Imagine working on a job but you know you don’t have the tools you would need to successfully finish the job. Would you keep working on it anyway, buy different tools, or tell your supervisor you can’t do it?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and his supervisor really doesn’t seem to understand the problem. One issue leads to a bigger issue until the supervisor eventually had to get the mess fixed correctly.

Keep reading for all the details.

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.

If it’s not working, it’s not working.

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

The supervisor was not happy.

“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.

But that didn’t happen.

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.”

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

It doesn’t work.

“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?”

Uh-oh!

“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”

It was bad!

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”

This is really bad!

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 ticked off at ME.”

He knew he couldn’t do the job alone.

“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.

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.

The supervisor messed up by not sending someone else out to do the job, someone with more powerful tools.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person expected it to work out differently.

Another person shares how they solved a similar problem.

The right drill bit makes a big difference.

Another person thinks he just needed to switch drill bits.

That problem was completely avoidable.

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.