On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 07:39:13 -0600, rbowman wrote:

On 04/06/2021 07:23 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
This was in a big city and "tipping" was expected no matter how good the
work

When I went to the National Plastics Exposition at McCormick Place in
Chicago, my mentor explained to me how things worked. He had a pocketful
of $20 and $50's. If you wanted tables for your booth, you 'bought
coffee' for the table crew. Chairs? Another round of coffee for another
crew. Table coverings? More coffee. Booth Curtains? Electricians to hook
up your machinery? Lot of coffee.

Meanwhile the cops were outside. Some plastics equipment is pretty heavy
and unfortunately some of the trucks were a little overloaded or had
safety violations. Want your machinery out of impoundment before the
show was over?

The Exposition was moved to Florida a couple of years later. There may
be crooks in Florida but Chicago specializes in corruption.

The unions in Chicago hold their own brand of power. I was working 3d
shift at the education center and we heard they wanted to move 3
machines. This is something all of us did on a regular basis so we
just grabbed screwdrivers and started unhooking cables. The instructor
came in and lost his mind. In Chicago, you are not allowed to touch a
piece of wire, not even IBM machine cables in an IBM facility. We had
to wait for THREE union electricians to come unhook, drag and hook the
cables back up. We rolled the machines ourselves but there was a
little debate about whether we needed to get Teamsters to do it.
Of course they hooked them up wrong and we had to redo it, repairing
one they screwed up but they stood around on the clock watching until
we were powered back up.
I think it has relaxed a little but Chicago was famous for not
allowing any cable wiring method for years. Everything had to be wire
in metal pipe, even residential. That also assured IBEW plenty of
extra work.