Well that half inch one way or another can mean lots of money.I think that seemed like a crummy job and always felt sorry for those guys.
The details might be a little off but many years ago I saw an army of COX reps try to argue with a backhoe operator over a half an inch. They were hand digging each side of the broken cable and pulling a string between where it was broken. It fed all or part of ORUs TV signal going out to the world and was costing tons of money being down.
I can say that in the time I was doing the job that I didn't cost the company one thin dime because of a mismarked line but it sure was stressful.
High voltage electric and high pressure gas lines could be a little extra nerve racking.