back to article Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

Welcome once again, gentle readerfolk, to the corner of The Reg we call Who, Me? where each Monday morning we share a reader-submitted tale of tech support gone not-quite-right. This week, our hero is "Peter" who worked as "a civilian bod for the local constabulary." In other words, he was helping install computer kit at …

  1. Richard Tobin

    User attitude readjustment tool

    Usually abbreviated to "LART".

    1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: User attitude readjustment tool

      With it's sister tools, the "percussive maintenance device", the "gentle persuasion device" and the "clue-by-four"...

      The first two being increasingly large hammers, and the latter either a length of wood or a baseball bat (nail optional).

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        "or a baseball bat"

        Cricket bat, sir, accept no substitutes.

        1. Jadith

          Re: User attitude readjustment tool

          Sorry about that, must be one of us Americans. Most of us don't even know that cricket is a sport, and it's not like we have teams or competations for it.

          I will say, though, it is definitely a better percussive maintenance tool than a baseball bat.

          1. Shooter
            Happy

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            Oh?

            https://usacricket.org

            1. Not Yb Bronze badge

              Re: User attitude readjustment tool

              The average American has not heard of this yet.

              1. jake Silver badge

                Re: User attitude readjustment tool

                [citation needed]

          2. Scott 26

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            I mean, you are only hosting the World Cup ....

            1. Hazmoid

              Re: User attitude readjustment tool

              And even managed to beat one of the world heavy weight teams in Pakistan ( and Canada) however up agains South Africa tomorrow? I think they might be in for a shock.

          3. jake Silver badge

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            I played cricket at Berkeley and Stanford half a century ago. I still play occasionally, when asked (weekend amateur games, not unlike village cricket in Blighty). It's not (yet) as big as baseball, American football, basketball or hockey, but we're working on it .... and teaching the kids.

            Baseball bats are far better for percussive maintenance than cricket bats. Pool/billiards/snooker bats are better yet ...

            1. RobDog

              Re: User attitude readjustment tool

              How old are you?

              1. jake Silver badge

                Re: User attitude readjustment tool

                Every day is a good day.

      2. chivo243 Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        The good ole standby clue by four! Comes in many lengths for those hard to reach users!

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        One day two members of my then department were cabling up at a new remote office. They ran into a problem though on the site visit owing to the previous extension of the building. where there were weatherproof seals on the existing cable holes.from the old part of the building to the new. These weren’t large holes either, apparently they were quite tiny and not designed for multiple cables.. The two who were there called for advice and said that removing the weather seals would probably solve the problems. Boss who I’ll call Dave* has visited the site before and says they can’t touch the seals, it’s in the lease conditions and so they’ll have to think again. Another call 10 minutes later and and they say more cables can probably be pulled through the seals because they have ‘some’ give. They’ll only go through easily if there is something to help lubricate them past each other and the seals. So our boss says great, go out and get something to do it with.

        Two weeks role by after the work is completed and I’m on a conference call with Dave, other heads of departments and the chief beancounter. The chief beancounter is vocally unhappy with profligate spending by staff on expenses which must stop. Dave is then asked about the contents of an expenses claim for this site visit that he signed off as being correct. He says yes he’s satisfied that everything claimed for was used in the execution of the two staff members work. “Including the purchase of two tubes of KY Jelly?” Is the response from the chief beancounter, “What possible reason could there be for needing KY Jelly.”

        Dave who was a comedian said “Well, it was an overnight trip” to laughter from the other department heads. Not laughing, there is the reply, “Yes I’d guessed that as the claim is also for a hotel and subsistence, but why the KY Jelly?” Dave not missing a beat replies that it was very, very tight and they had asked for his advice. He continued that they’d considered Vaseline but they were worried about using that and rubber together, the pharmacist had agreed as well, so KY it was. Much harder laughing now from the rest of the call participants, I’d muted my phone.

        “Two tubes?”

        “There was more than one hole they were using! If it bothers you that much I’ll give them the tenner myself”

        I nearly died from laughing so hard, the chief beancounter did not find it remotely funny and moved on to something else.

        Copy of the receipt was framed and hung on the wall in the department.

        1. matthewdjb

          Re: User attitude readjustment tool

          That was is much funnier than the original!

        2. jake Silver badge

          Re: User attitude readjustment tool

          Cable pulling lube and KY aren't interchangeable ... For one thing, KY is water based, and you probably don't want that in your electrical equipment. Horses for courses & all that.

          As a side note, soap isn't a lubricant. It's a surfactant. You kiddies reading this might want to learn the difference before you do yourself an injury. Or worse, injure somebody else.

          1. JimboSmith

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            They don’t say where it was, but if it was some rural market town then you’re likely to be a bit stuck. I can imagine with no handy tech shops around then you probably won’t be able to get something specialised very quickly. French chalk might have worked I suppose but again finding someone selling that is equally unlikely. So you have to improvise and that may have been the best option. It would doubtless have dried out overnight once used and you’re not going to be pulling live electric cables through walls are you?

          2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            Yeah, what's really called for is probably wire lube. I bought a big bottle of that years ago to fish some new circuits in the walls of an old house, and I've used it for various ... purposes ... ever since.1

            But I can understand that wire lube might not have been readily available near the site in this story. In the US you can often find it at hardware stores, home centers, and the like, but if this was somewhere out of the way it might not have been so easy.

