Don't know if these are mistakes as such, but anyway, here's two...
# 1: Doing a 20 storey building with an electric bosun's chair. Five floors into it - about 15 storeys up - didn't quite do a good enough turn with the squeegee. Rubber grabbed on the glass, squeegee went flying. Down, down, down. SMACK onto the service driveway to the back of the building (I was doing the side of the building).
Be danged. Nothing wrong with it when I got down, besides some scratches on the handle. Ettore was the brand.
ONLY time I've ever dropped it in near on 20 years in the game.
# 2: Doing the inside of a client's garage. Window is above a workbench with a whole bunch of stuff on it. As I step back my sleeve catches a tin - looked like an old pineapple tin - and tips it over. All this liquid comes splashing out all on my pants.
I ask the client, "What was in that tin on the workbench. I just knocked it over and it spilt all on me? Is it toxic?"
He says nothing and goes running into the garage to look at his Mercedes. I ask him again what it was and without looking at me, and while still going over his Merc he tells me it was paint stripper and he hopes none got on his car.
Michael Ross