Had an old foreman tell me to stop using my impact driver on outlet screws

It was a rough Friday afternoon at a job site near Richmond. We were doing a whole house rewire and I was zipping those screws down fast with my trusty impact driver. He pulled me aside and said I was cracking the plastic tabs on the receptacles. He made me grab his handheld screwdriver for the rest of the day. I was annoyed at first but now I only use a regular drill on low speed for outlets, no more cracked tabs. Has anyone else had a foreman call them out on a small habit like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

zara_miller24d ago

Wait, your foreman actually made you switch to a HANDHELD screwdriver for the rest of the day? That's insane. Like, I get the point about cracking tabs, but that's a huge waste of time on a rewire. I would have been ticked off too. Cracking plastic tabs is definitely a thing though, I've seen it happen when guys use too much torque. But a regular drill on low speed is a good middle ground, not too slow, not too fast. Your foreman sounds like a real hardass, honestly.

cora56224d ago

Did your buddy work for the same company? I had a friend who got handed a hand screwdriver for a whole week on a panel swap after he zipped a screw through a brand new breaker. Foreman made him sit there on a milk crate, turning each one by hand while the rest of us were using impacts. He said the worst part was having to take lunch at the same time as everyone else, because he was way behind and had to skip his break just to catch up.

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