There are a lot of expenses that go along with setting up a booth at a trade show.

Every little thing costs money, and that can really add up for a small business.

In today’s story, one person with a booth at a trade show felt obligated to pay to have someone vacuum the carpet at his booth; however, he made it into a much more labor intensive job than it needed to be.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

I paid for an hour.

Not me, but it happened while I was at a trade show in Vegas to the guy in the booth next to us.

This was about 15 years ago….

At the time we were a small company and because of this we only afford the cheapest booth way in the back.

We referred to it affectionately as the slums.

All the big players had huge booths up front while we were in one of the last rows in a 10×10.

They didn’t take very long to set up.

If anyone has set a booth up at one of the big trade shows you know the unions run them very hard core.

Any little extra you want is a cost.

You can’t do anything yourself.

It’s amazing, even at that time, what things cost; Internet, power, carpet for your booth, etc.

Well the first day is all vendors and a nightmare show.

Some people are there all day setting up.

We showed up about Noon, spent about 30 minutes setting up and then went off to get a drink.

We met the guy next to us who was all by himself as we were leaving.

Talked for a minute and then bounced.

Setup day is quite different than opening day.

To see a trade show go from the vendor setup to a functioning show with booths and everything is a sight to see.

The first day is dodging fork lifts, people and getting lost because there isn’t much order yet.

The next day things are cleaned up, signs are up and everyone is ready to go.

The guy at the booth next door has a story.

We stroll in about an hour before the start the next day.

We have our coffee, sit down and are talking about to talk about the antics we had the night before when the guy we met yesterday asks us if we want to hear a good story and he begins…

So what the unions do at the end of the day is pick up all the garbage and vacuum all the main aisles.

What they don’t do is clean up each individual booth.

That costs extra.

The carpet really needed to be cleaned.

Our neighbor set up his booth and then noticed his 10×10 carpet was a mess.

He leaves his booth in search of a vacuum cleaner and eventually tracks down a union guy and asks to borrow a vacuum cleaner.

The guy says he will send someone over. Great.

An hour later a union boss shows up and says he has to pay for a minimum of an hour for someone to vacuum his booth.

Our new found friend says this is ridiculous since it should take less than a few minutes.

The guy says sorry, those are the rules.

Our friend is annoyed but his booth is messy and so he agrees.

It didn’t take very long to vacuum the carpet.

Another hour goes by and a guy with a vacuum cleaner and work order shows up for him to sign.

Something like $100 to get his booth vacuumed.

He signs and the guy gets to work.

Literally a minute or two later and the guy is done and starts to pack up.

Our friend asks him what he is doing.

The guy says his work is done.

He did pay for an hour.

My friend tells him it’s not. He is paying for an hour and he will get his hour.

Union guy is annoyed and goes to get his boss.

A little while later the boss comes back and asks what the issue is.

My friend shows him the work order.

Says he is getting charged for an hour and the guy has only spent about two minutes worth of work vacuuming.

He wants his full hour.

This is funny!

The boss looks at him, looks at the paperwork, sighs, looks at the union guy and tells him to get back to work.

That guy vacuumed the carpet for an hour while our friend watched.

He said it was the biggest revenge on them and well worth the money for the cleanest carpet at the show.

To this day it’s a story I think of when I go to trade shows and see the small 10×10 booths.

I still have a good chuckle.

He’s not wrong. He did pay for an hour.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s a similar story from the computer service industry.

This reader shares a similar story from the movie industry.

The guy vacuuming was just a pawn in this game.

This person makes sure clients can’t require the same thing of him.

This person shares a loophole that the union worker could’ve pointed out.

The 1-hour policy really needs to be modified.

Because people aren’t going to stop being nightmares.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.