"I literally crawled over broken glass for this company."
Instead of positioning the switch in a more accessible location, like, outside of the crushed glass area.
But yeah, that wouldn't be so impressive at performance review . . .
The Register knows that readers often put themselves in harm's way to ensure tech keeps ticking over, which is why each Friday we salute those efforts with a fresh installment of On Call – the reader-contributed column that details true tales of tech support. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Gordon," who once worked …
Basic utilities such as power and networking never seem to feature in stand designs. One show I was at, $manager had decided that there should be no physical assets on the stand for people to look at and play with, but the staff were to have collateral on iPads. It wasn’t one of their better decisions.
If I go into a shop and someone sends me to a kiosk with a tablet to tap and scroll through a catalog of what they sell, I just head for the door. Shops where everything is behind the counter or in the back, sort of thing.
Why on Earth would you go to a technology show just to scroll through pages that you could read within the comfort of your own ass, in your own home.
"Shops where everything is behind the counter or in the back"
These are infinitely better than those where whatever you ask for isn't behind the counter or in the back. I remember one whose owner I privately refereed to as "we haven't got it" as that seemed to be his stock response to anything asked for.
Possibly even better are those who don't necessarily have it but know who does - like the one who pointed me to someone online who had got all the old stock from a closed down screw manufacturer and could supply things like what might have been the UK's last remaining few screws of that particular size in brass.
I got royally chewed out by a boss for helping a customer in this way
His mindset was that he'd buy the items in question and sell them to the customer at 500% markup, with the customer being grateful to find them
My thought was that the customer would eventually find the real source and having done so, wouldn't be happy with us (he purchased significant quantities and taking his business elsewhere would hurt) - besides, he wanted the items today, not next week
Some years, several employers afterwards I discovered that said former employer was now amongst the most expensive suppliers around, and was being actively avoided unless they were the last resort. A couple of years after that they went out of business
Screwfix are a bit like that - they have a couple of touchscreen terminals at the front but I've found the staff (Wick, Caithness) to be far better than I am at finding something with the sort of description I can give.
Argos on the other hand - some of the staff are helpful but the software on their terminals makes me want to gag.
The designers get the praise and money, fuck the engineers. Much like MikesElectricStuff. He did a very nice display many years ago now (on his YouTube channel I believe) but when you went to the official "designers" site, no mention of the engineer that designed the electronics (Mike) and made sure it all worked. No, them being poncy designers, everything was done by them. I don't think Mike cared, he got a nice pay out for it being freelance but still. Wouldn't take much to at least acknowledge your art design wouldn't of been pulled off without the engineers behind it.
I'm not saying where, but I ended up on the floor (after nearly being shot) trying to cool down a fibre connection that some cop had placed a radiator against during the night to keep his booth warm and had forgotten about when his shift ended.
Oh there was that time hanging out the back of an under fire Hercules over a bit of sandy ground near India that is better forgotten.
Ah the good old days.
"Oh there was that time hanging out the back of an under fire Hercules over a bit of sandy ground near India that is better forgotten."
Not forgotten - in fact, immortalized in a factual documentary with Timothy Dalton!
Your hanging out over sandy grounds may better be forgotten. But at least, it makes a good story.
While my story nearly ended on training grounds when encountering a feckin' crackhead. I wouldn't have trusted this guy with a spoon but someone thought it was okay to hand him a rifle while not realising that he was incapable of mentally processing anything let alone gun safety. Soon after I literally dodged that bullet, he was, luckily, removed from military service and taken into police custody for unrelated issues (related to dealing with skag, crack...)
My guess would be that it was the Venue's network & they were ill-disposed to dick around with the changes, documentation etc, for one company that was only going to be there for the weekend.
Icon - For the many beers consumed after each days exhibiting at trade shows, in days of yore.
At one big international sporting event, one of the activities had all of the computers etc in the basement under the stadium. Because of the large number of people 10* normal, the toilets were not able to cope, and there was a leak into the basement. It was only a gentle leak - about an inch a day. The organisers reckoned it would be a foot deep by the end of the event, so did not do anything about it.
Fortunately the computers were on tables, and the power and connectivity came down from the ceiling. No one needed to visit the computers, so the door to the basement was locked.
Presumably the problem was fixed by the end of the event - but the computer may have gone into a skip at the end.
One likes to think people were somewhat less daft back then... just wasn't so... people are generally dafter than a brush and always finding newer shit to paint on the walls.
Crushed glass? I assume not too fine as its would be a respiratory health hazard. Glass beads or those glass marbles use in dried flower arranging would be safer I would have thought.
To be honest the attendees at most tech shows couldn't give a rat's about such asthetics such as lilly pads on a pond.
"To be honest the attendees at most tech shows couldn't give a rat's about such asthetics"
People think they aren't affected by these things, but they often are. There's a reason advertising/branding/marketing exists: humans are easily influenced by the look of things. There's always a question about what impression such things are actually giving, but that they give people an impression of what some business is like in some way - at least, how that business wants to see itself and be seen - is fairly uncontentious.
