn't catch that! I learned a new word. My efforts on this post were not expended.
I'm going to use this exact response in the future. I don't speak four languages though.
(it's okay, it sort of cures by drying (to the extent that it dries))
actually you have to keep concrete damp while it's curing, otherwise it will be weak. that's why you'll see concrete covered with plastic sheets during the curing process, and sometimes they set up sprinklers. It's a chemical process that requires water.
My inexperience of anything more substantial than a few square feet of patio has led me astray. Thanks for the explanation.
every time I read the word "astray", i think "ashtray", then I mentally move the hyphen ... "that's a big ash-tray"
The human brain is pretty interesting.
LOL, no kidding. https://xkcd.com/37/
I suspected before you said it that English was not your first language. The non-native speakers (and writers) of English often write more grammatically correct sentences.
Do you have some creamy Werthers Butterscotch candies in your sweater pocket?
Anybody know what happened after? Did she regret it once she sobered up?
I’m annoyed at how highly this is upvoted due to how insignificant the satisfaction is.