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Lending Tools...Yes or No?

2ndGearRubber

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Mar 24, 2014
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"Don't move them"
Brings me to this question.
When l was at the highway department, A guys single tier double stack (top and bottom box, ~ 30" wide) was in the road, because I had to pull a dump truck in.
So l moved it out of the way ~ 5 feet.
I guess he found out l moved it, and was all pissed off, but hinting around to me about moving peoples box's.
I didn't get it though, Hell, if my box is in your way, and I'm not around, move the damn thing out of your way.
Like l said, l didn't see the big problem.

Until some guy smashes into it with a piece of equipment. Would it have been safe where it was?

You moved it, are you paying for it?
 
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2ndGearRubber

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It was blocking a dump-truck. Shold the entire operation shut down because someone left their toolbox in the road?

So long as someone is going to replace my box after it gets hit with a dump truck, if it gets moved into harms way, I can live with that.


When goober moves my box and a rouge machine smashes it, it's going to need replaced. "Oops" isn't good enough. Responsibility accompanies action.
 

bubinga

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So long as someone is going to replace my box after it gets hit with a dump truck, if it gets moved into harms way, I can live with that.


When goober moves my box and a rouge machine smashes it, it's going to need replaced. "Oops" isn't good enough. Responsibility accompanies action.
I moved it Out of Harm's Way, Not into Harm's way.
I'm not "Goober" either, I'm pretty sharp! :):)
 

MR2FC

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So long as someone is going to replace my box after it gets hit with a dump truck, if it gets moved into harms way, I can live with that.


When goober moves my box and a rouge machine smashes it, it's going to need replaced. "Oops" isn't good enough. Responsibility accompanies action.
Responsibility accompanies inaction as well...
 

2ndGearRubber

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Responsibility accompanies inaction as well...

Very good point.

My thought process was, tool box gets moved, in the process or in its new location it is damaged. Who pays? Yeah, it's an accident. But it got run over by a steam roller or whatever.
 

mogandave

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Very good point.

My thought process was, tool box gets moved, in the process or in its new location it is damaged. Who pays? Yeah, it's an accident. But it got run over by a steam roller or whatever.
If it's on your "spot", they pay.
If you left it somewhere unattended....
 
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Renegade1LI

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Tough decision today, my son came by to borrow a few things, he's horrible with tools. It was in both our best interests for me to just give them to him, they weren't coming back anyway.
 

BDT/NWMN

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Come to think of it; tool spelled backwards is loot. Thinking a bit more; some backwards people do seem to consider this the proper spelling.
 
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f121

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Tough decision today, my son came by to borrow a few things, he's horrible with tools. It was in both our best interests for me to just give them to him, they weren't coming back anyway.
My dad had that issue for about the first 18 years of my life. “Where’s my…” Then when I started buying nice tools, the conversation flipped “dad, where’s my…” :)
 

Meursault74

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We had a couple of guys come and survey our lab for a couple of days a few weeks ago. I guess a piece of their equipment needed something. We have tools in the lab, but I was asked for some Allen/hex keys. I keep my own set of fold up ones in my desk because I got tired of looking for them as the most used ones are missing. I knew I wasn't going to spend the time looking for them for this guy to use. I walked him over to my desk, opened the drawer and said "these are my personal hex keys. You can use them. When you're done put them right back here in this drawer". I never saw the guy again, but my tools were back in the drawer at the end of the day.
 

BlakeTheCarGuy

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Yesterday loaned a ratchet to someone who was quitting and had already taken his tools out on Thursday. Dropped it on the floor and jammed it and said I didn’t break it it must of already been like that. Well no it wasn’t already like that and I just watched you drop it and it was working fine before this. At least I can get it warrantied as it’s a Snap-on but that’s not the point. I’m glad he is gone now though so annoying and full of drama. In my last post on this thread he is the one who I mentioned was trying to steal my green pocket screwdrivers. He is off to work on semi trucks so best of luck to him I think he will be back before too long.
 

speed bump

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I tend to loan out tools, I don't work in a shop so it's mostly friends and family and they always seem to pay it forward at some point.

At work we tend to loan tools and borrow tools from our contractors and other mines. Sometimes you hit a project where **** went sideways and sometimes they are in the same situation. Crazy what mines acquire for a one off project and then don't touch again for years.
 
