"mission critical support"
I used to work for a major IT Services company, where I did "escalation" support - meaning, we got the cases that had phone support people going "we don't know what the fuck is going on". Worse, we were the first technical people to see the "mission critical" cases, for a simple reason: companies who buy those support contracts are paying for people to answer the phone at all hours.

That means exactly what it says: someone to answer the phone to a certain "service level agreement" (SLA), maybe dispatch a failed drive or cable, if the customer knows that's what it is. What they don't get, as standard, is what we refer to, in the business, as technical support. "Technical" in this context might include some troubleshooting skills, or the ability to look up an error code in a PDF manual (i.e. use the Search function). Well, getting people to work odd hours, have a decent phone manner, and have troubleshooting skills is now too expensive, and might eat into profits. We can't have that, can we?
( bnt what, me worry?, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 20:40, Reply)

I didn't recognise you... You've got your knickers on
I'm a midwife. We go into your houses. We know if the baby was planned, we know when it was conceived and often if the dad is who everyone thinks it is. We see every manner of naked women; the 'having your hand up someone's chuff' element is the least interesting bit- it's when you find out that the baby couldn't possibly have been conceived when the father thinks it was, or any manner of other things- it's amazing what a sleep deprived man will tell you while his other half is changing baby's nappy. It's like a truth drug. Yes, we know you've had a go at breastfeeding, and the rest...

As for people having sex on the postnatal ward- yes it does happen. Patients mostly.

Amazingly nothing anyone has ever told me has shocked me or disgusted me, or made me judge them. I must be the most liberal person ever...
(Clarabelle is reverting to type on, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 20:38, Reply)

Grrrmachine is right about the language schools
I've been lazy enough in the past to just put on episodes of Black Books for European teenagers to watch and then make them write a detailed synopsis of each episode.
If I was feeling particularly charitable I'd even pre-teach the vocabulary.

There are now a number of German, French and Italian teenagers who can announce 'I'm a prostitute robot from the future' perfectly.
( gypsy turnips, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 20:25, Reply)

Fancy A Pint? No? How about a chinese?
Not sure how widespread similar stories to these two are, but I think enough now for people to believe that they're urban myths and make them feel safe again. Trust me. They're not and you shouldn't.

A local pub here very suddenly went out of business when it turned out that the amazing weekly guest ale was in fact just a cask the drip trays and barrel dregs were emptied into every night. Apparently the bastardly owner had great fun coming up with a new name for it every couple of weeks and enjoyed watching the local weirdy beardy real ale folks comment on how you could tell it wasn't mass produced but a real artisan pint (actually, I'll let him off with that one).

I'm a little more harsh on the local all-you-can-eat chinese buffet when it turned out that rather than empty the food warmers when the grub was running out they just dumped more fresh stuff on top. Unsuprisingly, leaving the three day old heat lamped to perfection food mixed in with the freshly cooked stuff is a surefire recipe for a food poisoning outbreak and a department of health closedown period. Not getting sick is not much of a comfort when you read it in the papers a week after you were all there to celebrate your mates birthday.
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 28 Sep 2007, 20:23, Reply)

dirty trade secrets
Nothing shocking to report but I need to confess it used to be a point of honour to write film and album reviews unseen/unheard when I worked on an underfunded website.
Also, in electrical shops, observe how the microwaves/walkmans/tellies increase in price from left to right and usually from the ground level upwards...psychology apparently
(alspicer, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 20:14, Reply)

The cost of RAM...
I work in a semiconductor plant, where we manufacture RAM that goes into everything from computers to cell phones to your Xbox.

To manufacture these things, you start out with a wafer of extremely pure silicon, with as close to a perfect crystalline structure as can be managed. (Give you an idea of how perfect: if you break a wafer, it usually splits along lines that form 60 degree angles, because all of the atoms line up in a hexagonal structure. I shit thee not.) These wafers are only about a millimeter thick, so they're extraordinarily fragile. By the time a full lot of wafers (25 wafers in a lot) makes it through to the point where it's ready to be cut up into individual little boards of RAM, each wafer has had about $1800 of work invested in it, so one of these lots is worth about $45,000. These wafers are 20 cm across- about 8"- so a full lot fits in a box about 12" on a side, and the lot, the cassette holding the lot and the box together weigh about 8 lbs. (The box is shown on the left; inside said box is the cassette with the wafers, on the right.)



You know how they say that familiarity breeds contempt?

I've seen guys pick up these boxes by the corner with one hand to carry them across the room. And I've seen them carry two at a time this way.

