When working out in the field, you never know what you are going to run into, and sometimes your boss back at the main office has no idea how to help.

What would you do if you were told to drill a hole through concrete with rebar, but you only had a basic hand drill?

That is the situation the field technician in this story was in, but his boss told him to get it done, so he ruined multiple drill bits, wasted days of time, and even broke some cables before the boss finally admitted that he needed to get a crew with the right tools out to the site.

I bet that’s not what he had in mind.

I warned my supervisor it was a bad idea, he told me to do it anyways, costing the company quite a bit of money.

I work as a field technician and my job is to go to various commercial locations and install or repair networking equipment.

So about 2 months ago they sent me to this site where I needed to drill a hole through a concrete wall.

I wasn’t able to do it, despite going to the store and picking up new drill bits rated for masonry.

I hit rebar and couldn’t make any progress.

I notified my supervisor (we’ll just call him Bob) and he told me to continue drilling.

I protested, claiming that there’s no way my handheld power drill can do it, but no.

How does he expect him to do this?

Do it anyways. So I did.

I drilled and drilled and drilled.

I made no progress in about 45 minutes until I got a text from Bob.

“Hey how’s it coming along?”

“Not too well. We might have to reschedule. I’ve been trying to do this for over an hour and no dice.”

I send him a picture of the hole in drilling along with a picture of several extremely damaged drill bits.

He gets mad at me claiming that I’m not doing it right, to which I respond that I’m doing exactly what he told me to do and that I warned him it wouldn’t do anything.

So reluctantly, he agrees to reschedule, but I make it very clear to him that this hole needs to be drilled by someone with better tools.

He agrees and says he will have someone out there next week to finish it.

A month later I get the work order for the same site.

I arrive and see the hole still there and upon closer inspection, it’s still not finished.

I immediately called Bob and tell him the situation.

“Hey Bob, there’s no chance I’m going to be able to finish this install today. I spoke with you last month and we both agreed it would be best for a different technician to finish the site. The hole has not been drilled yet.”

He is asking for the impossible.

“Oh… Can you just try to finish the hole? We have to do something”

“Sure, but I promise it’s not going to help at all.”

So I drill for 20 more minutes, pretty much ruining my brand new drill bits and call him back.

“Bob, it’s not going to work. I can’t drill through rebar with my tools.”

“Is there another pre-existing hole nearby?”

“Yes, but the hole is filled with cables and sealed on the-“

“Just use that hole I don’t care how you do it”

“Sir it’s a bad idea and I don’t want to damage the existing cables”

“I just need it done. Please do it”

No surprise there.

So I do. I break the sealing on the other side, and in doing so, break 7 of the 12 cables going into the hole.

Noticing this, I panic and call back Bob.

“I’ve got bad news. I broke the seal off the hole and in turn, broke 7 cameras”

Bob didn’t say anything for about 40 seconds before, “Are you able to re run the cables to the camera?”

“There’s at least 5 more cables in that hole, so unless you want me to break the rest of them, and spend several more hours fixing it, then no.”

“Well we have to fix it, no matter what.”

“I won’t be able to do it alone, and some of these cables are routed through the ceiling, which is way too high up for my ladder. I need a scissor lift to reach it, not to mention the client is now mad at ME.”

“Okay okay. How much time do you need”

“There is absolutely no way I can get this done today. So you can keep me at this site and pay me to sit around, or you can reschedule and ACTUALLY FIX THIS”

Bob hangs up on me and after an hour tells me to go home.

He should have just done this from the beginning.

Last week I heard they got 2 other technicians to completely re-wire everything, rented a scissor lift, actually finished the original job, and reimbursed me for all my drill bits.

I have no way to tell how much all of it costed, but it definitely wasn’t cheap.

Why wouldn’t he listen to the guy who is on site and actually looking at the problem?

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this situation.

This commenter has a solution.

Just moving the hole should be easy.

Of course, NOW they drill the hole.

Wow, he could have gotten really hurt.

I’m surprised at this as well.

Why do bosses never listen?

They should consult Reddit and learn why they need to.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.