Hahaha, awesome buddy.
$80.99 is indeed a strange price. The backstory:
I work for a small-medium sized contractor that builds high end custom homes. The company I work for experienced massive growth in recent years and is probably a bit larger than the owners/contractors can realistically handle. One aspect of this is that they got through a recent industry-wide labour shortage by hiring on a bunch of inexperienced workers and paying them wages you'd throw at experienced guys. With 4 main contractors you can do this, but as they grew their experienced resources got overly spread out. The end result is that the guy in charge of one of the houses I work on is very inexperienced. He has no clue what he's doing. He's also stupidly stubborn and has an ego about his work. This is a bad combo in that he makes huge mistakes all the time because he doesn't know something and doesn't feel it's necessary to call someone who does know and ask because 'he's in charge'. To clarify, he recently made a couple laborers lay a gas line down without knowing where it started, ended, or what the rules are about laying gas lines down. The end result is it had to be done twice (it's not even in the right place the second time). That wouldn't be oh so big of a deal except the company ended up paying two guys to drill holes through concrete over a period of two days for no reason now. That's not cheap.
Now, i'm not the kind of guy who gives a fuck about my bosses' money. I spend as little time at work as possible, i fuck around a lot, and i'm just there for the paycheck and because it's flexible with school. I checked out of this place about a year ago. Mistakes like that are going to happen, and that's fine. The thing is that this guy is not only a fuckup, but he has an ego about it. When someone suggested that he call next time to find out where the line goes he told them "they're not paid to think" and that calling would waste time. That kind of shit doesn't stick well with anyone.
So, mad with power about a year ago this guy decided that he'd create a little 'safe' where he'd keep a bunch of disposable work items that he thought people were using too much. Stuff like saw blades, knife blades, drill bits, and shit like that. He locked it in this heavy duty plastic box and hid the key. Rationing them. It's stupid for a lot of reasons, partially because now it's just making more work for everyone as they have to (theoretically) ask him for the key and 'prove' that they need new shit. Probably more importantly, however, is that it just creates a bad environment for people who do care about their work (remember: not me). It wasn't an issue because the key happened to be the first place i looked and soon everyone knew. He never bothered to use it.
A week or so ago he thought a guy i was working with changed a blade when he didn't need to. A fight ensued and Captain Dumbass moved the key. He also made the comment that the blade cost $80.99. This is a blatant lie and when we laughed at him about it he made the comment that "none of us would know what a blade cost". I used to do nothing but purchase orders on shit like this for one company and i'm sure everyone there has bought a saw blade before, but whatever (keep in mind that this isn't his personal money). He now refuses to tell anyone where he put the key.
The plan:
Step 1: cut hinges off box so we can get the shit out
Step 2: take shit out and replace with the picture
Step 3:throw old saw blades in there and throw chain on box
Step 4: Put in bigger box
Step 5 Lock bigger box and throw away key.
Ideally, he'll think there's still good shit in there and spend time opening the bigger box. Spend more time opening the smaller box. Finally, his brain will explode. A few months ago someone mysteriously wrote 'HACK' on this guy's little name plate thing he uses to mark out where he hangs his shit up (why he does this no one knows). No one has admitted to this and the investigation is ongoing, but he points out every once in a while that 'we are all under suspicion.' He is not joking.
