TOPIC: Zapped "Electrician"

It was pouring down rain all day.  I was inspecting a brand new townhouse (full of problems) and left to go back to my truck to get my CFM meter.  On the unit behind, an "electrician" was wiring a light over the garage door - in the pouring rain, mind you.  And he is standing on an aluminum ladder!  We spoke.

Me:  "You might want to wait until after it stops raining to do that."
Paco*:  "I need do now, dude."
Me:  "It's dangerous to do that now."
Paco:  "I do all the time, dude."
Me:  "Your ladder is in a puddle of water."
Paco:  "Dude, circuit is off.  All okay now."

I walked away.  Not many steps later I saw and heard an arc come from behind me.  How do you say "dude" in Spanish?  I can think of lots of Spanish words, but none really express the real idiom.

*  It might have been Jorge or Juan, I don't know...

Yikes. That had to hurt like hell!

Some learn the hard way.

What kind of goof does not check to see if wire is live.

You got it Bob!  Hence the quotes around the word "electrician!"  When you pick these guys up at 7-11 to work on your houses, you get what you pay for.  It does make more work for me though!  Ten years ago I never did new home inspections.  Now I am doing 8 or 10 a month, pre-drywall and then the final walk through.  It is amazing the kinds of stuff I am finding on both inspections.  The other day I had a new home with a fridge that was on, then off, then on again.  I had not seen that before, so I put on my note pad that the fridge was erratic and needed to be checked.  Later I turned on the kitchen light switch and the fridge started up!  Paco had wired the fridge outlet to the light switch (!?)... you have to try hard to do that.  Even the real electrician who called me the next day (asking how I found it) said he had never seen that before.  We all just shake our heads.  People are only just now figuring out the costs to our society these "construction professionals" are hiding in our new homes...  I don't know about where you are, but here it is a REAL problem.