Geez, you must a be hoot at parties.... PMSL 
Well we did have our moments POSL with the different types you run into over the years, in our case largely the upmarket, filtered coffee and Tim Tam set. Are you the client who happily tosses us the keys to the joint to get on with it while you go to work or do you have to be there holding our hand every step of the way and keeping an eye on the silverware? Or like the job where the 'man' of the house had to gingerly ask if the trades would mind popping down the local servo for ablutions because his missus is a bit thingy about strangers using their dunny. Small verandah job so we hadn't budgeted for an onsite toilet like you do with renos or serious builds and it had never been an issue before. Sooner or later you get em.
Before I get into 'The pet block of wood' I should relate my business partner's experience with one tradey he used to replace the foil ducting in his own home. Now L had noticed the ducted evaporative aircond was not keeping up and climbing up in the roof noticed gaping holes in the foil ducting and put two and two together because the suburb was around 20yrs old and he'd seen an HVAC tradey up and down the local streets for weeks and clearly the ducting was failing all over at the same time. Bailed him up and arranged for new ducting a few days later. Now L had done some running repairs and knew he'd left a measuring tape and pliers up in the roof and exactly where he'd left them. Job finished, inspected and paid for and then he remembered to go up and grab the tape and pliers only they were not there anymore. As old tradeys we know that every tradey knows exactly what are his tools and what aren't and L immediately knew something important about that particular tradey.
Well customer S was a super fastidious type when we'd arranged a custom shed for his backyard so I put my best tradey A on it. Nevertheless S would just have to ring to tell me that A had dropped a tek screw or a pop rivet nail, even though I knew A would do the ant parade when the job was finished. All done and S was happy and paid A by cheque on the day only to ring me up in deadly earnest the next day to tell me his pet block of wood had gone missing. Me explaining A was our most trusted erector and he'd be mortified by this as he was true Christian bloke which he was. Before S could finish saying he wasn't that worried but just wanted to let me know, I'd said leave it me S I'll get to the bottom of it right away and hanging up. The rub was S had a pet block of wood he used as a marker in his carport to know where to stop his car and God forbid it had gone missing and you know how it is folks.
I ring A for a laugh and at first he's puzzled and then looking in his trailer he says yeah I reckon this is it and it's got mixed up when I dumped my timber packers out of the trailer to unload in the carport. So A is going past the clients home next day and true to his word he knocks on S's door as he's retired and asks exactly where he can put it back in it's rightful place after such a terrible mixup. We're all pissing ouselves and S even rings me back to apologise for casting aspersions on such fine tradesmen and he didn't mean to create any fuss, yada, yada. Don't laugh because we pulled a few more jobs out of that as they'd say- S recommended you and if S was singing your praises you must be good. We do have nicknames for some of them you know.
