back to article Switch survives three hours of beer spray, fails after twelve

If it's Friday it must be time for On-Call, our regular reader-written romp through fun times at work. This week, reader “Oswald” shared the story of the time he worked “for the IT company that looked after a well known football club.” Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means soccer. The club was his employer's …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    The joys of essential life saving fluids and electronics

    It was beer - that is less aggressive than coffee or god forbid Coca Cola.

    I was reminded of the interesting properties of coffee this week by spilling it on top of my Roomba.

    As a result, it was finally retired. It survived doing full run per floor (two runs per day) when we were doing an extension (sweeping plaster and concrete dust), it survived cleaning the house with two kids for 8 years after that (+ new battery, brush unit and vacuum bin). It did not survive a double espresso hit in the middle of the top lid (right where the CPU board is).

    Coke is even worse. Sugar and industrial strength phosphoric acid solution. I do not recall a single case of successfully salvaging something from a coke spill in the days when I ran a computer repair shop (15+ years ago).

    Compared to these two, beer is mostly harmless.

    By the way - POE switches are obliged to have quite a bit of short-circuit protection by spec, so the fact that it survived for a while is not surprising.

    1. WraithCadmus
      Pint

      Re: The joys of essential life saving fluids and electronics

      I did once rescue an Xbox 360 pad that had been Cherry Coke'd, but a Wiimote from the same incident wasn't salvageable. Of course I don't know the differences in formulation between Regular and Cherry, so maybe that explains the <100% mortality rate.

      This was using the dishwasher technique. Top shelf, lowest temp, no soap. Make sure your filters are all clean and that any water softeners are running properly, and that you give devices a good day to two to dry out.

      Icon: Relevant to the story, and it is a long weekend here.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: The joys of essential life saving fluids and electronics

        "Of course I don't know the differences in formulation between Regular and Cherry"

        Actually, that IS rather surprising, given about the only difference between a Cherry Coke and a Regular Coke is the additional cherry syrup added to the Coca-Cola concentrate (which has the sugar and phosphoric acid). Most of the rest is just seltzer water (adding a touch of carbonic acid as well).

    2. Cynical Observer
      Thumb Up

      Re: The joys of essential life saving fluids and electronics

      @Voland's Right Hand

      it survived cleaning the house with two kids for 8 years after that (+ new battery, brush unit and vacuum bin)

      In the same vein as .....

      Trigger And that's what I've done. Maintained it for 20 years. This old broom's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time.

      Sid How the hell can it be the same bloody broom then?

      Trigger There's the picture. What more proof do you need?

    3. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: The joys of essential life saving fluids and electronics

      "It was beer - that is less aggressive than coffee or god forbid Coca Cola."

      In my first job I was required to service cash registers and printing calculators.

      Several of those cash registers were in pubs(*). It wasn't uncommon to open the case to find the circuit board submerged in beer. Given the shielding installed in and over the things we used to suspect staff were firing the beer taps (on flexible hoses, not like UK pubs) directly into the keyboards and cash drawers

      One "essential modification" was the fitting of drains to everything, whilst ensuring that nothing drained inton anything sensitive (such as the cash, accounts clerks don't like soggy banknotes)

      Stale beer takes on a new aspect when it's encrusted on devices and has to be scrubbed off everything (usually hot soapy water followed by an isopropyl wash). The printers in these things would seldom last more than a month between motor burnouts.

      (*) Pub is a loose term. They were nicknamed "booze barns" for good reason - 1-2 acres of car parking and a "public bar" area ranging from 4000 square feet upwards with all drinking done standing up or at high tables (Some "taverns" had public bar areas of 6-8000 square feet with the largest one hitting 16,000 square feet). There would be 10-30 cash registers running continuously and the beertaps ran almost constantly filling "jugs" (about 2 litres) with cheap swill. Closing time was 10pm sharp and drinkers who'd had a skinful would then have to drive several miles home - making the 10-11pm period especially dangerous if you happened to be on the road.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means soccer.

    Just to avoid any confusion American Football is rugby for softies.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Similarites between rugby and american football

      Balls the same shape and that's about it.

      1. Simon Harris

        Re: Similarites between rugby and american football

        American footballs are actually a bit more pointy at the ends than rugby balls.