To put it in perspective: if that box's latches fail and it opens, or if the box slips out of his hand, $45,000 is instantly lost. If this goober trips and drops both lots, that's $90,000. That's the equivalent of paying three of the manufacturing associates for a year to not even be there. That's a fully loaded Porsche. That's half of a mortgage on a decent house.

And these clowns carry them around like bowling balls.

Another good one: because it's a Class 1 cleanroom environment, everyone has to wear a cleanroom suit, sometimes called a bunny suit, which covers every bit of you except your eyes and nose- and you have to wear safety glasses, so it's really just your nose. To give you an idea of what it looks like:



(This is not our plant, but that's pretty close to what it looks like up there.)

Since even wearing perfume can cause problems with the wafers, they're ultra paranoid about any sort of contamination, so there are no bathrooms in the factory. Gotta take a piss? You have to walk out to the gowning room, take off the suit and walk out of the factory to get to the bathroom. It takes a good ten minutes to get there, and another ten to return- so you don't do it often.

Some of the associates have gotten very sneaky and pissed down through the grate floor into the lower area of the factory where the things like the canisters of hydrogen gas and other chemicals and the slurry pumps and whatnot are. What one guy didn't realize, though, was that the place he chose to piss was right next to one of the ion implanting machines. He was in fact pissing right next to the power supply for the machine. A 480V, god-knows-how-many-amp power line. Had he hit it, the current would have gone straight up the stream, up through his urethra, vaporized the contents of his bladder and kidneys, and blown his crotch apart like a pinata.

I sometimes regret that he missed. It would have made for a great Darwin Award.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 28 Sep 2007, 20:02, Reply)

"close your legs Anthea"
Once upon a time I worked for the better bathrooms company in an enginering capacity.
there were 2 medium studios used for many programmes including ( just before my time) the old grey whistle test.
one of these was used for a kiddies tv show with Anthea Turner, back then she looked very good, however.......

I could hear from the talkback which is first line of comms " and close your legs please Anthea" from the director so many times, and I hit the monitoring, full gusset shot, short skirt. nice but not right for kids TV.

There is this litle clue which is a red light on the camera on air that she seemed incable of working out and angling her legs and underwear in a correct manner for a kids show.

I will now put this comment in public domain it just happened then, spurred by what I could see and hear, "she looks alright, but fucking a dim woman is the first step on the steep downward slope towards bestiality
I`ll get me coat!

sorry that is a disclosure not a secret, whatever.
(tootired Is searching for a funny sig, nothing good so far, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:56, Reply)

Not my trade .........but Nurses
When they are just about to stick a dirty great needle in your arm they ALWAYS say ' this won't hurt, just a little scratch'
I can bust the lie....it actually hurts like fuck and they know it.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:38, Reply)

The NHS
Christ, where to start, I feel like I should be talking to the police not you lot, anyway, brevity is the soul of wit so I shall condense...

1. A department gets a budget, if they don't spend it all they get less next year, thus they have to blow it all on stuff they don't need, normally laptops, colour printers and projector monitors. You can lose a grand in each one. One department had to lose £25000 pounds, that's a nurse for a year.

2. DHL gets the NHS post contract. They guarantee second class post delivery in 2 weeks. The Trust, to save money, decides to send all appointment letters out second class. Result, clinics sit empty fully staffed by consultants, nurses, technicians and many £100'000's of equipment because the patient didn't get the appoinment letter BEFORE their appointment. Total saving to the NHS, about 7p, total cost £10'000's.

3. Fiddling the waiting lists. There are many ways this is done, my favourite is sending appointment letters to people who are coming up to 'breaching' the waiting list target (no more than 3 months, 4 months etc). They are purposely sent giving the person very short notice so they can't come in, 'shame' says the NHS, you have to go to the bottom of the list again. Result, waiting list targets are met. This has become significantly easier with the help of DHL.

5. The '4 hour A&E' target, patients will be processed within 4 hours. Again there are many ways this is fiddled, the main ones are the patient isn't admitted on the system until a few hours have past or the patient is discharged and readmitted after 3 hours or so. The best one they came up with was the Clinical Decision Unit, which is basically a bit of A&E that was renamed and moved 10 feet to the left, the patient is moved to CDU and the target is met.


I could go on.....
( Brandy_Bumwinkle, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:29, Reply)

I hope you've never rung us up for internet support
....cos I'm most likely posting on here while trying to fix your computer.

I'm talking to someone right now, and they're paying a premium price for me to fix this.