            1It's just a liquid wax. Works well for lubricating fasteners and such, though it'll stain unfinished wood.2

            2Further innuendo left as an exercise for the reader.

          3. Juan Inamillion

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            KY Jelly drys out quite quickly plus you wouldn’t use sufficient to slop it all over the place. A rubber glove and squeezing KY sufficient to lube the wire as it passes through your grip would work a treat.

            You are correct however re soap.

            Olive oil on the other hand...

    2. jake Silver badge

      Re: User attitude readjustment tool

      Not a lot of people would feel threatened by a loon wielding a UART.

      If you don't understand this, you are very young or not technically inclined or both ...

      1. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        Unless they're a serial killer...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: User attitude readjustment tool

          We will loopback to this topic later.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        Not to start on your bit, but maybe we shouldn't parity the constabulary.

        1. StargateSg7 Bronze badge

          Re: User attitude readjustment tool

          And at that super-high speed 1200 Baud or even 300 Baud for that matter .... LOL!

          v

          1. Tim99 Silver badge
            Unhappy

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            Luxury - Others will admit to having used lower "actual" speeds, but I started with a 110 baud line that could degrade to perhaps half of that if t was raining. Obviously in the UK this was a normal occurrence...

            1. jake Silver badge

              Re: User attitude readjustment tool

              I still connect over dial-up from my property in rural Mendocino county about 20% of the time, usually at about 9600 ... but sometimes at speeds as low as 300 (sea fog and aging, cracked, dusty cable plant with copper stretched to its distance limit makes for bad signal to noise ratio) ... And that's barely 200 miles by road from Silly Con Valley.

              Truthfully, when it gets much slower than 1200, I usually disconnect and wait for the sun to dry things out. No great loss.

              Mine's the one with the Telebit Trailblazer in one pocket & floppy with Kermit code in the other ...

              1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

                Re: User attitude readjustment tool

                Ah, the Trailblazer. Built-in spoofing of uucp g-mode for file transfers! (And Kermit, apparently, he wrote while checking Wikipedia for confirmation.) And with PEP and MNP, a pair of Trailblazers made for a usable SLIP connection; I did more than a little Telnetting across such a link, from an office in Ohio to one in Massachusetts, over POTS. Even in 1992 that was pretty impressive.

                And remember when 16550s came out? (Well, really, the 16550AFs and AFNs.) Good times.

    3. redpola

      Re: User attitude readjustment tool

      LART is a TLA I haven’t seen for decades! Bravo.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        LART is a FLA, not a TLA.

        1. MarkTriumphant

          Re: User attitude readjustment tool

          Surely it is an ETLA?

          1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
            Trollface

            Re: User attitude readjustment tool

            Although given FLA is a TLA in itself, it's probably recursive and acronyms all the way down...

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: User attitude readjustment tool

        ...and yet you registered here about a decade and half ago. Clearly you are not reading enough comments sections. :-)

  2. Bebu
    Windows

    "attitude readjustment tool"

    Hammer, Nails and Chisel.

    Like Arthur Piranha's son Dinsdale nail user to floor, readjust physiognomy with hammer and chisel and like Mary's little lambs, user's attitude is sure to follow.

    I think I might avoid that shire (along with Midsomershire. ;)

    1. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: "attitude readjustment tool"

      Have passed through the Dinsdale railway station - passenger next to me very confused as I inquired as to the whereabouts of Spiny Norman.

  3. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Coat

    "user attitude readjustment tool"

    Also useful in retrophrenology.

    Doffs hat to the late, great sir Terry Pratchett

    Mine's the one with Men At Arms in the pocket

  4. DaemonProcess

    Yep, been there

    Including pre-installed servers and storage in rack adding up to 1 metric ton, being too heavy for the lift/elevator. On another occasion the machine room floor was strong enough but the ramp wasn't. At another site the rack was too tall for the lift and had to be tilted right over.

    1. Red Or Zed

      Re: Yep, been there

      Our shiny new office was built with super mega 8ft tall doors everywhere. Except the machine room, where they were normal height, and we bought 7ft racks.

      They went through the door OK at an angle, it was just super annoying that IT was treated badly by artichokes ('tects) yet again.

      1. H in The Hague

        Re: Yep, been there

        "They went through the door OK at an angle, it was just super annoying that IT was treated badly by artichokes ('tects) yet again."

        In the UK many buildings are built without architects being involved.

        This sounds like something a 'value engineer' would do. Unfortunately those folks tend to focus more on costs than value obtained :(.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yep, been there

          "Value engineer", what's that? An accountant trying to make their profession sound respectable?

          1. WonkoTheSane

            Re: Yep, been there

            Value engineers are accountants who only have a "minus" key on their calculator.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Coat

            Re: Yep, been there

            ""Value engineer", what's that?"

            Someone who failed their architecture exams?

            1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
              Headmaster

              Re: Yep, been there

              The analogue to value brands in supermarkets (and their quality) is possibly apt here?