    2. AndyS

      Struck me as an odd sentence. Surely the author meant to write:

      Oswald's a Brit, so when he says "football" he means "football."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means football, not "handegg"........

      2. raving angry loony

        I'm guessing that the author is an American who forgot he was writing for a British publication perhaps? I've found they often do that.

    3. TeeCee Gold badge
      Happy

      I prefer "Rugby for big girls' blouses in armour.".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        RE: I prefer "Rugby for big girls' blouses in armour.".

        Need to be careful, the yanks may not be happy when they get up for their bagels and over easy sunny side up eggs and read this.

        This may help.

        A brief understanding of a part of English Humour

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: RE: I prefer "Rugby for big girls' blouses in armour.".

          Football? Don't you mean handegg?

          1. Darryl

            Re: Football? Don't you mean handegg?

            I've said it before and I'll say it again... If you Brits' eggs are the shape of an American football, it may be time to cut back on the chicken inbreeding program...

        2. Peter2 Silver badge

          Re: RE: I prefer "Rugby for big girls' blouses in armour.".

          "Need to be careful, the yanks may not be happy when they get up for their bagels and over easy sunny side up eggs and read this.

          This may help.

          A brief understanding of a part of English Humour"

          ---

          Americans are famous for not having a sense of humour. They have a sense of humor instead.

          *hides*

        3. waldo kitty
          FAIL

          Re: eggs (was: RE: I prefer "Rugby for big girls' blouses in armour.".)

          over easy sunny side up eggs

          no such thing can exist... over easy is flipped without breakage of the yolk... sunny side up has no flipping at all...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Rugby is a very British sport, to allow men hug each other without any kind of protection...

      1. Captain Scarlet

        Oh that's why American's get confused when I keep shouting "HAND BALL" at them.

        Why can't we rename American Football "American Soccer"?

      2. SolidSquid

        > Rugby is a very British sport, to allow men hug each other without any kind of protection...

        Actually a lot of them will wear funny hats these days

      3. Number6

        Rugby players bring their own padding.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Football vs football

      If you say "football club" there is no danger of misinterpretation because no one refers to football teams as "clubs" here in the US.

    6. Keith Langmead

      "Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means soccer."

      Should read "Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means football... not pansy ass version of rugby with body armour."

      1. Charles 9

        "Should read "Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means football... not pansy ass version of rugby with body armour.""

        There's nothing pansy about dealing with 300-plus-pound linebackers charging at speed. Trust me, those pads are there for a good reason, because when 300-pound-plus people collide, it can HURT. Rubgy's rules bar rough tackling but Americans consider it standard Sunday procedure. So consider the course before you blame the horse.

        PS. It's not just Americans that use the term soccer (and yes, we DO use the term "club" with soccer, like with SC). Australians use the term too to avoid confusing with their own version of "footy".

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          "Trust me, those pads are there for a good reason, because when 300-pound-plus people collide, it can HURT. "

          As with boxing (where the gloves are there to protect the hands, not the other guy), the padding is to protect the collider, not the colliddee. Pads allow players to hit much harder and inflict more injuries.

          When rugby players put on pads and play gridiron, gridiron players start getting extremely badly hurt.

          1. Charles 9

            "When rugby players put on pads and play gridiron, gridiron players start getting extremely badly hurt."

            I don't know. Like I said, very rough tackling is frowned upon in rubgy whereas in gridiron it's much more tolerated. The gridiron players have experience and have to run fast and turn sharp corners WITH their gear on. Plus, like I said, there's the issue of weight which contributes to both momentum and inertia.

            Unless you can show an actual demonstration, I'll have to disagree with you. Experience and physics seem to advantage the gridiron player in a collision.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            American football player are selected among people with more "explosive" strength at the expense of being able to sustain it for a longer time, as rugby players need.

            Player rotation is free, and there are separate offense/defense teams, so there's time to recover, unlike rugby. While the lack of forward pass in rugby means tall and very fast players are not needed.

