Anyone who does woodworking for a living surely has lots of interesting stories to tell.
I will start with a few of my own. Feel free to add yours and we can all benefit from each other's experiences.
First story:
"Captain Tacos"
Whenever I meet a new client for the first time, I try to make a point to learn their names.
It shows respect and personalizes the experience of designing custom cabinets and prevents embarrassment of a bad spelling or wrong name on dozens of pages of drawings and contracts.
So, this new client had a name that was Greek to me, which made perfect sense, because in fact, he was Greek.
All I remember of his last name was that it started with the letter K, had far too many vowels and strange letters in it and did not sound anything like it was spelled.
The client pronounced it the way you might say "Captain Tacos" if you removed all the letter T's.
This is wrong, but it is something like "Kapenacos" (sp).
We designed a household of custom cabinets for this wonderfully Greek client and when the paperwork hit the shop, all kinds of interesting pronunciations came forth when attempting to talk about this job.
As I explained it to you, is how I explained it to the shop foreman - Captain Tacos without the T's.
Before long though, everyone in the shop was working on and talking about the "Captain Tacos" job.
As is often customary on a large custom job, periodic shop tours to verify progress for bank draws, etc, are a common occurrence.
On this day, it was Mr. Kapenacos' turn to tour the shop, see our progress on his build, and meet some of the craftsmen working on his project.
Even though the shop foreman knew how to pronounce "Kapenacos"(sp), they had been saying "Captain Tacos" so much in the shop, that he slipped and called the client Captain Tacos to his face!
I almost died!
Fortunately, Mr. Kapenacos has been dealing with the name problem most of his life and was entirely amused with this "Americanism" of his name.
What a relief, as I feared it might have gone entirely in a different direction.
I will start with a few of my own. Feel free to add yours and we can all benefit from each other's experiences.
First story:
"Captain Tacos"
Whenever I meet a new client for the first time, I try to make a point to learn their names.
It shows respect and personalizes the experience of designing custom cabinets and prevents embarrassment of a bad spelling or wrong name on dozens of pages of drawings and contracts.
So, this new client had a name that was Greek to me, which made perfect sense, because in fact, he was Greek.
All I remember of his last name was that it started with the letter K, had far too many vowels and strange letters in it and did not sound anything like it was spelled.
The client pronounced it the way you might say "Captain Tacos" if you removed all the letter T's.
This is wrong, but it is something like "Kapenacos" (sp).
We designed a household of custom cabinets for this wonderfully Greek client and when the paperwork hit the shop, all kinds of interesting pronunciations came forth when attempting to talk about this job.
As I explained it to you, is how I explained it to the shop foreman - Captain Tacos without the T's.
Before long though, everyone in the shop was working on and talking about the "Captain Tacos" job.
As is often customary on a large custom job, periodic shop tours to verify progress for bank draws, etc, are a common occurrence.
On this day, it was Mr. Kapenacos' turn to tour the shop, see our progress on his build, and meet some of the craftsmen working on his project.
Even though the shop foreman knew how to pronounce "Kapenacos"(sp), they had been saying "Captain Tacos" so much in the shop, that he slipped and called the client Captain Tacos to his face!
I almost died!
Fortunately, Mr. Kapenacos has been dealing with the name problem most of his life and was entirely amused with this "Americanism" of his name.
What a relief, as I feared it might have gone entirely in a different direction.