      2. I could be a dog really Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Yep, been there

        it was just super annoying that IT was treated badly by artichokes ('tects) yet again

        Ah, and I bet you've also seen the work of the ones who don't think cables take up any space - like the offices built with a server room, structured cabling all over, but no-where to run any cables. Usually accompanied (they seem to go together) with builders who d.g.a.s. about your existing cabling when doing alteration works.

  5. Killfalcon

    And I thought I had trouble getting my computer desk (an ancient mahogany beast that probably belonged to a lawyer before it got to the British Heart Foundation) through the front door of this Victorian workman's cottage.

    I won't lie, the speed with which the delivery guys got my front door off it's hinges was impressive. Faster than I could google how to remove a door, it was off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Helped my brother move a desk to the second floor of the townhouse they were moving into. The stairs had 2 turns, and the desk was 6' long and made of steel. Even after removing the top, it was a major pain to get it up the stairs.

      I understand when he sold the place a few years later, he let them keep the desk...

      1. DS999 Silver badge
        Angel

        If someone didn't yell "pivot!" while going up the stairs

        Then it was all wasted effort!

    2. The commentard formerly known as Mister_C Silver badge

      Back in the day when Jeremy Beadle and Noel Edmonds were doing hidden camera wind-ups, Mr C senior told us about a very early Candid Camera prank. A very elaborate desk was built inside an office, with french polish and leather inlay work surface to hide the joints. Then the removal company bods were called in... The desk had been made only just too big to get through the door, no matter what rules of geometry got applied. The victims were left to suffer until one of them used the magic words "well how did they get it in here then".

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Time-traveling door, of course. That's how all impossible furniture deliveries are made.

        1. swm

          Ah! Douglas Adams and his detective agency.

    3. matthewdjb

      For last years Basel English Panto Group production... we had a huge cauldron made of papier maché. It took some maneouvering to get through the door to our rehearsal room - and out again.

      After the show run was over, we brought it back to our rehearsal room. We warned the lady carrying it that it was quite hard to get through the door. She looked at the cauldron, looked at the door, rotated the cauldron in at least 3 dimensions (maybe four) and it fitted with ease.

      Structural engineer, you see. (And a very senior executive at one of the local engineering businesses).

      1. H in The Hague

        "For last years Basel English Panto Group production... we had a huge cauldron made of papier maché. It took some maneouvering to get through the door to our rehearsal room - and out again."

        I was told "Panto in The Hague [several decades ago], one of the keen volunteers built a rowing boat as a prop. Only to discover that it was about 10 mm too wide to fit through the door [hoistway on the second floor]. Eventually we cut through the timber of a window frame so we could take that out and lower the boat down on a rope [across the road from the harbour - must have puzzled a few passers by]. Then screwed the [now structurally compromised] window frame back in place. [I think it blew out in the next winter storm.]"

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        A couple of years ago we moved the last of the furniture out of the Stately Manor. We had this double-wide 8-drawer Mission-style dresser in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Well, it got up there somehow, so it would come down. My helper and I took the drawers out and removed the mirror. Nothing else came off; this was a solid hardwood piece with integral feet, all screwed and glued up nicely. Weighed a bit, too.

        It clearly could only have come up the front stairs — the back stairs were a bit of trouble even for a slender, unladen adult. So to the front stairs we go. Down three steps to a landing. Here we have plenty of ceiling height, so we can carry the thing on end. Down a dozen or so stairs to the lower landing. Here there are complex intersecting walls and a bay window with a built-in window seat (the Manor was a Queen Anne and enjoyed some architectural flourish). And the stairs turned and went into the foyer, so here at the lower landing the foyer ceiling intervened.

        We could see immediately that when it came up, the movers must have rotated it over the balustrade, because there was no way it could possibly make the turn. And the ornate newel post on the bottom baluster was an obstacle, so we figured they must have hooked one of the drawer slots over it and used the space inside the dresser to get past it.

        But no matter how we wrangled the thing, the two of us could not get it off the stairs and into the foyer. Finally we gave up and brought it back upstairs.

        I had a moving van coming the next day with a crew of movers, so I figured I'd make it their problem. When they arrived, I pointed out all the stuff that was moving, and then went into the dining room to try to remove the legs from the antique dining table for better transportation and storage. Fifteen minutes or so later, one of the movers wandered in to ask if they could take the table.

        "Did you get everything from upstairs?" I wanted to watch them flip that damned dresser over the balustrade. "Yep."

        I hadn't even heard them do it. They not only got it downstairs and over the balustrade, they did it without so much as scratching the finish on the dresser or hitting the wall or balustrade, and they did it so quietly I didn't hear them from the next room.

        (They did a damned good job of packing things into the storage unit, too. I don't remember what they cost but they were worth it.)

    4. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      A few years back we had to buy a new refrigerator for Mountain Fastness 1.0, a building of the type known locally as a "quaint casita" because "cabin constructed in fairly random fashion out of readily-available materials by a bunch of stoned hippies fifty years ago with no recourse to building codes" is too long.

      It was delivered by Lowes without complaint (around these parts, they're happy if they don't have to drive up a mountain on a Forest Service road), but when it arrived it clearly wasn't going to fit through the front door. (It just might have fit through the back, but that would have put it in the bedroom with no chance of getting anywhere else in the place.)