            In turns it means usually everything happens at higher speeds, and impacts are more dangerous. Because there is no off-side rule after the ball is "snapped", and because there are larger spaces to accelerate, impacts may happen among player at higher speeds and at more "energetic" angles, especially between receivers and back ends (and special teams). Add that tackles rules are far more forgiving than rugby, and protections became a requirement... IIRC Roosevelt or some other US president had to intervene at the beginning of the last century because of too many deaths due to the game. It is true that protection invites also to hit harder.

            It's really two different sports requiring different types of players, regardless of some commonalities.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So when he says “football” he means soccer

    No. He means exactly what he said, football.

    1. A K Stiles
      Joke

      Re: So when he says “football” he means soccer

      Just what I came to say. "Football", or even "Association Football", rather than "American Football" or "Aussie Rules All-In Brawling".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Re: So when he says “football” he means soccer

        "Aussie Rules All-In Brawling"

        Is that the one where they go to if they are to soft for post pub Sunday League matches?

      2. James O'Shea

        Re: So when he says “football” he means soccer

        "Just what I came to say. "Football", or even "Association Football", rather than "American Football" or "Aussie Rules All-In Brawling"."

        There are no rules in Australian (Rules) Football. Using an opponent's head as the ball is frowned upon mostly because it takes too long to pound it into an acceptable shape, but is not actually illegal.

        In other news, there's at least one 405-pound man playing American football. http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/109394/meet-laquan-mcgowan-baylors-400-pound-tight-end Don't get in his way, at least not until after he has his second or third heart attack. Even Aussies might need to call in few drop bears or a saltie to handle him.

      3. Number6

        Re: So when he says “football” he means soccer

        Aussie Rules is a bit of a misnomer because I thought they didn't have any rules in that sport.

  4. DF118

    Football

    Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means soccer.

    No, he means football.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Football is football

    "Oswald's a Brit, so when he says “football” he means soccer."

    No, he means football. If some other nation can't understand that the game where your foot contacts the ball is called football, that is their problem not ours.

    1. Archie Woodnuts

      Re: Football is football

      Protip: Association Football has historically been shortened to either Football or Soccer. The term Soccer actually originated in England in the 1880s Both are valid,

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Captain DaFt

        Re: Football is football

        "The term Soccer actually originated in England in the 1880s"

        Typical behaviour.

        Make up a word and trick some yokels into using it, then point and laugh at them when they do.

    2. Bert 1

      Re: Football is football

      El Reg is an English publication, so when it says "Football" it means 1966.

    3. GlenP Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Football is football

      No, Association Football is soccer.

      It is the Rugby Football Union after all!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Football is football

      So, what should you call a game where your hands, feet, legs, head or chest can contact the ball?

      Those are legal all in soccer for all players, though there are a few extra restrictions on hands.

      1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: Re: Football is football

        Rugby.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Football is football

        Where the item to be used within the game is a ball and the primary appendage used to move said ball is the foot, I would call it, ballfoot, no wait football.

    5. Mark 85

      Re: Football is football

      Meh... 61 comments at this point and most seem to be arguing over what to call the came. Same game just different terms. One has to remember that the USA and the UK are divided by a common language.

      On that note, most us who live here in the States and read UK publication, I would hope that we grasp the difference between "football" and "football" much like we know the differences is spelling of certain words that require "u" over there. Seems the argument is amongst you lads in the UK.. so could you take it outside... ?

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Football is football

        Don't forget that Australians use the term soccer, too, because they have their own particular brand of "football" that, like Americans, they prefer over "soccer".

  6. EddieD

    Sadly not beer

    We used to issue bootcamped MacBooks to our PhD students - it was a solution to not enough space for desks, but inevitably, I needed to repair them.

    One day, I found one on my desk to fix, and I thought I could smell something. When I got the thing open, it stank like the broth of hell - fairly appropriate analogy the student had managed to spill fish soup on it and waited a week to bring it in.

    I actually tried to rescue it, sponging it with de-ionised water, but it was beyond redemption.

    At least the next one had only been bathed in baby oil.

    I never plucked up the courage to ask the student how that happened.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sadly not beer

      I'm in the same line of work. A MacBook was brought in with an optical drive that didn't work. "Fine," I thought, "there's a spare in the cupboard." After removing the requisite 22 screws, I was able to lift the failing drive out. And out dropped a 10cm stick of spaghetti. Spaghetti that had obviously once been cooked. How does one even get cooked spaghetti into a slot-loading drive? No need for exchange — I put the original drive and the 22 screws back in place and all was fine.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Sadly not beer

        "How does one even get cooked spaghetti into a slot-loading drive?"