*re-opens MS Paint*
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:19, Reply)

I work every summer in a hotel/resort
as a lifeguard for the pool area. three really nice pools, no deeper than 5 feet in any area.

but, ah... i was never certified as a lifeguard. neither is anyone else. this hotel hires hundreds of eastern european interns every summer to meet the demand.

of course, those chosen to fill the lifeguard positions were mostly 7-stone Ukrainian girls.

So, really, I couldn't complain. But I definitely lost brain cells staring at those beautiful women damned pools.
( AgentMuu hentai coordination, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:19, Reply)

Exams
I used to work for an exam board who shall rename nameless.
Problem a few years back on geography exam - Map insert had no actual symbols on it so the OS questions couldn't be answered.
When reported at a meeting, boss said - "It doesn't matter - if enough people complain we'll do what normally happens and give them A's"
(skipping merrily in the meadows, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:13, Reply)

Just ask for Nigel,,,,,
Reading many of the medical ackronyms (FLK, TUBE) reminded me of this...

A few years ago we got terrible service and food from a national chain of Italian pasta restaurants. We wrote to head office and complained.

We got a nice letter back saying we could return for a free meal and on arrival we should ask for 'Nigel'.

It was few years later that we found out that Nigel did not exist but stood for 'Niggling Idiots Getting Everything Laid-on'
(MarkeeMark, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 19:00, Reply)

thanks
now i know to trust no one, and never buy anything or use the services of anyone.


you are as honest as a 9 pound note.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:54, Reply)

Obscure foundry related dirty secret
This is a little obscure. In order to bump up the nitrogen content of some steels and aluminium alloys, foundrymen will piss into the molten metal.

This is the basis of an urban legend in foundries - some metal is melted in electric induction furnaces. If you piss into them - so the legend goes - the current will travel up the piss stream and fry you. I was told this when working in a foundry on a student job - was meant to be the reason for a ghost that haunted the foundry.

Incidentally, another student I worked with there always introduced himself as 'Steve'. Eventually we found out his last name was Wanklyn. Tee hee.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:53, Reply)

Ice cream
Never buy chocolate flavoured ice cream. When there are spills on the ice cream line, all the spills are sucked up and put into the chocolate line - enough chocolate flavouring will cover any other flavour and colour.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:51, Reply)

JuanTheMan RE: Light Bulbs
You are of course, spot on the money. Incadescent lightbulbs produce 10% light, and 90% heat, so the energy saved replacing them with energy-saving lightbulbs will just have to be used by your central heating making up the difference.

Don't forget all the extra harmful gasses in energy-saving lightbulbs that don't exist in incadescent ones, like mercury. And who prefers the "boot up time" (plink...plink...plink...[dim light for 2 minutes]...nasty flourescent light) over incandescent bulbs?

So why are the bulbs being phased out, given that their replacements don't actually save energy overall and are crap? Well, as I'm sure you've guessed - it's all about the "dirty secret" of Global Warming. I'm not about to get into a discussion about whether it's down to humans or not - what we can all equivocally agree on is that not one government actually cares about the environment. What they do care about however, is the huge amount of revenue that can be made by whipping up public support for a cause that can net them huge amounts of money in "green taxes".



Whilst we're on the green tax thing - here's another government concept that's full of dirty secrets: Road Charging and Congestion charging.

1) The government's announcement that there will be a "debate" on whether we get Road Charging or not is a total lie - we WILL get it, because it's one of the conditions of being part of the Galileo Project (Europe's answer to GPS) - it's how they're planning on funding the whole project.

2) The road charging "trials" are also a complete lie - they are supposedly "optional" and "fair". In reality, neither is true, since the local authorities which are being targetted are effectively bribed with the promise of £1.4bn in extra Transport funding if they implement it.

3) The city-centre congestion which will be used to justify congestion charging will be in the most part, falsely generated. This is fairly easy to do, mainly with traffic light timing cycles and selective road development - and was used to great effect by TfL when introducing the London congestion charge (as well as introducing it in half term week, genius).

There are many more but I'm sure my post is already too long.... like my cock
(d371ght back again since, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:32, Reply)

Being too lazy to work. . .
. . .I decided to be an artist.
I do metalwork, needlework and beadwork. Most of my pieces are custom orders but I do shows and sell it in shops as well.

Sometimes I feel a tad guilty about getting the money I do for something that cost me next to nothing to make and which was made while I was sitting about in my jammies, watching repeats of CSI: Original Flavour.

But not too often.
(louveciennes , Volvospotter, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:21, Reply)

I'm a Software Engineer
So I have loads of dirt that I could tell you about. One of my favourites though...