      The delivery guys took the doors off the 'fridge. Nice try, but still no go. The door was hand-made to the precise specification of "this looks good", and was still too narrow.

      While they were standing there looking at it, I grabbed a claw hammer and screwdriver from the other room, took the door off, removed the hinge leaves from the frame, and popped off the side stops. Presto, doorway now two-and-a-half inches1 wider, and the (undoored) appliance squeaked through. Took me less time than they'd spent getting the thing out of the truck. By the time they had the refrigerator reassembled and installed, I had the door back together.

      Of course it helped that everything about that place was sufficiently ... rustic, let's say ... that a few more dents and scratches to the door and related areas wouldn't be noticed.

      16.4e8Å or 4.2e-13AU, for you SI types.

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    If "Pete" is a contractor why fight about the cost of a hammer and chisel? IR35 & all that.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      The story long predates IR35.

      There's strong hints, like there being actual police officers in a rural location. Admittedly, "no WAN" still applies today so it's an easy mistake to make.

    2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      I dont know the ins and outs of this IR35 thing , but if its a certification of "business expense , not coming of my profit , not paying tax on it "

      You'd still be down 80% of the cost of a hammer & chisel.

    3. jake Silver badge

      As a contractor, I always have some hammers and a couple of chisels in my tool kit. Having to go purchase them new indicates a not very prepared contractor.

      1. MrReynolds2U

        I regularly go out with a tool kit that could be used to build an extension, but there's always one tool I've left in the shed that I find myself needing. Which is probably why I have multiples of some tools.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Well, yeah. There are probably some people organized enough to avoid the duplicate-tools syndrome, but I've never met 'em. I'm currently at three perfectly good hand-held circular saws, and I think four belt sanders in various stages of usability. Half a dozen spirit levels, I'd guess. And screwdrivers everywhere.

      2. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
        Boffin

        I don't believe there's a limit to the number of hammers or chisels that anyone should own, so I would be happy enough to just buy myself another set anyway.

      3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        My "grab when I'm not sure what tools I'll need" toolbox doesn't have any good wood chisels in it — those are in their own special place, so they don't get banged up — but does have a "sacrifice chisel" that I don't mind abusing a bit. Never know when one will come in handy.

  7. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Could have been worse

    > the hammer on display with a sign designating it the "user attitude readjustment tool."

    It might have been a nutcracker

    1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

      Re: Could have been worse

      How about Haptic User Readjustment Tool.

      Just saying like...

      1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Could have been worse

        Brilliant

      2. KittenHuffer Silver badge

        Re: Could have been worse

        or .... The Happy User Device!

        1. Mast1
          Joke

          Re: Could have been worse

          Can only be called an HUD if they got to see it coming.

          1. Neoc

            Re: Could have been worse

            That'd be "THUD". Don't forget "The" at the front.

    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Could have been worse

      An entirely different kind of UART...

    3. Mark 85

      Re: Could have been worse

      It might have been a nutcracker

      That made me shudder and wince.

  8. Flightmode

    The Shrinking Site

    A number of years ago we moved our first equipment into a new site while the surrounding facilities were still being built. At the time, it had nice spacious hallways we could run our racks and equipment through, so the initial installation was definitely not a problem. A couple of months down the road, however, we needed to replace a faulty Cisco GSR 12012 chassis[0] - something about the (passive) backplane deforming due to not enough support from the metal frame(?).

    In any case, for some reason, the builders had placed a three-step stair about a meter inside a doorway[1] with no ramp. Also, they'd raised the floor so much AND installed a false ceiling to boot, meaning that we had to tip the chassis on its back on the trolley with one person pulling and two people bracing against the top for it to fit through the now quite claustrophobic space as there was no longer space to move it upright. There was JUST enough space to get it through the door and into our suite[2], where we could finally stand it up the right way again.

    And I've mentioned my favourite not-quite-a-tool from the same era earlier here; it was a slightly deformed metal teaspoon that we kept on top of one of the racks at another site (the one we were aiming to replace by this new site, in fact). It perfectly fit the screw heads on the GSR line cards and came in handy many a time.

    [0] Hefty boxes, somewhere just north of 30 RU if my memory serves me.

    [1] The kind of door you can't leave open for more than 22 seconds before you have alarms blaring and guards coming to see what you're doing.

    [2] We may or may not have accidentally invented a new area of physics along the way - we certainly invented some new colourful vocabulary, that's for sure

  9. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    The kind of door you can't leave open for more than 22 seconds before you have alarms blaring and guards coming to see what you're doing.

    We had doors like that in our office. It's amazing what a strategically placed whiteboard magnet and some blu-tack can do.

    1. PB90210 Silver badge

      We had one like that but the alarm was on the lock mechanism, so the technique was to 'close' the door but not let go of the handle... that reset the alarm but didn't reset the latch (and the heavy-duty bolts anchoring it in place), so you could then prop the door open for as long as it took you to figure out how to get that 8' rack through that 7' doorway.