        For a bet?

        1. BurnT'offering

          Re: Sadly not beer

          Practicing for marriage?

      2. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: Sadly not beer

        "How does one even get cooked spaghetti into a slot-loading drive?"

        Cooked spaghetti is somewhat sticky and has a tendency to adhere quite nicely to pretty much anything it touches. It's therefore not entirely beyond the realms of belief to consider a scenario where some spaghetti ended up being spilled off the plate unnoticed (or, given the state of some student residences, simply ignored and forgotten about) and then at some later date a CD/DVD was chucked onto the table/floor/wherever said spaghetti was now residing, the spaghetti decided it fancied a change of scenery and so stuck itself to the underside of the disc, whereupon it then got transferred unnoticed into the drive...

        1. Chris King

          Re: Sadly not beer

          I visited a flat in halls where students had a food fight, and pasta was involved. They just painted over it in magnolia and claimed it was Artex.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Sadly not beer

          at some later date"

          Leave a strand of spaghetti out and exposed and it will return to it's natural crispy "shop bought" state quite quickly. It will not still be sticky "at a later date". Unless it's a got a good coding of source :-)

      3. Adam 1

        Re: Sadly not beer

        When you have kids, you learn to stop asking how object 1 with no worldly reason to be anywhere near object 2 finds itself inside the said object 2.

        The instances of said interactions between unrelated entities tend to happen during the times when the said kids are being "a bit too quiet".

  7. wyatt

    I went to rack a server at a rural police force. I wasn't able to as they were removing all the racks to put new ones in after a pipe had burst above the comms room, soaking everything in it. Must have cost them a fair bit in money and downtime.

  8. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Low disk space is the bane of Exchange servers. Or any email server for that matter.

    1. BurnT'offering

      Re: the bane of Exchange servers

      Exchange is the bane of email servers

      1. waldo kitty
        Facepalm

        Re: the bane of Exchange servers

        Exchange is the bane of email servers

        puhleeze... Exchange is not an email server even though many abuse it as such...

  9. 0laf
    FAIL

    Minging PC?

    Had to repair a home users PC that had packed in.

    Opened the case to find it was 6" deep with ash nicotine and tar.

    The owner was in the habit of tapping his fags and cigars on the front of the case where the front fan would draw it into the pc.

    I don't smoke and the smell was enough to make you boak.

    PC worked fine again after hoovering out ash, CPU was clogged and overheating.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Minging PC?

      "Opened the case to find it was 6" deep with ash nicotine and tar."

      Health hazard, won't service

      Nicotine-infused cigarette tar can be concentrated enough to poison you if handled with bare hands. The only "solution" that actually works to clean this kind of shit is hot water. lots of detergent and a toothbrush - which makes the case rust no matter how much you dry it later. Given you have to bin and replace floppy/DVD/psu/fans and HDD, there's simply no point in repairing a smoker's PC.

  10. paulc
    Happy

    10 Gig Free?

    once upon a time I would have killed for 10 gigs... the server's I used to admin only had 500megs on tap... My first ever hard disk was only 32 megabytes... and I could get loads of files and programs on it...

    1. FuzzyWuzzys

      Re: 10 Gig Free?

      First "server" I had to admin was an install of Concurrent DOS/386, supporting two Wyse dumb terminals. C/DOS would allow, as the name suggests, a DOS program to support multiple users, so you could have multiple users running a database app from a single machine, just a bog standard 386. This was back in the days before licensing was a huge issue and you simply bought one copy and used it, in this case it ran Sapphire's DataEase, where I cut my teeth on a mini version of SQL called D-SQL. The 386 PC in question had 4MB of memory and a 10MB HD that looked like it could be chained up and used to smack down walls! We ran a 3-way networked DB app for 2 years like that on that kit back in the late 1980's.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: 10 Gig Free?

        "We ran a 3-way networked DB app for 2 years like that on that kit back in the late 1980's."

