Josh Frink, territory manager for Florida at Bona US, got his start at age 15 with his dad on a job he’ll never forget: “When I was 15 my dad was managing a Carpet One store and landed an installation, sand and finish job—but we had never done one, so we had to buy all new tools and figure it out. We finished a Bruce school and started the job, which was 2,900 square feet in a home being built. On the first day I was nailing with the manual nailer just three rows off the wall when I swung and missed hitting the nailer, and the mallet flew through two layers of drywall behind me and disappeared. We had to walk down the hall and into the bedroom to find the mallet! So we spent most of that first day learning how to repair drywall (I think we only installed 80 feet that entire day). We dug drywall scraps out of the dumpster and used floor leveler instead of sheetrock mud, and it must have been good enough, because no one ever called us out on it. After that first day we were so sore we were ready to quit, but we did 300 feet the next day … and here I am many decades later!”
See a collection of wood flooring job-site stories on the WFB Pinterest Tales From the Front board. Do you have a funny or bizarre job-site story? Email it to WFB. If we use it, we'll send you a WFB T-shirt.