worst cock up?

[achingknees]

OK we've all made a mistake or two when digging. Machined a wee bit too much off? Left too much on? Mattocked when should have troweled? Pinged a few finger bones off the skelly, then lost its knee caps? Got the machine stuck in a muddy hole?

It's a brave archaeologist who can admit their mistakes. Can you? }:)

[deepdigger]

worst cock up? probably agreeing to work for ######### Arch~###### P########ts !
Although i must say getting into archaeology (a field i love) as a job instead of a hobby ranks fairly highly at the moment!!

deep

[drpeterwardle]

last Tuesday, day 1 of an evaluation

The land agent didnt turn up to unlock the gate.
The machine was not working and a fitter had to be called out
the planning commitee turned up and stopped work
hit a live water main live (the first time in 26 years)
the curator was off sick so couldnt inpsect the trenches
the engineer didnt turn up to 3.30 so there was not enough time to back fill the trenches as the machine drivers finished at 4.00 ....

Peter

[achingknees]

Dr Peter,

Water - phew, lucky you missed the electricity. gas and cable! Sounds like a bad day but I've had worse!! [8D]

Brings up another topic though - the difficulty trying to get accurate service plans (you DO try I hope).

[BAJR Host]

imagine ... 2 county archaeologists... 15 detectorists... one battlefield survey... and on a Sunday (a Sunday mind you) a bloody fellow co working council worker comes along and locks the only gate inot where we are... before driving off with teh only key....

" Did you not see us?" I managed to splutter with barely controlled anger when we managed to track him down 2 hours later.... "Yes" came his monosyllabic reply.... leaving me impotent with frustration... as he still had the key!


Another day another WSI…

[gumbo]

Right. Ha Ha. Havent admitted this one in public, rather embarrassing but Gumbo doing one of his first evals for particular unit was very happy that he had booked a mini-digger for only £80 per day. Two trenches two days plenty of profit he thought, jobs a good-un. So, Gumbo turns up to field in middle of f****** nowhere as does said machine, unfortunately Gumbo had failed to ask whether cost of hire included the driver. It didnt.

Anyway in a unbelievably flukely blag, Gumbo managed to con machine deliverer into becoming a 'digger driver' for two days (in the broadest sense of the word), which although got the job done was lets say a little 'rustic' and meant the bloke had to close his hire shop for two days.

Word didnt get back to unit and Gumbo managed to persuade county that it really was too far and unimportant for him to come out to see...

Sorry.

Gumbo

[mercenary]

Heard a lovely tale about a London based consultant, who when a field arch. dug the material between what turned out to be graves in the belief that they were beam-slots.

I managed a similar trick digging the ploughsoil out beside a vertical sided land drain (natural backfilled of course). The visiting Curator didn't spot my mistake, so when the report went in I had to chronicle my cock-up in said publication to explain why original interpretation was completely wrong!

[achingknees]

not my worse, but had reason to remember this recently. Lost whole Community Programme fieldwalking team in the fog. Or were they hiding?

Another one. Early days of geophysical survey with a prototype magnetometer. The results came out as a 20m square on individual printouts (like a receipt). You had to cut out the squares then paste them onto paper. Forgot to mark which way was north. No saved file. One of a few reasons why they 'let me go'????

and another...absolute diatribe against an eminent church archaeologist acting as consultant who had questioned my interpretation. Thought he was long gone, but just around the corner and heard the lot (I can swear a lot and don't always have due respect for such grown ups). Didn't stay much longer with the unit B)

[Beki]

WELL!!!!!!!!

Cock uo number one happened when digging just outside a roman fort, supervisor didn't machine down to the right level had had us diggin out some 'wonderful pits' which turned out to be last years evaluation trenches!

Cock up number 2...the wonderful developers who were working on site around us proceeded to machine through a sewer pipe and flood the trench with yummy yummy poo and other such joys

[troll]

My biggest error of judgement was to accept a contract from a firm of archaeological "consultants". Essentially an incompetent shower of detritus with absolutely no respect for the archaeology who did their utmost to please the developer-despite the fact that said developer hacked and slashed their way through scheduled ancient monuments/demolished listed buildings and were, well, hooligans really.Never again. On a personal note of admission-my first paid job in archaeology involved watching a machine whilst stripping in a sideways blizzard. I managed to dig away at least a third of the site before the boss came back from a three hour jolly in the warm....B)Aforementioned "consultants" advertising on BAJR at present...buyer beware....be afraid...be very afraid...;)

[drpeterwardle]

Did all the usual trying to find out where the services where,

+ radar survey + cat scans etc.