I don't think there are any universally attractive techniques. Things that attract one person might put off another. But it's pretty clear that humans are irrationally influenced by appearances.
A lot of it is to do with spotting patterns that provide shortcuts to assess things. For example, high quality (consumer-oriented) stuff has had all the screws and fasteners hidden for decades, so these days anything that has visible fasteners suggests low-quality (or non-consumer-grade) as a first impression. Depending on whether you're looking for a consumer-grade product, or perhaps an industrial one instead, that may be a good or bad impression.
I think what I'm trying to say is that there is a fairly widely shared understanding of the language of style/design, and what it says to people. Whether the things something is saying through its design are good or bad depends on the individual.
"but that they give people an impression of what some business is like in some way"
This is, in fact, very generous of them as it often serves as a warning, to prospective recruits and customers alike, to look elsewhere for employer or supplier as appropriate. Such selflessness should be applauded, even if it isn't awarded.
a clear case of form over functionality. If there was any justice, the bright spark who came up with the idea of using broken glass should be the one to clear the path to said switch for the engineer to sort it out (gods forbid the "designer" be allowed to touch the actual hardware involved)
I was asked to replace a security camera in a C shaped water park tunnel. While the pool it was connected to was closed for the work, the water wasn't drained...
I had to wade in a chest deep water with step ladders, toolbox and the spare camera (placed on top of on of those pool floaters). At least they closed the jets.
The only time I have ever had to work wearing speedos.
(different AC here) you know how we all have 1-2 people that like to come by and pester you with questions while you're trying to get work done? Come to work wearing nothing but a speedo and watch them start to avoid you instead.
(warning: may have the opposite effect in some cases).
So yes quite a number of years ago... Mounting a Proliant 7u server, in a full-height 19" rack, in just about the top-position. WITHOUT LIFT.
The thing was fully configured and we were not allowed to take out disks by the supplier, enterprise support contract and all that. We tried to have the supplier install the machine but they refused for lack of a lift...
So imagine two scruffy engineers balancing a 40 Kg server over their heads, trying to not get dead, trying to get the server slides into position. Having miraculously succeeded and still alive, the 19" rack started tilting over as it was not bolted to either neighboring racks or the ground. We just about saved it, pushed the Proliant all the way and locked the slides.
We decided enough was enough, left the server as it was without power and went for a fully deserved couple of beers. Never again!
I attended was a total disaster. The organisers had somehow managed to forget to advertise the event until the last minute. The result was around forty stands, including my own and barely a handful of visitors throughout the day. We all ended up just going around each others stands and having a chat. A complete waste of time and expense.
That was kinda like my first one in selling modems in Sunderland (The day that the first episode of Casualty was broadcast) & (one of) the last ones in St Helens selling computer comms to the deaf (While the rest of the team attended a show in Manchester (with the lady I'd intended to use the opportunity to get closer to - I did at least get the opportunity to drive her back down to Devon on the Sunday).
Icon - More Trade Show beers.
::mumble:: years ago, I had a contract with the USGS which involved helping to fit out the research vessel USNS S.P.Lee (T-AGS-31) with new computers and miscellaneous kit. We were operating out of the Port of Redwood City, even though her official berth was at Mare Island ... The USGS had a huge warehouse there, donated to them by Howard Hughes after his part of the HMB-1 project was over.
ANYway, we were on the way out to the Gulf of the Farallones for a quick test of some of the sonar mapping gear. I was having a fun time, pointing out shark fins in the water for the mostly land-bound techie folks onboard an ocean-going vessel for the first time ... I probably shouldn't have, several of them were already quite green around the gills.
We got to the location, switched on the gear ... and discovered that one of the transducers didn't work. Some quick troubleshooting with a TDR indicated that the cable was broken just below the waterline (This was a temporary proof of functionality installation, proper through-holes were going to be installed after this first shake-down run.). Having the proper certs, I volunteered to dive on the problem ... and sure enough, about 5 feet below the waterline was a break, a tug had probably made contact as we were heading out of Redwood Creek. So I followed the cable down, unscrewed it, cut a couple tie wraps, and headed back up. Measure a length of new cable, terminate it, then back down to plug the thing back in.
All in a day's work, right? The last thing I expected was to get a commendation for "intentionally diving into shark-filled waters to save the mission". Quite embarrassing. YES, there are sharks out there. Lots of them, including Great Whites. But as a surfer, I'm here to tell you that they are not really a problem. The water temperature, on the other hand ...
I tried to send you a story, but all I got back was:
Generating server: AM7P189MB0760.EURP189.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM
oncall@theregister.com
Remote server returned '533 5.4.0 Your message seems to have triggered our junk email filters. Could you edit your message and try again?'
It's just some text. No I am not going to edit it and try again. Fix your process
Alan
Do you really dare to dive in among us commentards to complain that an automated system concludes that your writing fulfills a sufficient number of hallmarks for spam, and believe that you will get away untarnished?