      The building also had originally been fitted with a hoist to allow large bits of kit to be hoisted up the outside of the building. One day we had a contractor arrive to measure up for something and he asked where the hoist doors, shown on his plan, were... where they should have been there was just a blank wall! After he had gone I noticed when I looked through a window on the other side of the building, there were the doors, exactly where he expected them to be, but someone must have covered them with plasterboard, hence the blank wall inside

      (I'm guessing it was cheaper than the cost of keeping the hoist 'certified' for the zero uses in the decade+ I worked there)

    2. Killfalcon

      I feel like I saw that on MacGyver back in the day.

  10. Sam not the Viking Silver badge
    Pint

    Doors

    We were supplying a control panel into the base of a new water-tower out in the middle of nowhere and our contractor was supposed to off-load and install it within the building. They off-loaded it somehow, very, very early one morning, before we arrived, by sliding it onto some pallets topped with scaffold boards. They left, having no intention to complete the transfer into the building, reneging on the contract and demanding an extra charge. Their thinking was that we would have to pay, whatever the cost. Time mattered and we would be heavily penalised for a delay in completion.

    The tower had been built with the 'machinery-access' doors at the back and a 'pedestrian access' at the front. You can guess where the 4000x600x1900 (l,w,h) panel had been left and there was no way we could take it round to the large doors without lifting machinery.

    Careful measurements showed that the panel might just fit through the doorway on rollers made from steel conduit tubing. With ropes, rollers, wedges and levers and a nod to the constructors of Stonehenge (which was not a million miles away), together with the customer's consultant (who was sympathetic to our cause, it affected his payment too), we manoeuvred the panel into the tower without damage to the panel or doorway. The concrete floor still bears track-marks where rollers were edged round. Reward ----->

    The contractor who let us down never found out what happened and we deducted fair value from their invoice. They never got another order from us.

    1. WonkoTheSane
      Headmaster

      Re: Doors

      I think I would've advised accounts to block payment altogether, as the contractor had failed to complete their contracted delivery.

      1. Sam not the Viking Silver badge

        Re: Doors

        I don't disagree but a lot of contracts for us are on 'stage payments'. Some jobs take months/years from order to completion and it would be impossible to finance the whole project on one payment unless it was at the beginning. These terms get passed on to our sub-contractors so that when we get paid, they get paid. It's one of the ways a smaller company can trade on big contracts. Dependent on how these payments are organised, we get money in advance of paying our suppliers and it gives leeway to enjoy Fridays a bit more.....

        As engineers, we have to do the technical (difficult) bit, but it is all t' now't if we don't get paid so we need to know how the money is coming in.... In the past, we have sent people to sit in customer's office Reception Area merely to wait for the cheque. "Cheque's in the the post" doesn't work as a delaying tactic when someone is waiting, chatting to other vendors/customers in reception.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Waiting in the lobby for a cheque

          Our contracts were always priced as "cash-flow positive." There would never be a time between milestones (and the matching payments) where we were negative on costs vs revenue.

          The policy led to some interesting and sometimes time-consuming contract negotiations.

          The subs (subcontractors) were almost never that smart.

        2. PRR Silver badge

          Re: Doors

          > ...sit in customer's office Reception Area merely to wait for the cheque. "Cheque's in the the post" doesn't work as a delaying tactic when someone is waiting, chatting to other vendors/customers in reception.

          Me too.

  11. ShortLegs

    "stories of non-IT tools being employed in IT ways"

    Depends on the value of $TOOL, as I encounter many, many 'tools'... many of them in HR, managements, change control.

    I'm not sure if using one of those tools to test the continuity of a 240V 30A AC feed would be considered an IT use of a non-IT tool

    On reflection, its a perfetctly valid use.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      One site I visited, the IT guys had a "tool" mounted on a nice mahogany stand with brass mounts. It looked a little bit like a screwdriver. The plaque read "How NOT to test a UPS"

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rubber Mallet

    Back in the 1970's, when TVs still have thermionic valves, I supplemented my student grant (yes, grant, not loan back then) by weekend work in a local TV shop selling, delivering and repairing. Everyone chipped in with whatever needed to be done, even the shop owner. His usual approach to a TV brought in with an intermittent fault was to turn it on and then "tap" it with a small hammer. It was a good test to reveal if the problem was associated with a valve, but it sometimes made his "chipping in" too literal and left us with additional work on the cabinets. So we bought him a rubber mallet - it saved us a lot of time and wood filler, varnish and polish...

    The delivery part of the job could also be challenging, especially hauling a 1970's colour TV up a dozen flights of stairs (the higher the floor you had to deliver to, the greater the probability the lift was broken - and the even greater likelihood you were delivering on your own)!

    1. PRR Silver badge

      Re: Rubber Mallet

      > a TV brought in with an intermittent fault was to turn it on and then "tap" it with a small hammer.

      Any tool can be the right tool.

      But there was actually a Right Tool for that job.

      Hytron Tube Tapper at Alaska Hammer Museum.

    2. StargateSg7 Bronze badge

      Re: Rubber Mallet

      CRT's (Cathode Ray Tube) monitors got REALLY BIG in the 1980's and Early 1990's during the heyday of the Sony Trinitron which went as big at the 2048 pixel by 2048 pixel 42 inch display usually used by military surveillance and satellite imaging systems! They were 300 lbs (125+ KG!) each and we sometimes lugged multiple of them to those super-secret data centre / Secret OPS centres we installed in when I was a SysAdmin / IT Techie waaaaay back in the day!