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Renegade1LI

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Got caught totally off guard the other day. In HD with my wife & we run into our niece with her husband & his parents. Now I've never met his parents before & the kids are ready to close on their new house, which is great. His father turns to me & says he'll be borrowing some tools & equipment from me to help the kids out. They live in S Carolina so he doesn't want to bring anything here, figured he could borrow everything he needs from me. Talk about being a little presumptuous, he's also retired & has plenty of time & could bring what he needs if he wanted to. I think no matter what I do it will be wrong, I want to help the kids out, they're great kids but the old man is really pushing it, he even said to give him the lock code & he'll come get what he needs. I'm actually thinking about putting together a full set of power & hand tools & give it to them as a housewarming gift, this will get interesting.
 

mike93lx

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Got caught totally off guard the other day. In HD with my wife & we run into our niece with her husband & his parents. Now I've never met his parents before & the kids are ready to close on their new house, which is great. His father turns to me & says he'll be borrowing some tools & equipment from me to help the kids out. They live in S Carolina so he doesn't want to bring anything here, figured he could borrow everything he needs from me. Talk about being a little presumptuous, he's also retired & has plenty of time & could bring what he needs if he wanted to. I think no matter what I do it will be wrong, I want to help the kids out, they're great kids but the old man is really pushing it, he even said to give him the lock code & he'll come get what he needs. I'm actually thinking about putting together a full set of power & hand tools & give it to them as a housewarming gift, this will get interesting.
You didn't say anything to him about it? You don't have to insult him in front of others, but if you don't do anything to convey that it's not OK to assume that, aren't you perpetuating the behavior?
 

2ndGearRubber

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Geez. I'd go with the housewarming gift. The dad seems like a miser.

Yeah, somebody thinks they're entitled to my tools? Or my anything? Get fucked. Good to see I haven't changed since this thread was on page 1. LOL


If it's obvious the soon-to-be homeowners don't have a tooling setup, I'd buy them some basic stuff as a house warming gift. Knipex, williams screwdrivers, maybe a basic drill/driver combo kit with bits or just max out a top notch set of hand tools and let them get a drill/driver if they need.
 

RTM

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. I'm actually thinking about putting together a full set of power & hand tools & give it to them as a housewarming gift, this will get interesting
Good answer here. Makes it easy if you go to help, you know what they've got, so you don't need to bring it. I keep giving my SIL tools for Christmas.
 

Rinspeed

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Got caught totally off guard the other day. In HD with my wife & we run into our niece with her husband & his parents. Now I've never met his parents before & the kids are ready to close on their new house, which is great. His father turns to me & says he'll be borrowing some tools & equipment from me to help the kids out. They live in S Carolina so he doesn't want to bring anything here, figured he could borrow everything he needs from me. Talk about being a little presumptuous, he's also retired & has plenty of time & could bring what he needs if he wanted to. I think no matter what I do it will be wrong, I want to help the kids out, they're great kids but the old man is really pushing it, he even said to give him the lock code & he'll come get what he needs. I'm actually thinking about putting together a full set of power & hand tools & give it to them as a housewarming gift, this will get interesting.





I would have simply said I don't loan tools out because way too many people are idiots.
 

39CAMC

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I would have simply said I don't loan tools out because way too many people are idiots.
Yea, IMO, you don't have to be super blunt about it and cause a family issue, but IMO the fact that he presumed you were willing kind of tells me that he doesn't respect tools the way that people here, or people who make their living with them do.

I didn't respect my dad's tools as a teenager and I think karma (not from my dad, he is not like that, just tool karma) is coming back to bite me now. One of my employees is allowed to work on his stuff in my shop after hours and separately, our landlord who I am friends with who works on his stuff in our shared space both use my tools when they need something they don't have. Which I don't mind in concept but I have to lecture them both that it's like camping, there should be no trace left that you were here. I keep certain tools in my cart and some in my box and other specialty stuff on racks/shelves (only "tech" in the shop) and invariably after they use something, it's gone, or in the wrong place or whatever. Fu#*$* me, I hate reaching for something that should be in a place and having to stop and find it even though I don't work any kind of flat rate or even in a hurry.

THe landlord borrowed a bunch of swivel 13mm stuff last week trying to get some torque converter bolts out (had to pull engine from kids 4.0 SOHC explorer to fix timing chains) and he proudly left a pile of returned stuff on top of my box when I came in the next day. Except it had several of his sockets in the stack, one of his swivels and not my 13mm short impact swivel.

