back to article After we fix that, how about we also accidentally break something important?

On Monday, The Register readers have two jobs: survive the day, and read the fresh installment of Who, Me? – the column based on your less-marvelous moments. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Spencer" who shared a tale of his time working for a UK government agency as a "third line support/infrastructure guy." That …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Migrations

    For a while I would often be away for migrations to convert a local site to our standards (IP addressing. Email, naming etc). Mostly 2 or 3 of us for a weekend blitz. One of two on networking and myself on servers, desktops and mail migration

    On one trip, we finished early-ish so my co worker decided to tidy up their cabling by pulling everything out and repatchong

    I coulf see why, but he had the early flight home and I was there for any issues for a couple of days. My days were spent trying to find various ports which were buried under floors (non raised) or behind large cabinets

    Local it knew what it was. The local users were just told it was teething problems and I was left cursing

    Good days though

  2. Red Sceptic

    No good deed …

    … goes unpunished.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: No good deed …

      I guess Spencer left his Marks on the datacentre

      1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: No good deed …

        As it was optical fibres, at least there were no sparks...

      2. DuchessofDukeStreet

        Re: No good deed …

        M&S may be an institution, but they're not yet a government body.

        My guess would be the wonders of East Kilbride....

        1. Dave@Home

          Re: No good deed …

          "we were far from civilization"

          Yeah that fits

          1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

            Re: No good deed …

            East Kilbride had a Maplins

        2. Roopee Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: No good deed …

          I contracted in East Kilbride for over a year, at Scottish Electricity Settlements. Their office was in a tower block over the local shopping centre at the time. The village itself, where I shared a flat with a colleague, was rather nice - the rest, not so much.

          Freebies included a works outing to a distillery :)

    2. Daedalus

      Re: No good deed …

      aka "You touch it, you own it."

      Never touch anything you aren't specifically told to touch, and get it in writing if possible.

  3. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    "third line support/infrastructure guy." That status may sound lowly

    Does it? I thought that was premier league in the actual running a network part of "I T" , second only to 'architect' or 'director' etc.

    Terminology varies I guess , in fact at my present job 3rd line rather unconventionally means the poor bastard who has to walk to the user if {whatever} cant be done remotely - so its unjam the printer or show them the on/off button .

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yup, 1st line = customer facing. 2nd line = escalations and implementations, 3rd line = projects and planning

    2. Tim99 Silver badge

      Back in the day, 1st line support was the person who answered the help-line phone and read through choices on a menu. If they got to the end of the choices without resolving the problem they transferred you to a 2nd line support person - They had some knowledge of the system, and usually had access to the manuals and the "known problems" database. If they couldn't fix it, you were told that they were escalating your problem, and that somebody would phone you back. The "somebody" was the 3rd line support person - This could well be one of the people who had actually designed or written the system... In our small business I was often all of them. My calls ranged from "My computer thingy's disappeared" to obscure interaction problems (usually caused by Microsoft).

      1. StudeJeff

        In my previous life I worked as an process engineer in a North Carolina (USA) plant that refurbished computing equipment for a big, blue computer maker. If you had a problem with equipment you got from us and called our hotline you'd actually reach people in our building.

        Once in a while they would get stumped and ask if I'd mind talking to a customer, it wasn't my job to deal with customers, but I was always happy to help.

        They would also contact me if there was an dodgy attempted return. They called about a guy trying to return some rather pricey server hard drives, and when I heard the name I told them that under no circumstances whatsoever should they do anything for him. The guy was a former employee and had been fired for stealing parts, now he was somehow a broker. I'd be willing to bet real money that he'd stolen those drives from us to begin with.

  4. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    hmm , am I a hoarder

    I've never had that kind of pressure but :

    Every time I do a favour/job/diy for friends or family I find myself facing a severe lack of resources compared to my house and having to improvise, ranging from anything like wood saw , socket or voltmeter to I.T. bits like spare hard drive or monitor or vga cable.

    More than once I've come across people who inexplicably dont have 100 spare "IEC Connector C13 6A" leads (aka kettle) lying around in a box.

    Even real basics like "Have you got a bit of rope to secure this to that ? No ? an old extension cord or any elctrical cable will do .. NO?? are you wearing shoelaces then?"

    Some peoples houses are just too damn uncluttered.

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

      My problem is a tiny bit different.

      When doing something for family, I try to prepare by taking things I might need. But then again, you could equip a small workshop with what I carry around in the back of my car!

      But the problem is often "I know I have one of those, and I think I've seen it in the last few weeks, but I can't remember where it is!"

      Whatever it is, I normally find it in the box of 'useful' bits that I put together for the last job, which I never found the time to put away again afterwards, and which may still be sitting in the back of the car anyway!

      1. ColinPa Silver badge

        I know I have one of those, ..., but I can't remember where it is!"

        It's in the back of your car.

        This explains why you cannot find it in your house

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

        Ditto! I have a couple boxes of leads and connectors I might need in my study, and a few crates of even more in my attic - these latter accumulate from the study boxes as they overflow, I probably have most leads and connectors I'll ever need - but I usually end up buying more as I can never find the one I need when I need it.

      3. pirxhh

        Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

        I do the same but have to pack a bit more diligently, as I do most in-city trips by bicycle (and longer trips by train if I can), so the kitchen sink rarely fits into my bags...