I programmed a small "green screen" system for "An American Bank" to be used at Wimbledon. Obviously I was extremely proud to be given the chance to do something as high profile as that on my own, so put everything I had into it.

One feature we had was to enable you to have the photograph (you in front of a green screen, chroma keyed out so you appeared next to some tennis player) that was taken, sent to your mobile phone as an MMS. All of the equipment that was responsible for this was back in the office.

A few days in the MMS feature completely stopped, so I knucked down to try to find out what was wrong, then it dawned on me. We were using a Pay-As-You-Go SIM card and it only had a fiver on it to start with!

...

"I've sorted the issue, required a little bit of reprogramming and "resetting" of some equipment back at base, and it's all fit to go now."

"You're a star!"

"Nah, it's all part of the job"

doh!
( Firkinfedup last shat on your wife's tits at, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:20, Reply)

Big Business
Now I run a web design/consultancy company, but in the past I worked as a business systems consultant for big companies. I charged a lot. But that's no secret.

I learned a lot about how companies and countries work:

1. American companies often believe that what works in the US will work worldwide. They often fail to notice that in Europe and Asia there are different employment laws. What an American may consider to be a nice benefit will cause laughter in Europe. But that's boring, so...
2. Some French firms and organisations have pay scales that change according not just to your experience and qualifications, but for which school you went to and what gender you are.
3. Some UK newspapers employ no journalists at all. Instead they have editors and layout folk, and the writing is either bought in from Associated Press and friends, or comes from contributors who will cheerfully write-up a footie match for £50 just to get a press pass. Most staff is made up sales and marketing types.
4. Most large firms have a policy of paying your invoice as late as possible. But then I never pay my BT bill until the reminder comes either, so.... win some, lose some.
5. The vast majority of large IT projects would come in at a fraction of the price if senior management weren't vain or meddlesome. No, sir, your company isn't unique or different, so just buy something off-the-shelf and save a mint.
6. Most firms are honest - not because they want to be, but because if they weren't their staff would find fraud far easier and that'd be even more expensive.

More to come - may name names....
(clopinettes, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:11, Reply)

Students
Actually turn up for lectures sometimes, and have been known to refuse a pint. Shocking ain't it
(cs192 is sucking on a Koala at, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 18:04, Reply)

weddings.
Your special day isn't really that special. The minute you leave the chairs will be moved to fit the seating plan for tomorrows party. The matrodee is probably stood out the back saying how shit the speeches were, whilst the front staff compare notes on who is the biggest wanker there. Those zany requests you made to make the thing more personal have all been tried before, and we can all tell which caterer you went to for those printed chocolates.

If you were stupid enough to order the chocolate fountain then be advised a few hours ago it was probably covered in greece and mould because the potwash was too lazy to clean it properly. Also, when it starts running low on chocolate it's topped up with cooking oil to thick it out because the chef only ordered enough to fill it once.

Length? usually about 12 hours.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:53, Reply)

Emily BD and GrandMasterFluffles
I don't think it's true than men find horrid, bitchy women more attractive than nice ones. They're just easier to get into bed. Many bitchy women are so nasty because they have low self-esteem, and therefore will try to build themselves up by jumping into bed with anyone that wants them; it's not a long-term solution to their insecurity, but being told that you're attractive by someone (anyone) gives you an instant buzz.

On topic: I used to pick mushrooms in the school/uni holidays: they all came from the same place, but we left the mud on some of them, put them in wooden boxes instead of plastic ones, labelled them "organic" and charged 50% more for them. What a swindle.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:38, Reply)

dentistry
Having been in dentistry for 8 years now I have noticed a few little things that dentists will do (me NOT included!)
there is the obvious mark up on lab work, we pay £150 to the lab for a private crown, and charge the patient £450 and above.
I will say though be very wary when going to your NHS dentist, if they say you need a fissure seal on the buccal surface of a tooth (cheek side) its more often than not, not needed, but they get a sweet 3 UDA points (new g'ment pay structure) for about 5 seconds worth of work!
I would like to add though that not all dentists are crooks, and i would say that most surgeries have clean instruments!!
(kellogg going slowly insane, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:37, Reply)

UHT/Sterilized milk
When I was doing my A-levels, I spent a long summer working for what was, at the time, a well-known milk producer whose name sounded an awful lot like 'Crazy Dairy'. They also produced milk for most of the big supermarkets as well, so nobody was safe.

The thing with sterilized and UHT milk - as well as the fact it tastes rank - is that the processing kills anything nasty in it. This single fact guided every activity in that factory. Because ANYTHING could go in that production line and come out the other end and be sold, anything did.