        Similar story here except it was an LSI Octopus running CP/M86 with 5 serial terminals. It had both Z80 and 8086 CPUs in it and ran both 8-bit (.com) and 16-bit (.cmd) executables. Then one day the sales guy turned up and showed us this add on card that turned it into a single user PC compatible for only £350 ( it would already boot MSDOS, but not IBM PC compatible). We declined his offer ;-)

  11. Mayhem

    A few splashes?

    So our company does environmental monitoring systems, amongst other stuff. We had an entertaining time a year or three back in central london when one of our sites had a bit of a problem with water. We were only paid to record and monitor, not to tell anyone, so these made fun reading back on the monday.

    B3 leak detection alert

    Tank 1 overspill alert.

    Tank 2 overspill alert

    Sump pump 1 failed.

    Sump pump 2 failed.

    B2 Leak detection alert

    all hell breaks loose with alerts of all sorts

    all alerts stop

    Night shift guard is heading through basement on patrols and notices floor is an inch deep in water, and the steps down have vanished.

    Starts frantically calling everyone.

    It is determined that the taps are controlled from an area two floors down. Underwater.

    Fire brigade turns up to assist, soon determines that water is lapping at the plinth of the local substation in the basement. Phones electric company hotline.

    According to our contact the call went something along the lines of :

    "Turn off the substation at xxx"

    "Are you crazy, that powers safety critical traffic lights and half of regent street and soho, not happening"

    "Turn it off, or in ten minutes I'll make it go off with my axe, or in half an hour the water will make it explode, I'll put the fire out, and it will still be off"

    "oh. um. I need to speak to ... "

    "nine minutes..."

    "please hold"

    <2 min later power goes off>

    "Erm, it should be off"

    "Thank you"

    Turned out that a 6bar mains head had sheared off in the basement, so the normal firetrucks couldn't keep up with demand - they had to bring in a serious pump truck at £1000/hr, which they made our contact sign off for on the basis that he knew why they were there. Took em some 14 hours to pump the basements dry after cutting off water supply to the area.

    Our kit turned out to have been sending alerts for nearly three hours while underwater, which we reckoned was a pretty good stress test.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: A few splashes?

      "Turned out that a 6bar mains head had sheared off in the basement"

      Once upon a time a main ruptured in Melton St alongside the forecourt to Euston Station. It washed a huge crater in the road and got into the underground car park. Reportedly cars were floating.

      We had a VAX admin on his way in by tube to start an afternoon shift. He said that the train stopped. The power went off. Then the water started coming up through the floor.

      1. BurnT'offering

        Re: A few splashes?

        Was the VAX still running?

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: A few splashes?

          "Was the VAX still running?"

          Several floors up in Eversholt street. The water never got that high ;)

          1. BurnT'offering

            Re: A few splashes?

            I wouldn't have been surprised if you had said it continued to work while fully submerged. Tough buggers, Vaxes

    2. John Sager

      Re: A few splashes?

      Record & monitor only? Was someone else supposed to get alerts, and from other kit?

      1. Mayhem

        Re: A few splashes?

        Site only wanted a record of what went wrong for diagnostic purposes after the fact. We used the same system we had everywhere else, so it generated alerts and sent them to us for an offsite record, we just filtered them off and ignored them.

        You might think site were idiots. We couldn't possibly comment.

      2. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: A few splashes?

        It's not unusual for the manufacturer of remotely monitored kit to pay at least as much attention (or, in some cases, significantly more) to the status information reported back by the kit as is paid to it by the customer who actually has the responsibility to monitor the kit and act on any alerts it generates.

        If you can remotely access status info from customer kit without it affecting the ability of the customer themselves to access the kit, then every installation becomes a source of useful ongoing data to show how your kit performs out there in the real world, and so well worth keeping an eye on.

    3. IHateWearingATie
      Pint

      Re: A few splashes?

      Bravo sir - that story made my Friday

    4. Charles 9

      Re: A few splashes?

      "Our kit turned out to have been sending alerts for nearly three hours while underwater, which we reckoned was a pretty good stress test."

      Yes, and you can be thankful that was fresh water flooding your kit. If it had been salt water, I doubt any kit would've lasted five minutes (salt water is an electrolyte; everything would've earthed through it).

