Tradespeople have some of the toughest jobs that often involve physical exertion.
Skilled workers like welders, electricians, and consruction workers often put their lives at risk at the work site but they possess a lot of pride in what they do are very dedicated, hard-working people.
But even they have a breaking point that leads them to walk out on a job.
Curious to hear from blue-collar workers, Redditor imakesawdust asked:
"Electricians, plumbers and tradespeople of Reddit: Have you ever noped out of a job? What was it?"
Hard No
Adverse working conditions and difficult people can determine if a job is worth sticking around for.
Flying Roaches
"I am an automotive tech, the only jobs I utterly refuse to work on are cars that are filled with trash and filth. I have literally had roaches fly out of the ac vents when the ac came on. Y'all would be disgusted at the way some people keep their cars."
Wild Accusation
"I used to work on a crew that built additions on houses. One lady got upset that we were cutting a hole thru her wall for the door. She called her husband who came home from work, he told our boss that she was accusing us of trying to break in and assault her. My boss had us pack up and leave and we never went back."
– Sigg4444
Too Much Wood
"Work in a lumber mill, a loader operator knocked 4 bundles of 2" thick by 6" wide by 16' long into the river, so over 1200 pieces and a boss told me to get it out of the river... during a thunderstorm."
"F'k all that noise sir."
"Edit: the wood wasn't 2 feet by 6 feet by 16 inches, that would be weird just fixed it lol not American my bad."
Unsanitary Wasteland
"Mechanic here.""
When I used to work on cars, I had to pull the front seats out of a horrendously dirty smelly car to remove the center console."
"Proceeded to removed the front seat, and found the whole area under the seat was stuffed full with Dirty used tampons and pads."
"I nearly threw up and I yeeted the f'k outta there. We had to call up and get biohazard guys in because she wouldn't come and clean out the car."
"' Karen' then proceeded to have a screaming match with my foreman about the bill....."
"I've seen alot of sh*t but hands down this was the worst."
When Life Matters More
These people prioritized their lives over their jobs. Because they should be alive to cash their paychecks.
Wobbly House
"Got hired to do a vapor barrier job in a crawl space. Old 1920's home. I suited up and got in about 15 ft and saw that the center load bearing beam had rotted out near the footer. Somebody took a cinder block and a 8 ton harbor freight bottle jack to shore it back up. Whole thing wobbled as folks moved around in the house. Got the f'k up out of there."
Project Of Peril
"I was called out for a termite inspection. Homeowners said they had been told for years they had a problem but it took one of their bedrooms floors collapsing to finally do something about it."
"I hauled a** out of the crawl space when I found the only thing that was keeping the floor from fully collapsing was a single electrical wire that at any moment it could snap and collapse the floor on me."
– dahopppa
Unexpected Shower
"I was working in a newly restarted 130 year old paper mill, they hadn't worked out the kinks in the pulp mill yet. The short version is my toolie and I got coated in black liquor that flowed from an uncapped pipe 70 feet in the air. It was outside, in December, so luckily it wasn't boiling lava hot when it hit us but we still had to make a trip to urgent care. And we lost our work truck because it was white and after the spill was black. We came back the next week, but refused to work on that end of the digester."
"Edit: I'm an electrician."
The Unexpected
These tradespeople found that unforeseen circumstances can be enough of a reason to peace out.
Saying 'No'
"Landscaper here. Honestly it's about 50% of the meetings I go to. Learning how to say no is essential in this business. You can go out of business doing not good jobs quicker than you can not working."
The Panicked Landscaper
"I hired a landscaper once, small-time guy doing it as a sideline. We talked about all kinds of plans, seeding grass, cleaning up overgrown parts of the yard, and taking out two giant, ancient bushes that were crowding the house."
"He shows up to take out the bushes, and a few hours later calls be, all freaked out that the bushes have roots that go down to hell and it was taking a lot longer than estimated to get them out. I made it clear to him that I had half expected that, and that I had no problem paying for however long the job actually took. He was absolutely in a panic, though. He got the bushes done, then noped the hell out on the rest of it and never got back to me."
"Somehow, I couldn't make him understand that I was way more pissed that he bailed on the rest of the work than the fact that he underestimated the job initially."
– DMala
The Clog
"A bit late to this but.... I'm a plumber, went to unblock an old ladies toilet, she'd tried to flush her dead cat, it was stuck, and very wet, and soggy...."
Result Of Depression
"I noped out of a job back when I was a sparky. We had ~100 men onsite at a uranium enrichment facility; pay was good, but the conditions weren't. It was way out in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, with nothing to do beyond go to work then go back to the camp and drink. I got depressed after spending 6 weeks onsite, as did a lot of others. The straw that broke the camels back for me was when we found one of the apprentices dead in his trailer. His girlfriend broke up with him because he was never home anymore, he turned to the bottle.
Based on the comments shared in the subReddit, many of these skilled or unskilled laborers have dealt with their share of hardships.
But the situations prompting many laborers to bail out on a job were mostly the ones where their lives were in jeopardy.
Because would you rather have an old home come crashing down on you and bury you alive, or come face to face with a mountain of used tampons while working on a car?
No toss-up here.
@LeeMerrittesq/X
@bob_moss/X
@jelanijones/Bluesky
@Aurkayne/X
@sadcommunistdog; @froglok/Bluesky