Peter

[fleecey girl]

I decided to pretend to be a rally driver with a crap site car on a rural excavation. Great fun until I hit a mud patch and went into an amazing skid. I ended up most of the way up the spoil heap.
The car was so rubbish though that no-one noticed it was full of spoil. I haven't been pretend rally driving since [:I]

"Fleecey and Lovely"

[Curator Kid]

On a watching brief I was working on a few years ago, the machine driver went through a big water pipe that flooded the site in the morning. After it got turned off and the water levels dropped, the same driver went back to work after lunch and blew up an electricity cable. The contractors had been assured by the client that there were no services on site, so they were a bit peeved - especially as the whole site was unsafe and everyone had to give up and leave until it was fixed.

Worst cock-up I was ever unfortunate enough to be involved with wasn't one of my own luckily, and was a methodological one which I've ranted on here about previously. Having to excavate within the 60cm wide foundations for a terrace of houses on a nicely-preserved early post-med manor in London. What a joke. :(

[trowelfodder]

due to the increadable health and safety provided by a certain mid wales arch company my best would have to be running a full wheelbarrow with flat tyre up a slippery bouncing ramp into a skip only to find couldnt stop at top and running head first into skip - which of course would have to be empty (sods law). Then look up to see a little old lady pearing in as am uttering some rather choice words about my predicament - not best behaviour for working at a cathedral!

Am def wiv deepdigger on the unit choice being other worst decision - Bastards!

[deepdigger]

I remember that dig! Great fun, probably one of the worlds best qualified archaeologists as a superviser, proving everyday that he was clueless about British archaeology! Bloody great bloke to work for, absolutley first class!!

deep

[trowelhead]

Worst cock up is agreeing to works with these people in Ireland, yep still bitter but back in the game chinchin MG: :D

Truely Fab Irish Cock up below:

http://www.bajr.org/DiggerMagazine/The%20Digger28/article3.html

[Mole]

Worst smelling mistake was a watching brief on a new slip road beside a busy motorway - 1/2 hour into the strip we breached a live sewer which was running fairly full. After an hour of the construction crews manager trying to blame my team for not spotting the pipe ('you can see f*****g invisable pits but not a bl***y sewer pipe')he noticed the runoff was now flowing down the side of the motorway - traffic stopped for 3 hours to clean up the mess![xx(]

We have never worked with that company again - they still blame us!!

[muddyandcold]

I had just started working for a unit in the SE and on a large evaluation next to major town and hospital. Maching was going well until a Transco helicopter landed nearby! Apparently, we were machining over the main gas supply to the hospital [:I]

The project officer had't checked services..... We drank well that night .......

[muddyandcold]

an ever eager digger (now DC officer) was happyly digging away on a fairly stratified site (his third ever excavation). At the end of the day we noticed a row of mortar columns? When questioned he answered that he had simply taken the softer soil away from the 'hard stuff'... When suggested that he had actually excavated postholes in relief he laughed and walked off!

He has since completed a degree in archaeology (another topic), and hopefully has learnt something on the basics of strat.....

[troll]

planning committee allows multi storey car park to expand on condition that it`s downwards as either side of building is sensitive. Team of diggers dutifully arrive with 3cx and concrete breaker attachment to assess ground beneath lowest floor of said car park. All goes well for a bit until security guards come rushing over screaming for the archs to stop. Concrete was falling onto the cars parked in the floor below...oops....[:0]

[muddyandcold]

Who remembers this one? A digger on a site in london, mid '80s, exposed a brick floor. Having clean, planned and photographed he takes a mattock to it only to end up on the northern line??!!

Urban myth or what??? It's up to you!!

[achingknees]

There was a senior archie at the MoL DGLA offices who was nicknamed Sparky following an incident with machine and finding the tube line. Same story with nobs on???