  12. Zippy's Sausage Factory
    Facepalm

    Reading that made my eye twitch...

    Weirdly, I've known people worse than that. Usually they were MCSEs.

    I did once witness the exciting spectacle of a helpdesk person teaching an MCSE how to plug in a server and switch it on. This took half an hour. She seriously had to explain power switches to the guy.

    I seem to remember she got another job quite soon after that. Allegedly it was because the commute was shorter in the new role...

    1. BurnT'offering

      Re: Reading that made my eye twitch...

      Presumably the new commute allowed her to stay on this planet

    2. raving angry loony

      Re: Reading that made my eye twitch...

      > Allegedly it was because the commute was shorter in the new role...

      Stupid-land is a hell of a trip after all, especially when you have to come back when you're done.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Reading that made my eye twitch...

      MCSE is software. Turning a server on is hardware. You can't expect an MCSE to know hardware.

  13. Chris King

    "Land that thing now, while I'm still in the mood to let you !"

    "Turn it off, or in ten minutes I'll make it go off with my axe, or in half an hour the water will make it explode, I'll put the fire out, and it will still be off"

    Some people just can't take a hint...

    Network Technician: This machine is causing problems for your part of the campus, please disconnect it.

    Network Manager: This machine is causing problems for your part of the campus, please disconnect it.

    Me: You're messing up the network and you've ignored my colleagues. I'm pulling your plug.

    Chummy decides he knows better than me, and moves the machine.

    At this point, I had all the network ports in the room turned off.

    He moved it next door, so I had all those ports turned off too.

    Did I mention this was pub o'clock on a Friday ?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: "Land that thing now, while I'm still in the mood to let you !"

      Yep.. been there too. We merged with a bigger company and their network folks came in and rewired/reconfigured everything. Then hit the power switch on the main router to connect us with the main office. Five minutes later, the screams from the processing people and the call center started as suddenly the local mainframe and servers weren't connecting. Seems someone forgot to change the IP on the local mainframe which was already in use by the main office. The router not having the correct info, routed everything that supposed to go to mainframe to the main office machine.

      Two years later, they pulled the same bit when re-working the network and local servers.... The guy doing the DNS/DHCP, IP configuration, etc. wasn't around much longer after that.

    2. Charles 9

      Re: "Land that thing now, while I'm still in the mood to let you !"

      "He moved it next door, so I had all those ports turned off too."

      What happened next? Did he move them to the same room as equipment used by someone over your head, meaning you couldn't turn off those ports without having to answer to him/her why they couldn't make the weekend deadline because you cut him/her off just as the deadline was closing?

      1. Chris King

        Re: "Land that thing now, while I'm still in the mood to let you !"

        "What happened next? Did he move them to the same room as equipment used by someone over your head, meaning you couldn't turn off those ports without having to answer to him/her why they couldn't make the weekend deadline because you cut him/her off just as the deadline was closing?"

        He just whinged to his boss, who then tried to whinge at my division head.

        Not that that did them any good - he just told them to stop being so bloody stupid and to call back on Monday morning.

    3. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: "Land that thing now, while I'm still in the mood to let you !"

      "Chummy decides he knows better than me, and moves the machine."

      At which point you should have called security and had him escorted off the premises.

      When IT says "disconnect it NOW, it's affecting other people's ability to work" and you don't, that's a sacking offence and your boss, your boss's boss and his boss will support you right down the line. (Been there done that. In my case it was the director who showed up personally to remove the miscreant.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Land that thing now, while I'm still in the mood to let you !"

        Unless HIS boss is over YOUR boss's head OR holds was hired by the parent company who can then threaten to call up someone from the mother office.

  14. Bodge99

    Dogs.

    Many moons ago I spent a short while working for a micky mouse company that had the contract for warranty repairs for some of the (slightly) bigger PC names at the time.

    One home visit was to look at a large tower system that cost nearly £3,000 . It was packed full of very expensive kit.. state of the art goodies that just made me drool when reading the spec.

    The tower was totally dead and I couldn't fail to miss the three "horse sized" Great Danes as I arrived.

    Can you see where this is going yet??