      V

      1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: Rubber Mallet

        Along similar lines, but more heavy iron rather than electronics - wheeltappers.

  13. Red Or Zed

    I worked for a race car manufacturer. One of our Dell servers underwent unscheduled altitude change and unapproved chassis reconfiguration. The bits and bytes inside seemed OK, but it wouldn't go back in the rack.

    The shop floor lads thought it hilarious when we went to borrow their user adjustment tool and a bench to pound against.

  14. Paul Cooper

    Been there, done that

    In our case, a 60" inkjet plotter. 60" was the paper width; the plotter was considerably wider; well over two metres (sorry - mixed units!). The door to the room it was being installed in opened onto a corridor just wide enough for two people to pass if they were polite about it! There was JUST enough room to turn it after we'd taken the door off its hinges!

    1. cosmodrome

      Re: Been there, done that

      60" - just millimeters short of A0? I've seen weird and big plotters and printers eneough to know the magic question¹ but I don't think I've seen that. Don't say it doesn't exist I just wonder what strange purpose it had.

      ¹) where is the power switch? I spent a full hour unpaid overtime finding it when I was new at the job. Much worse if you don't know where to turn it ON and everyone is waiting for their plots..

      1. Paul Cooper

        Re: Been there, done that

        60" WIDE; it was roll-fed, so potentially as long as you liked (PostScript rendering capability was the main constraint). A0 is only 33.1 inches x 46.8 inches!

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Been there, done that

          DIN paper sizes, A and B types at least, are most definitely measured in mm, not inches :-)

          A0 is 841 mm x 1189 mm, any conversion to inches is an approximation for the convenience of the one country in the world still using inches :-)

  15. Roland6 Silver badge

    “The hallway was too narrow to tilt the rack sufficiently to allow it to go through sideways…”

    Had one case (server room was in an old workshop) where the new fully assembled cabinet could go through the door horizontally, but the ceiling was too low to allow the cabinet to be rotated into an upright position. Fortunately, it was a sunny day so cabinet could be deconstructed in the courtyard and reassembled in the room…

    1. ShortLegs

      Unilever Basingstoke

      Back in the 1990's*. The Basingstoke-based division of Unilver, Oxoid-Unipath, had an AS400 arrive on-site for installation. Two issues had been overlooked:

      1. Whilst it might have iftted through the main doors, it was too big to pass through reception

      2. The server room was upstairs

      Not a problem at all: management** promptly arranged for the outside wall of the server room to be removed, and a crane bought into lift the AS400 into the room.

      This was slightly before my time, but I did see the pictures :)

      * Was it really that l;ong ago! I started there in 1996 and Im sure that was only a couple of years ago... well maybe a decade.. THREE decades? WTAF!

      ** We had an excellent management team at Unipath. The SLT were not too proud to seit in the same canteen as us, smoke in the same smoking room, wholly approachable, and in the main had risen up through the company as engineers, chemists, biologists. etc. Unipath had possibly the last ever Personnel Dept in the UK, *not* HR. They were extremly people focussed. I will never forget Val in Personnel, Mike, onof the Directors, or Alan the IT Manager.

      1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: Unilever Basingstoke

        Similar story from the University of Nottingham Physics Dept, with their MBE machines and other chunky bits of kit.

        Back in the day, the area of the building for them was on the ground floor, but didn't have suitable access to get the kit actually into it. So queue walls being removed and stuff being hoisted in from the car park on at least 3 occasions.

        Went back there last year (youngest offspring looking at UniNotts for 1st degree, not in Physics but as we were there I took the liberty of touring the department anyway for nostalgia reasons) and they've now finally redesigned things so there is a suitable goods entry for such kit. But it was fun listening to the lad taking us around on the tour talking about it, and then being able to add more details having actually witnessed one or two of said events personally.

        Now there's at least another area upstairs (where the old machine shop used to be, which I actually found quite sad) in addition to the original one, hence the expanded and improved access.

        And it wasn't 30 years ago, honest guv'nor! WTAF indeed...!

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Unilever Basingstoke

          You're lucky the building's still there. When I went back for a conference the old Victorian houses we were in had been demolished & replaced by a modern block. But now KCL has got rid of most of its science apartments and the block has been replaced by housing. Ditto my old halls of residence.

  16. ColinPa Silver badge

    Keep your feet warm

    We were in temporary buildings (over 30 years old). There was one heater per room. If you left your heater off you often got ice on the inside of your windows overnight!

    We had one secretary who's aged computer was replaced with a nice new laptop. She said she still needed the old computer, so they IT team left it.

    I went in one day and was chatting to her about the cold weather. She said it was very cosy under the desk, because that's where the old server was, and wafting out heat! It was not used for work - just for heating!

    1. Admiral Grace Hopper

      Re: Keep your feet warm

      I remember querying the spec for a database server used for development. The dev lead told me that he had poor circulation and that the extra processors were more about keeping his feet warm than handling DB queries. He got his extra processors.

    2. Mast1

      Re: Keep your feet warm

      The old Tektronix valve oscilloscopes near-doubled for that as well, as a room heater, ca 1980.