Both great people and certainly don't do it on purpose, but the employee is very young (21) and neither have had to make a living with tools and as such, learned to respect it in the **** way that we do here.

DaveW
 

bwringer

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Indianapolis
Got caught totally off guard the other day. In HD with my wife & we run into our niece with her husband & his parents. Now I've never met his parents before & the kids are ready to close on their new house, which is great. His father turns to me & says he'll be borrowing some tools & equipment from me to help the kids out. They live in S Carolina so he doesn't want to bring anything here, figured he could borrow everything he needs from me. Talk about being a little presumptuous, he's also retired & has plenty of time & could bring what he needs if he wanted to. I think no matter what I do it will be wrong, I want to help the kids out, they're great kids but the old man is really pushing it, he even said to give him the lock code & he'll come get what he needs. I'm actually thinking about putting together a full set of power & hand tools & give it to them as a housewarming gift, this will get interesting.

Geez. I'd go with the housewarming gift. The dad seems like a miser.

Yeah, I'd maybe go with a few hundred bucks on a Harbor Freight gift card, directly given to the kids. That sure would be a lot easier all around, well worth the expense in the name of harmony, and the kids will get some nice housewarming gifts they can use for many years.

If there's something more advanced needed, then they borrow you.

"I never loan tools" is simple, direct, and requires no further explanation. Although assholes like that will try and demand one, you don't need to give one.
 

ZRX61

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Got caught totally off guard the other day. In HD with my wife & we run into our niece with her husband & his parents. Now I've never met his parents before & the kids are ready to close on their new house, which is great. His father turns to me & says he'll be borrowing some tools & equipment from me to help the kids out.
How the **** does someone you've never met before have any idea of what tools you own? I would have laughed in his face AND told him to **** off.
 

ZRX61

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Some years ago a co-worker who was always borrowing tools ask to borrow a wrench for the 4th or 5th time...
I flipped him some **** about buying one of his own.... His answer back was "why should I buy one when I can borrow yours?"
Red lights and sirens went off in my head..... Needless to say he never borrowed another tool from me ever....

LynnW
Roomies son said that once. He's never borrowed another tool & never will. I think he knows that now after the step ladder incident.
 
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Renegade1LI

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How the **** does someone you've never met before have any idea of what tools you own? I would have laughed in his face AND told him to **** off.

I'm sure the kids said I was a gc and have lots of tools and equipment. A little more subtle approach would of been nice, maybe have a beer or two. I plan to set the kids up with all the tools they need to work around the house, I told my wife we'll go over and set them up a work bench and get them organized. This way pop can use his son's tools. After Christmas I plan to explain about lending tools ands let him know that's its not ok to just come over and take what he needs.
 

rockcrawler

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I worked in the Best Buy audio install bay many years ago. All of the tools we used were our personal tools that we had to purchase ourselves. Anytime someone in the store needed to borrow a tool, we made them give us one of their shoes. For some reason, I never had a tool go missing. We laughed thinking how funny it was when an employee was walking around the store with only one shoe on. Not many braved this transaction.
 

Max

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I'm sure the kids said I was a gc and have lots of tools and equipment. A little more subtle approach would of been nice, maybe have a beer or two. I plan to set the kids up with all the tools they need to work around the house, I told my wife we'll go over and set them up a work bench and get them organized. This way pop can use his son's tools. After Christmas I plan to explain about lending tools ands let him know that's its not ok to just come over and take what he needs.
You might want to make the point that your tools put food on your table. And if your tools are broken or missing you don’t eat.
 

Max

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I worked in the Best Buy audio install bay many years ago. All of the tools we used were our personal tools that we had to purchase ourselves. Anytime someone in the store needed to borrow a tool, we made them give us one of their shoes. For some reason, I never had a tool go missing. We laughed thinking how funny it was when an employee was walking around the store with only one shoe on. Not many braved this transaction.
When I was a tech at IBM I did a similar thing. You could borrow my tools, but I kept your badge. That way I knew who it was that had my tool. Also, IBM was very paranoid about non-employees on the site, so if you didn’t wear your badge other employees would ask for it. Like you I expect, I had a 100% return rate.

To the OP’s point, I won’t loan my good tools to anyone but a good friend that I know won’t abuse them. My wife is not on that list ever since she asked if my precision diagonal cutters were a good choice to cut some coat hangers. :) I’ve bought her HF tools and they meet her needs…
 
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