I salute your bravery, but maybe not so much your wisdom.
I did IT support in a school which was in a building about 150yr old. There were numerous 'fixes' that would make an Elf and Safety person twitch.
I had to climb up into a roof space to try to run a network cable, the roof was in the bell tower and the hatch was up a smaller buttressed tower. The hatch was reached by tying the bottom of a very old wooden ladder to the top of the spiral staircase bannister and resting the top in the hatch (prob a 20 foot fall down stone staircase), in teh loft it was heavily contaminated by a century of pigeon shit and dead pigeons in various states of decomposition (I was suited up with a mask but a decorators mask not a proper one). crawling across the 150yr old shit soaked attic floor trying to walk on boards not the plaster and lathe and any mis-step would be rewarded by a 150 food drop to the assembly room floor. I did find some chalked love poetry from some besotted 19th century boarder up there which was interesting (also found some amazingly racist comic book pages form the 1920s in another roof space).
In another wonderful adventure I had to crawl through the foundations to locate a damaged network cable, found the cable running under a large boulder maybe 3-5T which had rolled onto the cable. No idea what prompted it to roll, the ground was level and flat and it had already been there for a very long time. The school was ajacent to the Highland Boundary Fault and tremors were common so maybe that.
I think William Walker has you all beat, even without an IT angle.
BoFH #1 : the pressure sensor has failed and will have to be replaced
BoFH #2 : yeah... bit of bugger it being in a 3 foot square water pipe we've just drained down.
BoFH #1 : And its 30 feet of crawling too....... You do have that PFY though
Both BoTH: Hey PFY, How are you doing?
PFY (me) : Very badly I suspect.....
Later on
PFY: "I did stirling effort getting that pressure sensor fixed and the multi-million pound plant up and going, Do you think I could have a pa"
Boss(instantly): "No"
I was an unofficial rattler wrangler at SLAC, The Stanford Dish and the SAIL iteration of D.C. Power, all on the North Western edge of Silly Con Valley.
I pulled a few out of awkward places up on Black Mountain (Western edge of SV) and Mt. Hamilton (Eastern edge), too.
Here in Northern California, (some) techie folks regularly have to deal with black widows, scorpions, tarantulas, rats, mice, snakes, skunk, beaver, bear, puma, racoon, coyote, wild boar, etc. Tree squirrels and ground squirrels can also be a major headache in some places. Repatriating feral European honey bees is a specialty of mine ... some of my best producing colonies were pulled out of underground cable vaults.
I remember them well ...
One day SGI had a booth next to us (which dates this to pretty long ago) and had 2 really nice, slightly curved 50inch plasma / led screens on which they were planning to demo all their latest shiny shiny ...
Queue a forklift driver who was delivering the coffee machine for the stand across the isle, backing up into what ( i hope) he thought were 2 empty cardboard boxes and reducing at least a years salary worth of monitors to electric junk.
Or ending up with some colleagues and clients in a bar after day 1 when the bar closes and you're all invited to stey inside and making it back to your hotel basically in time for early breakfast knowing you'll have to be at the booth , clean shaven, dressed nicely and ready to deal with all the IT crap that had managed to die overnight at 9 AM
Or replacing dead video cards in a shoebox sized PC that was only just big enough to host a full sized video card, and that for designer reasons was squashed away under neath something big and immovable and getting zapped in the process because the other powercable turned out not to have been grounded at all.
Nothing as impressive as literally crawling over broken glass, but some niec stories, and lots of good memories ...
Esp. when the sales staff was so impressed that they invited me along to the dinner with potential clients (i do not remember much of what happened after dinner, as the wine they served was both really expensive, and really good. I do remember being the only one of the group who went for dinner to make it to the venue the next day [ in time, and cleanly shaved ] ... i was a lot younger then .. )
Was told to bring a 10ft stepladder to a gig the other day. I could just barely reach the switch by standing on its tippy-top; a 12-footer would have been much safer (and OSHA-compliant). I survived my venture into "la zona de muerta". The rack was firmly attached to the wall, so I had a decent handhold at least.
The folks I worked for had some second hand trailers they used as overflow offices. The data lines were run underneath because some VIP thought that wiring coming out of or down the wall wasn't as snazzy as wiring coming up from the floor.
In the fullness of time, the line to one of the desirable and hotly fought over corner offices went dead. My TDR said it was 14 feet short, so I figured that some rodent had taken a liking to Cat5e.
After changing to overalls and getting some cardboard, I started going underneath the trailer, only to hear a very distinctive dry rattle. I did an Olympic backwards low crawl out, and spent a couple minutes hyperventilating before getting a better flashlight and checking - yep, rattlesnake.
Then I had the fun of reporting this to my boss and the affected gentleman. "The good news is that whatever rodent did the damage is gone. The bad news is that a rattlesnake has taken up residence underneath the trailer. I am a computer nerd, not a herpetologist. Tell me when the snake is gone so I can fix the cabling."
I ended up pulling a new connection in the ceiling.