» Evidence that you're getting old

I know I must be old
Because I have no idea why "the" is being spelled "teh" and, furthermore, I have no desire to find out. I only recently found out what "bling" was and I wish I hadn't bothered.

Oh yeah, and my scrotum is getting bigger.
(Thu 28th Oct 2004, 21:31, More)

» Clients Are Stupid

Air Force intelligence
Most Air Force types are pretty switched on, but occasionally a howler slips through the net. Both of these happened to me years ago, when I was a flight simulator tech posted to Germany.

The routine when repairing a fault is to fill in a form documenting the symptoms, parts used, what you did to fix it etc. This form is then passed on to the Coding Cell, who convert the information into numbers that the computer database can understand. Thats the scene set.

So I'm in the office having a cuppa, when the phone rings. Its one of the young ladies from the coding cell with a few queries about a recent job card.
"Whats the problem" I ask.
"Well, I'm having problems understanding one particular fault symptom; it seems to be something about a black man" she replies. Confusion reigned for a while until I asked her what the symptom actually was.
"No raster on monitor" came the reply. I swear that is true.

Same place and another phone call, this time from a Chief Technician in the RAF Regiment. He's looking for some parts to help construct this very high tech power supply that he's building.
"what do you need?", I ask
"I just need a 74 series chip (the most common type of chip on the planet with lots of different devices available)
"No problem, we've got lots of those. Which type would you like?"
"You mean there are different types?"
Somehow I doubt he ever got that supply to work.

I now work on electron microscopes and we get so many stupid things happening it beggars belief.
One customer had their machine stolen. As far as I know this has never happened ever, anywhere. This machine was the only one of its kind in the country. They are quite big and heavy and require a fair amount of time to remove and install. Two weeks later we get a call from a guy asking for advice about his newly acquired machine, that he bought from a guy called Ali who had it in the back of his truck. No prizes for guessing where that came from. The new "owner" was a well known shady character who didn't think we would notice an enquiry about a unique machine recently stolen from our customer.
(Thu 1st Jan 2004, 1:49, More)

» World's Most Hated Food

Carnation milk
is bloody excellent if you are making custard with it. One third Carnation, the rest normal milk; Yum!

Tuna tastes much better when drowned in Worcestershire sauce

Anyway, here is some nasty stuff.

1. Root Beer. This stuff tastes like something you would rub on the outside of a horse that is suffering from muscle strain.

2. Tripe and Cow-heel. Both mentioned seperately but, when combined, truly the most sickening, stinking obnoxious piles of wobbling white shit ever to disgrace a dining table. Not even suited for dogs.

3. All American chocolate. I live here and it truly is the most appalling waste of decent cocoa beans ever. The taste of wax with the consistency of grit. Watch an American's face as he tastes a real Malteser for the first time; the revelation that chocolate is actually damned good.

4. Butter beans. I love most veggies, but these things are the devil's gonads.

5. Most japanese food. Simply horrible. You can keep your fancy, yuppie sushi bars thanks. If I want to eat raw sea creatures I'll transmute myself into a shark. Even then I would never eat sea cucumber.

6. Norwegian Christmas dinner. Seems to consist of varieties of wobbly lumps of different kinds of fat. At least it saves family arguments at christmas; everybody agrees that the food is shit.

There are others, but I have just eaten my lunch and really don't facncy regurgitating it.
(Thu 15th Jul 2004, 20:59, More)

» People with Stupid Names

Almost for got about this guy
There was a motorcycle racer called Ray Swann. When his name was read out over the PA system asking him to come to race control, every rider in Race One turned up.

There is/was a one-legged sidecar racer called Mick Skidmore too.
(Fri 27th Aug 2004, 0:27, More)

» Clients Are Stupid

Words fail me
This is a great thread for somebody who has been working in tech support for as long as I have. The hardest thing is keeping it short. Anyway, this little tale is about another electron microscope customer.

I had to visit an Irish customer who had bought an old machine and carried out the move and re-install themselves. They had also paid about 3 times too much for the tool. They called us up to check whether it was OK to turn on the machine following a minor flood in the room. That led to the visit.

When I went into the room the first thing I noticed was the smell. The "minor flood" had happened in the adjoining animal house, resulting in a wave of waste products soaking into the microscope room. The blast of ammonia as you opened the door was indescribable.

I started to work on the machine, stopping for fresh air breaks every 20 minutes. Normally a machine like this will easily image at 100,000 times plus; this one couldn't manage 2,000 times. I won't bore you with the details of all the most basic cock-ups they had done (eg things installed upside down) but it took hours of graft to get close to working properly.
I then touched the gun assembly (where the beam comes from, lots of high voltage) and received an electric shock. Not normal! When I checked all of the cables I found every single earth lead disconnected (there are lots). When I asked the customer about it the reply was
"There's an awful lot of them, and we weren't sure where they went, so we left them off"!

Excited by their now properly performing machine, the customer stayed late into the night putting labels on the rack of little plastic drawers containing all of the spares. It took them hours to complete. When I tried to open one of the drawers I couldn't. They had stuck the labels on the backs of the drawers then faced the entire rack towards the wall!
(Thu 1st Jan 2004, 17:00, More)