    3. PRR Silver badge

      Re: Keep your feet warm

      > We were in temporary buildings (over 30 years old).

      In the US, "Land Grant" universities are on land granted by the Federal government. Obviously this is often abandoned military bases. The one I worked, the "temporary" barracks built inexpensively in WWI and used hard through WWII and the early 1950s were granted to the state university. With little to no improvement (I think the oil stoves had to be abandoned) they were in use when I left, and seem to still be in use today. So well over 100 years old. That may not sound "old" to Englishmen, but in the US a temporary building 100 years old can probably get a Historic Register designation.

      1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

        Re: Keep your feet warm

        There is nothing as permanent as a temporary solution except for a temporary tax hike. When installed, those barracks were meant as a temporary solution (can't qualify for tax hike), so rather permanent.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Keep your feet warm

          Income tax was introduced in Britain in 1799 to pay for the Napoleonic Wars. IIRC, it was intended to be "temporary". And yet here we are :-)

    4. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Re: Keep your feet warm

      I once miscalculated my holiday allowance and had to work as the only person between Christmas and new year. It would have been fine, except we had probably two dozenn powerful computers in the office which were all turned off. And since that never happened, the heating system couldn’t keep the office warm without computer help. (CAH - Computer Aided Heating).

      Second day I had one extra jumper and a very warm cardigan.

  17. ChrisFJ

    I remember that day!

    I was the other IT staff member attempting to install that server rack and I remember the day well, it is burned into my memory!

  18. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    I used to work in a cryogenics lab ...

    H&S inspector: Why is there a frying pan in the fume cupboard, next to the Bunsen burner and tripod?

    PG student, thinking on his feet: Well, we do tests in liquid nitrogen and sometimes we get spills which could cause damage to other things on the benches so we put the frying pan underneath to catch the escaping liquid and contain it until it boils away harmlessly. It's just stored in the fume cupboard.

    H&S Inspector: I see. And the bits of bacon in it?

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      That should teach students the importance of cleaning up after themselves.

    2. jake Silver badge

      At Berkeley, I had a 8" cast iron skillet[0] that I used to do bacon, egg & sausage over a bunsen in the chem lab turned computer lab (late 1970s). I even rigged up a wire frame to do toast. Fresh ground Peet's Coffee in the percolator[1], also over a bunsen. Was my way of protesting 6AM labs ... One of the profs put a stop to the still after a small handful of test runs, alas ... I tried to convince him that I was just making cleaning fluid for the monitors, but he didn't buy it.

      [0] Lodge, of course. Yes, I still have it. Why do you ask?

      [1] Yes, it was awful, even with a couple eggshells thrown in to settle the grounds. Drank it anyway. It was a protest, not gourmet dining.

  19. Admiral Grace Hopper

    O, wad some power the Giftie gie us

    The team prankster learnt how we saw him at his leaving drinks when we gave him a 20 foot aluminium ladder as a leaving gift. Ever seen a drunk man getting a 20 foot ladder onto a train? Highly entertaining

  20. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    needs must

    I remember hacking an elevator once so that the doors would stay open during motion in order to facilitate moving some hardware.

    It was a strange elevator - no "box" just a platform going up n down - "dont lean on the walls!" style. This meant you could get very tall stuff on it if the destination doors 3 floors up were open.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: needs must

      One place I worked had an elevator where the doors were manual - pull a strap up or down to get the door to open or close. Separate inside and outside doors, of course. The buttons took it to the 1st and 2nd floors. If you needed to get to the unmarked floor in between, you started opening the inside door when the elevator was in motion and at about the right height; it would stop then settle to be level with that floor.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: needs must

        and what was in the unmarked floor in between?

        Neverwhere?

        Narnia?

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: needs must

          "and what was in the unmarked floor in between?"

          Typically, it's building mechanicals. HVAC, power conditioning, telco room, water heater, laundry if applicable, etc. etc.

        2. Someone Else Silver badge

          Re: needs must

          Track 9-3/4?

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: needs must

            If that's the Harry Potter reference I think it is, did they "Americanise" the books for that audience? I recall it as being "Platform 9 3/4"

            1. Someone Else Silver badge

              Re: needs must

              Might be...my memory isn't what it was at one time...

  21. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    The uni department I used to work at had one of the old lifts with the separate manually operated grill style doors, etc. It was big enough to get various racks in to and up to our floor. Later the lift was replaced by a modern one and it was tiny, apparently the max size the old shaft could take. Needless to say when our facility was decommissioned others were left with the task of carrying racks, etc, down the stairs as they no longer fitted. That included a stupidly heavy Sun rack that we partly disassembled to make it more manageable.

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      I can highly recommend the MythBusters segment where they put Buster in a lift in an abandoned building, hoist it up to the fifth floor, override the safeties and let it drop...

      The myth they were testing was whether a sufficient jump whilst in flight would be enough to save you when the moment of impact arrived. IIRC, the answer was a definite no.

  22. Anne Hunny Mouse

    One of our network cabinets is stood on bricks.

    Apparently, it was a replacement upgrade but someone mismeasured. (Before my time).

    The large Cisco VC units (2 x 70Inch screens) are fun to get through doorways and lifts...

  23. Northern Harrier

    I've had manglement measure up a square of space behind immovable gear, then order a square box to just fit inside it.

