Got called out by a fire marshal in St. Louis and it fixed my whole process

I was finishing a sweep on a big brick chimney in a 1920s house there. The fire marshal stopped by for a routine inspection and watched me pack up my rods. He said, 'You're leaving creosote dust all over that hearth because your brush is still spinning when you pull it back down.' I hadn't even noticed I was doing that. Now I always stop the drill before the brush clears the flue tile, and my cleanup time got cut by 15 minutes. Anyone else have a small habit they changed after a simple observation?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_robin1mo ago

That seems like a really tiny thing to get called out for.

evanpalmer1mo ago

My old boss once docked me fifteen minutes of pay for being sixty seconds late back from lunch. The man had a stopwatch. It built up this real nasty vibe in the shop where everyone was watching the clock instead of just doing good work. Sometimes the TINIEST rule becomes the biggest deal because of how it's enforced. That kind of stuff can poison a whole team.