This story isn’t mine, but I was with the man it happened to when the situation exploded. He isn’t on Reddit, so with his permission, I’m sharing it. It’s priceless.
In the UK, there’s a system for preserving ancient and important buildings. If a building is deemed historically significant, it’s “listed,” and the rules for its maintenance and renovation are incredibly strict. My friend, David, is a master craftsman in a very niche area of construction. He restores these buildings using methods that haven’t been common for centuries.
A major contractor, ACC Limited, was working on a prestigious Grade I listed property. A portion of the work was so specialized that the contractor’s managers had no idea who could do it. The project architect gave them a short list of qualified people, and they chose David because he had the earliest availability.
Five days into the job, the owner of ACC Limited arrived on site. Let’s call him “Noisy,” because, in David’s words, he was throwing his weight around and being a “noisy gobshite.” David, focused on his meticulous work, simply ignored him. The boss bellowed at a carpenter to get him a coffee, then continued wandering the site, complaining loudly about delays costing him a fortune.
Fifteen minutes later, the still coffee-less boss turned his attention to David.
Noisy: “Where is that blasted chippy with my coffee?” (Chippy is slang for a carpenter). David: “Don’t know.” Noisy: “Go and find out.” David: (Pointing to the walls) “I’m only here for this job. I don’t work for ACC Limited.” Noisy: “I don’t give a toss whether you’re an employee or a subcontractor! You work for me. Now go and find my coffee!” David: “Firstly, I don’t appreciate being spoken to like that. And secondly, my contract is to do these walls, nothing more. I’m definitely not your gofer.” Noisy: “Oh, you don’t appreciate it, do you? Which subcontractor do you work for?” David: “None. I’m self-employed. It’s just me.” Noisy: “A day laborer, and you’ve got the nerve to talk to me like that? Do you know who I am?” David: “Yep.” Noisy: “Well, you’re fired! Get off my site, now!” David: “Okay. Put it in writing.” Noisy: “Get lost! Just get off the site!”
David pulled out his phone and started recording. “Okay, I’ll go. I just want proof you told me to go.”
This sent the boss into a rage. He grabbed David’s hand and screamed directly into the phone’s microphone.
Noisy: “Get off the site, you complete idiot! You’re fired! If you’re still here in ten minutes, I’ll have you thrown out!”
“Cool, no problem,” David said. He calmly packed up his tools and walked away. As he was leaving, the site manager, ironically, passed him holding a coffee for the boss.
Site Manager: (Joking) “Leaving early, Dave?” David: “No. Your boss just fired me. Our contract is terminated. Sorry, mate.”
The site manager’s face went white. He knew something the boss didn’t. There are only about twenty people in the entire UK qualified to do David’s work. They all have long waiting lists. David had been the only one available for months.
By the time David got home, he had twelve missed calls.
That was a Thursday. David let them sweat. He told me he would go back, but only under two conditions: he gets paid for the extra days of work he’ll now have to put in, and he receives a genuine, face-to-face apology from the boss himself. He then phoned the other specialists to give them a heads-up, only to find they had all been called on Friday with desperate pleas to take the job. None did; they were booked solid for the foreseeable future.
David also called the architect to warn him of the situation. Unscrupulous contractors in these situations sometimes try to bodge the job with modern materials and fake the results, a serious offense with listed buildings.
The next call from the site manager was a new low. He was deeply embarrassed, explaining that Noisy had ordered him to threaten legal action if David didn’t return to finish the job. David calmly reminded him that he didn’t quit; he was fired, and he had proof.
A few hours later, the site manager called again, his tone now pleading. Noisy had agreed to apologize face-to-face on Friday. Could David please start tomorrow?
“No,” David said. “After the threat of legal action, my conditions have changed.”
His new terms were simple and non-negotiable:
- A face-to-face apology before any work restarts.
- Full payment for all wasted days.
- The full contract value paid upfront.
- All of this must happen by the upcoming Thursday, the last possible day he could start and still finish the job before his next booking began.
I asked him why he wasn’t charging a massive premium for the hassle. He said it doesn’t look good to take advantage of a company under pressure. It’s “not the done thing.” My friend, it seems, is an 18th-century gentleman.
Unfortunately, the apology never happened. David discovered that the site manager was blamed for the whole fiasco and was fired. Upon hearing this, David called the Operations Director of ACC Limited—Noisy’s number two—and informed him that an apology was no longer required, as he would not be returning to the job under any circumstances. The director was profusely apologetic and offered to renegotiate the money generously. David refused. He told the director he was only considering returning as a personal favor to the site manager. Since that man was gone, he felt no further obligation.
The story took an unexpected turn from there. The fired site manager, a man just four years from retirement, was offered a new, better-paying job on a fixed-term contract, thanks to a recommendation from the project’s architect, who had been kept informed by David.
Meanwhile, back at the listed building, David heard that ACC had hired a Bulgarian craftsman named Stefan to finish the job. David was grinning when he told me this. He suspected he knew what was about to happen. There is a similar, but crucially different, construction technique used on some 19th-century buildings in Sofia, Bulgaria. It looks almost identical, but two of the key materials are different. For a Grade I listed 17th-century English building, using the wrong materials is a catastrophic error.