    Totally ignoring the fact that the diagonals of a square are longer than it's sides and there's no way you can turn the thing round to install it.

  24. laughthisoff

    The 'all-purpose adjustable reset tool' (aka APART)? There's always 'a part' in my kit.

    A straightened paper-clip, to the rest of us.

  25. swissPGOE

    Reminds me of exactly similar situation

    But after removing everything that was removable, it just passed the door with a few hundred microns of space. My plan B would have involved liquid nitrogen to cool and thus shrink the chassis.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Reminds me of exactly similar situation

      I've seen similar equipment moves and the usual comment is "crikey, if had another coat of paint it wouldn't have fitted"

  26. Ken Smith

    Take it apart

    I recall trying to get a rack into an office on the 4th floor of a Victorian building near Leicester Square. It just would not go round the bends in the stairs. In the end we took the rack to bits and reassembled it in situ. Heaven help the poor guys who may eventually move it out of there. :-)

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Take it apart

      "Heaven help the poor guys who may eventually move it out of there. :-)"

      I once pushed an empty VAX6000[0] chassis off a top floor balcony at 525 University in Palo Alto once. About 220 feet (67m) straight down.

      We had to get it out of the building by close of business to beat a performance clause in the contract. The heavy-goods lift was down, and building rules insisted "no equipment in the passenger elevators!".

      So rather than lug the thing down all those flights, my buddy and I hauled it onto to the Boss's private balcony. It took about 5 minutes to remove enough of the barrier to put the thing on the edge. He went downstairs to shoo potential targets out of the drop zone, and I pushed with the help of a crowbar and a block of wood. Sadly, in the days before so-called "smart" phones, we didn't think to videotape it.

      [0] All you VAX lovers out there can chill ... we stripped it of anything useful before the defenestration. The chassis probably still weighed well over 500 pounds (225kilos). At the time, you could buy a VAX 6000 chassis at less than scrap value from places like Wierdstuff Warehouse. Risking life and limb getting the thing down ~12 flights wasn't worth it.

  27. John 110
    Coat

    I used to have...

    When I did IT support in a Bacteriology Lab, I used to have a stick with a nail in it* (an implement a boss was given as a joke man management tool) that I inherited from a retiring boss. It turned out to be most useful as a device for fetching wires from under desks and lab benches.

    *essentially a broom handle with a three inch nail driven an inch into it, H&S assured by the head of the nail being uppermost.

    1. Conundrum1885

      Re: I used to have...

      Have here a box intended for "secure deletion" of HDDs.

      It contains: TWO modified defib capacitors (>100uF 2.5KV) and a big coil of homemade Litz wire along with some huge IGBT bricks and a driver board.

      Resonates at some fairly low kHz similar to an electric toothbrush charger but at a power level approaching what you might find at ITER.

      Essentially the drive (having first had its PCB removed) is installed in the gap and the power supply turned on. Drive gets so hot that the

      paint blisters, passing the upper Curie point for the platters and neodymium magnets in less than a second.

      Even the NSA aren't getting that back and the drive(s) can then be sent for shredding or better still precious metal extraction ensuring that

      there is no way the data is ever getting recovered even with the "Blue Box Protocol".

      PCBs have some residual value so a PFY takes the memory chips off with a reflow station and a camera filming the process.

    2. NITS

      Shepherd's crook...

      ... is what I call it. One of those metal sticks, about a meter long, with an S bend at the far end, and a wooden handle, that shop staff use to hang and retrieve merch from a tall hook on a display wall. Useful for fetching wires, and also for steering fiberglass cable-running sticks through that J-hook that you just can't reach.

      Also useful: a 10-ft length of steel sash chain, for fishing cable down a wall cavity. Hole above the ceiling line for cable entry, another at the equipment mounting point. Attach cable end to the top, dangle the chain down the wall cavity, and use a magnet to retrieve it.

      But wait, there's more! A traffic cone, to manage cable at the corner where the cable path turns. Walk it out to length on the floor, coil it up using the sound techs' over-and-under technique, lay the coil over the cone. It feeds off without kinking. Repeat as required at the next corner(s) of the cable path.

      1. DoctorPaul Bronze badge

        Re: Shepherd's crook...

        "Sound techs"? Reminds me of the early 70s at university when I did a bit of work as a roadie for friends who had formed a rock band. I was 72 last week but I still wind up things like extension leads that way.

        For the uninitiated, crook one arm at 90 deg and hold the plug between thumb and forefinger, then start looping the cable between upper arm and gap between finger and thumb. When done, simply straighten your arm and you are left holding a neatly coiled cable.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Shepherd's crook...

          I never heard it called that, but have always done it that way. Dad did stuff with radar installations, fitting them out. Mam always coiled up the washing line that way. Where the original idea came from I have no idea, but I learned it from them. No "audio tech" or roadies involved AFAIK :-)

          1. swm

            Re: Shepherd's crook...

            Sounds like a "chain throw" competition. A chain being a surveyor's tape.

  28. Neoc
    Angel

    'user attitude readjustment tool'

    You misspelled 'Luser'. The proper acronym is LART.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    to me, to you

    up your end

    etc

    etc

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