    I removed the tower side panels and was physically overwhelmed by the stench that emanated.

    Yep.. The dogs had been relieving themselves over the back of the tower.

    The urine had rotted out most of the copper tracks on everything inside.. and no, the warranty didn't cover it!

    1. JJKing
      Facepalm

      Re: Dogs.

      I know it's been here about 3 years but this goes to prove my theory that it is better to be pissed off than pissed on.

      I'm leaving now. I'll be back sometime in 2019.

  15. Adrian 4

    Beer does that too. I tried to repair a calculator returned by a large brewery in Wolverhampton that had had beer spilt in it. Copper tracks turned green, sticky residue everywhere. And this was a good while ago : the calculator used Nixies, so it didn't appreciate a leaky circuit board.

  16. Versace
    Flame

    Football clubs

    Football clubs are crap clients. They expect special treatment because they are household names, but won't pay for it because most of them run at a loss.

    I recall one club, some years ago, who used our software to print the match tickets on a dot matrix printer (yes, they were hard up). This was quite noisy, and the person in charge of printing thought he would just leave it to print a few thousand tickets. In his absence the printer jammed, and friction started a fire. Luckily it was noticed before it did much damage. Our software got the blame, naturally.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Football clubs

      "They expect special treatment because they are household names, but won't pay for it because most of them run at a loss."

      One of my employers found that the fastest way to get action was to execute a repossession order on saturday afternoon, starting with the cash registers at the club bar and the accounting computers. Police got invited along, who told club security that if they attempted to stop the repossession they'd be arrested on the spot and that if they didn't keep the club patrons at bay they'd be arrested too.

      Funnily enough the outstanding six-figure sum got paid - in cash - after the second cash register went out the door. At that point my employer didn't care about losing them as a customer (they'd already burned most of the other outfits in the area) and in the end he didn't as noone else would take them on. This happened before I worked for them, but I'd been related the story by several sources in and out of the company. I'd subsequently had to service kit onsite and it was notable that this was one of the worst sites for electronic equipment abuse by staff. An indicator they weren't happy campers.)

      These days if you're going to do a seizure order on equipment I'd start with the comms kit (offsite routers and network switches) before moving to the petty stuff such like cash registers. Point of sale terminals don't work very well if they can't connect to the server and you don't have to expose yourself to bar customers who might become hostile when they work out your presence means they can't be sold any more booze.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Football clubs

        "These days if you're going to do a seizure order on equipment I'd start with the comms kit (offsite routers and network switches) before moving to the petty stuff such like cash registers. Point of sale terminals don't work very well if they can't connect to the server and you don't have to expose yourself to bar customers who might become hostile when they work out your presence means they can't be sold any more booze."

        How long before someone savvy makes it physically impossible to remove the comms equipment without removing the POS equipment first AND makes sure to place key equipment on the sales floor so that any attempt to seize the stuff means you're in plain sight and risk a riot?

        1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

          Re: Football clubs

          The comms stuff will be in some server room or cabinet surely, not in the bar. Mind you, that probably will be physically secure as well.

          I suppose you can either disable it remotely when not paid for, or divert POS electronic payments to pay your outstanding bill first. Surely it must be possible to write a contract with a clause that says you can do that.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: Football clubs

            Sure, you can WRITE it, but good luck getting them to SIGN it. It all depends on who has more leverage: who needs whom more? As for the server room, not everything has to be there. Access points, for example, need to be centrally located to cover maximum area. And clubs can have some clever people in their ranks, so they may contrive ways to maximize their leverage.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Football clubs

      >Football clubs are crap clients. They expect special treatment because they are household names,

      >but won't pay for it because most of them run at a loss.

      My wife used to work in the credit control department of a large car hire firm. The local football team insisted on having the latest and greatest cars for their 'star' players and directors but were fairly lax about actually paying for them.

      Apparently, the sight of the repo man turning up with a large car transporter on match days tended to focus their minds on paying the bills..

  17. ben kendim

    Beer stress test

    Tutorial for beer stress testing is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NwrzQ6M0g8

  18. AceRimmer1980
    Pint

    Survives 3 hours exposure to beer, falls over after 12

    Much like my last boss.

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