David decided to wait. He would let Stefan finish the job and get paid. In his words, “I don’t want the man to drag himself all the way over here and go home empty-handed just because I can’t wait to see this through.”
As suspected, Stefan started work using materials from an ordinary building supplier. He never contacted any of the three specialist UK suppliers who stock the correct, obscure material. Three weeks later, the job was done, and Stefan went home.
Then, David made his move. He contacted the local authority’s planning department, the client, and the architect, explaining his concerns and suggesting a simple, non-intrusive way to test the materials.
The results came back in days. The architect was the first to call, absolutely furious. He’d never heard the man use bad language before, but this phone call was blue. The wrong method had been used with the wrong materials. The architect called Noisy an “ignorant cockwomble.”
Then it got worse. The inspectors, now on high alert, looked around the rest of the site. They found another issue. An internal feature of the roof structure, which didn’t look important to the untrained eye, had been removed and replaced with a modern support. It was a cheaper, quicker option than the mandated, expensive repair. Destroying any original part of a property like this is a criminal offense, potentially carrying jail time.
Guess who ordered it? Noisy, of course.
The client immediately ordered all of ACC’s staff off the site and put the contract out for new bids. They announced their intention to sue ACC for the cost of repairing and replacing everything, an estimate the architect placed at £800,000. The local planning authority wrote to ACC, advising them of an impending inspection and the possibility of prosecution.
The day the letter arrived, Noisy disappeared to see his lawyers. His company was in freefall. And the big news of the week, which came to David from no less than four different ACC employees who couldn’t wait to tell him, was that Noisy had been fired. He had inherited the business, but his brother and cousin owned a combined share of over 50%. Terrified that the fines and lawsuits would bankrupt the company, they voted him out. He was escorted off the premises, screaming threats of violence.
(The following was posted on March 2nd, 2020)
Hi. This is Mark’s wife. The idiot asked me to apologize to the internet for his silence. He was hurt in a car accident on January 7th. We’re sure he’s going to make a full recovery, but he won’t be online for a while. I said it’s just Reddit, but he’s an obsessive lunatic about not letting people down, so I promised I would add Reddit to the list. So here I am, telling all the people that he doesn’t know why he hasn’t finished telling them something they’re probably not reading anyway.
(The following is a consolidation of posts from May 2020 and later)
This username belonged to my husband, Mark. He wrote the story about his friend David. Mark was updating the story until he was involved in a car accident in January. At that time, I let everyone know that he was injured and would recover.
Unfortunately, just over a week after my last comment, Mark passed away. Everyone thought he was recovering, but without warning, he suddenly became unconscious and died very quickly. The staff tried everything they could, but he had suffered a ruptured aorta, likely damaged in the accident.
I’m sorry I didn’t update this sooner. To be honest, I completely forgot about this website. It was only when I came back to read Mark’s words again that I saw how many people were waiting for him to finish the story. Your words, your well-wishes, and your kindness have made me think about all of Mark’s wonderful qualities and all the reasons I loved him so much. He always finished what he started. So, I will do one more thing that Mark would have wanted. I spoke to his friends to find out what happened. It won’t have Mark’s humor or style, just the plain facts. But it’s better than nothing.
The Site Manager: What he thought was a bad 18-month contract turned out to be a savior. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, most employees at his new company were laid off. But because of his contract, the company had to keep paying him in full. He is doing well.
Noisy Gobshite: He was forced to divest his share of the business. He had to sign a personal liability agreement, meaning if the total bills for his mistakes are more than the company is worth, he must pay the extra, even if it means losing his house. He has not been charged with a crime yet, but it is certain that he will be. The investigation also uncovered irregularities that were referred to HMRC (the tax man), and he is now being investigated for fraud as well. If he is found guilty of either crime, he will almost certainly face prison time. As one of the first commenters wrote, that was a very expensive cup of coffee.
David: Financially, David was one of the few people unaffected by the pandemic, as he works on his own. Personally, he is not doing so well. Outside of family, David took Mark’s death worse than anybody. His wife told me he seems lost now. The time he cries is after he has been to see me. I feel terrible that in my own selfish grief, I was putting so much on him. He has been an absolute rock for me.
Yesterday was our anniversary. I watched our wedding video. Mark’s speech has crushed me. He talked about when we first met and how he just couldn’t stop smiling every time he thought about our date. He said he felt like that every time he thought about me. This morning, it broke me. I don’t think the pain is getting easier. I think it’s getting worse. He was an atheist and always said, “This is all you get, so don’t you dare waste any of it.”
I’m angry because I have lost the best person I have ever known, just because some selfish idiot couldn’t wait to reply to a text message. He will go to prison, but only for a few years. Nothing will bring my Mark back. Please, please don’t use your phone when you’re driving. Hold on to the people you love like you might lose them tomorrow. Don’t assume you can carry on in your own little heavenly bubble forever. Some careless person can snuff out everything you love in the blink of an eye, leaving you with nothing.
