ONETIME- Unsupervised help: Hey, watch out for that septic tank

Bill Herring of Eagle Window
PHOTO BY RYAN HOOVER

One time, I heard about a truck driver who was dumping a load of gravel at some people's house. Nobody showed him where the septic tank was, so when he backed up into the yard, he ended up in the septic tank with his whole truck. It was a big tank– at least a 1,200 or 1,500 gallon tank– but his back tires went over it dead center, and the whole top collapsed and dumped the rear end of the truck sitting cockeyed into it.

 Nobody got hurt, but the septic tank was ruined.

 It could have been prevented if somebody had been there to show him where the septic tank was instead of leaving him on his own to do something like that. Things like that happen quite often in the trades– something silly like that. It was something so simple– just to deliver a load of gravel– but he was trying to turn around in a confined area, but unfortunately the septic tank was close to the driveway area and he pulled back in the front yard, and that's when it happened.

 How can accidents like this can prevented? If the homeowner's not at the jobsite, the company ought to have somebody in charge that knows what they're doing, because stupid things can happen. 

Just a few years ago, about the time the storm window business was a big thing, this competitor of ours had a job to do in town, and all the houses in the neighborhood looked very similar– same-size windows and everything. He installed the windows on the next-door neighbor's house when they weren't home. And needless to say he couldn't take them off, so the next-door neighbor got a free window job. 

Well, these people came home, and they noticed that they had new storm windows and they didn't have the slightest idea why until the next day when the homeowner next door who was waiting for his didn't have any and went looking. 

That's a perfect case of what happens with unsupervised helpers. 

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