This batch of milk was overcooked and stinks of burnt feet? Throw it back in - nobody will notice by the time it's diluted.

This batch fell off the loading bay and is full of gravel? Ah, nobody will notice.

But what's this? A forklift collided with a pallet full of cartons? (This happened several times a day.) The pallet has been sat outside in the sun for four days? It's swarming with maggots? Chuck it all back in! Don't worry about the maggots, Olembe - we do strain it before it goes in the cartons, you know!

Me and the other student grunts used to spend days tipping punctured cartons into vats. When I say there were maggots, I mean it was like something from a horror film. After 30 minutes your boots were quite literally full of them so that you felt them squash between your toes; after 60 minutes your gloves were full too. After a week you give up caring. Not about the maggots: about life.

The really fun bit was when the supermarkets came to inspect. On those occasions we grunts, and all the foetid milk we were working with, would be locked in a small airless, windowless room where the activity couldn't be seen. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.

You know that rancid bacterial stink that wafts from the back of refuse trucks when you walk nearby? Every time I smell that I'm transported right back to that factory in Oswaldtwistle.

Get your milk fresh, if at all. That's all I'm saying.

Edit: I've also worked as a waiter or kitchen worker in quite a few restaurants and contrary to many of the stories here, never saw anything untoward happening to food. The Aladdin's Cave takeaway, which used to exist in Padiham, though: that's a whole different story...
( Olembe Refuses to write in this space, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:36, Reply)

Motor Accident Repair Centres
Used to work for one and found out that:
1. If your car has a dent, it will be assesed as requiring a replacement. If borderline, it will be kicked before the insurance assesor sees it. It will still be repaired anyway as it works out cheaper to pay for filler than a new door. Cue dodgy parts invoices.
2. Main dealers put on a margin to joe public on some parts of 100% plus. e.g. lock set £100+vat public, £30+VAT trade
3. Bigger bodyshops use progressive estimating meaning they can add extra work on if required once the car is stripped. This is added onto every repair regardless of need if an insurance job adding 10-15% better profit per job. This helps up your premiums.
4. If you leave a really nice car, it will be repaired quickly and driven around by the staff with the odometer disabled until the official repair date.
5. If going to a big repair centre, and have any problems, don't report it to the repairer, but the parent company. Executive complaints are their number one priority and you will probably get a nice bunch of flowers, a tank of petrol and some shopping vouchers just to cover their asses.
6. A large insurance company's Customer Survey Tool is inherantly biased towards their own repair shops and allow filtering out of known dissatisfied customers by the site managers. (I designed it that way.)
7. Your cash deposits will be frauded away whenever possible to pay for hookers and coke.
( Ulic hissing slightly, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:21, Reply)

Emily B-D
Hear Hear.

Men complain about women only getting involved with complete tossers, but as a general species they're just as bad. Most men find horrid, bitchy women much more attractive than nice ones.

It doesn't actually bother me on a practical level though. As soon as a man is more interested in some catty self-satisfied cow I know immediately that he's not my type.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:15, Reply)

One word reply
sponges
(bensMum I'm a tart. Why can't you cope with that?, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:13, Reply)

that would be why...
But I have indeed noted that an awful lot of women do these horrid little mental games to some degree- so maybe, just maybe, publically pointing out the ramifications of such games will wake some of them up and help them see how they're shooting themselves in the arse.

And really, it was keeping in the spirit of the QOTW- the trade secrets of being male.

That would be why men never go out with such women, preferring the company of such straightforward, non-game players as my good self.

Oh wait...
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:07, Reply)

IT Departments
Ive been working in IT for 10 years in Support. Yes I know what really goes off.
First of all, it is completely true that IT staff do purposley make people wait on occasion. As if we responded straight away, itd be expected of all the time. And sometimes it isnt possible to respond to calls straight away. But most of the time it actually is.

I.T However do not sit watching what everyone surfing on the net, or go through your emails or files, or watch your screen. We are far too busy surfing the net ourselves and downloading our own files.

Most IT departments will have a PC sat somewhere with a p2p client on downloading hte latest movies and albums. Bypassing the firewall of course. So if the Internet is running slow. You now know why.

If the server goes down. its usually because of something IT have actually done, rather than a random server down.

Theres many more, which I will post later.

P.S This is typed from my desk in I.T and theres a user waiting for me to look at his PC It wont even boot and hes been waiting all day. My collegue is on Facebook!
(Miggyman, Fri 28 Sep 2007, 17:07, Reply)