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

          " the kitchen sink rarely fits into my bags"

          So you're not Elon Musk.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

      This is why I leave a soldering iron and multimeter at my mum-in-law's house. You never know when you'll need it, like yesterday when she said " can you fix this thingy?"

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

        Can confirm.

        Duplicate set of home handyman tools resides at daughter's house. Meaning I have to bring less when I go over.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

          I'm encouraging my daughter to have her own tool sets. It makes buying presents easier...

          1. DuchessofDukeStreet

            Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

            Aged 17, my Christmas present from my dad was a box of Black Magic chocolates. I failed to notice the cellophane wrapping was missing and chose to prioritise other sweets for a few days. When I did lift the lid, I found not a single chocolate, but a starter tool kit of screwdrivers, pliers, hammer, fuses, sandpaper, allan keys etc. Give Dad credit, he'd managed to bite his tongue while he waited, and, possibly more importantly at the time, kept all the chocolates in a safe place to hand them over. I was still using the chocolate box fifteen years later when I finally gave up and bought a proper tool box to contain the much expanded collection. I still get the odd "practical" present under the tree, although I'm expected to use them myself these days, occasionally with a benevolent supervisor overseeing via WhatsApp video call.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

              "When I did lift the lid, I found not a single chocolate, but a starter tool kit of screwdrivers, pliers, hammer, fuses, sandpaper, allan keys etc."

              And the weight of the box didn't give any hint that it might not be choccies in there? It must have been significantly heavier than any box of Black Magic I ever saw :-)

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

            My daughter persuaded my son in law to buy her the screwdriver set she'd wanted, by way of a Valentine's day pressie. I kid you not.

            1. BenDwire Silver badge

              Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

              You did a good job raising her. Well done!

            2. Roopee Silver badge

              Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

              I’m guessing she had an ulterior motive, and wasn’t planning on being with him by the following February...

          3. Roopee Silver badge
            Thumb Up

            Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

            Much better solution!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

      Wherever I have lived I have always ended up with boxes of cables and hardware bit and bobs. They are invaluable. Only the other day I needed a basic 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio jack cable to plug an MP3 player into my new (oldish)cars entertainment system, not a problem. A good few years ago I split up with my ex-wife and the cable boxes sadly didn't make the journey. I think she binned them out of spite but anyway and to my surprise after a couple of years they had rebuilt themselves from nothing. I also seem to have a few kettle leads for some bizarre reason I just can't quite fathom as I've only bought one PSU in that time.

    4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

      "Some peoples houses are just too damn uncluttered."

      I recommend "It'll come in useful" as a family motto.

    5. MrBanana

      Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

      I like to have the right tool for the job, and get perplexed by the number of "professionals" who come to my house so ill-equipped. Sorry, the oak beam is too tough, I can't secure this joist against the main frame - here, this is the impact driver you should have in your toolbox. Do you have any washing up liquid to add to this mortar? - perhaps you meant to bring something like this plasticiser. Why did you charge me for a 20m spool of twin+earth cable? - I could have given you the 50cm length you actually require. Don't tighten that chrome fitting with a metal pipe wrench - use this one with plastic jaw inserts so the chrome stays intact. Call that a heat gun, looks like a hairdryer - here, try this... I despair sometimes.

    6. John Miles

      Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

      I had a manager who was a hoarder - when he had a promotion that involved his own office we had a clear out, he was looking at us throwing out lots of stuff and said what if you needed that cable - my response was I wouldn't have known it was in the filling cabinet, so would have just ordered a new one - which would probably work out less than paying someone to check to see if we had it, check it wasn't damaged .. (his wife is reported to have said when saying we were throwing his stuff - knowing you they need to)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Have you ever regretted taking on extra work?"

    Yes. Every time I've completed the job in hand and then said to myself "Let me just....."

    1. Dave K

      Or my pet-peeve of a line whenever you're in an office to fix a problem that has been logged:

      "Oh, by the way - whilst you're here..."

      And of course you're boned either way. Say "yes" and fix the extra issue and people just hoard problems for when you visit and it looks like you take an hour to fix a 15-minute problem. Say "No, please log a ticket first" and you get the inevitable feedback about poor IT support. You just can't win...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You have no idea. I have a health condition that keeps me away from the office unless I'm really needed, and I don't or can't trust someone else to take instruction to do it (IMHO, it's bad planning to allow one of your core infrastructure teams to drop to just one member, especially if they're ill).

        So I often turn up for one of these essential pieces of work, which is often sized to fit in the available time (plus a bit of contingency), and find people are lining up to tell me of other woes they think I can fix "while I am there"!

        The last trip, I ended up having to give our pre-prod environment an unexpected health check and fix, which almost compromised the main work I was there to sort out!

      2. Tim99 Silver badge
        Unhappy

        In our small business, it happened so frequently that we called it an ”OBTW" happening.

        1. AustinTX

          We pick from this list: "Self-assigned, Email, Call, Walk-up (if in-office), Shoulder-tap (while on the floor)."

      3. OhForF' Silver badge

        I'll happily log a new ticket for any extra issue resolved if that helps with IT's metrics. What i am less happy with is when i am asked to create a new ticket after they closed my weeks old ticket without resolving the issue.

        Telling me they had to close anything in the backlog that was older than two weeks because it became too large to manage does not improve my rating of that kind of IT support nor does it help resolving the issues.

        1. Evil Scot Bronze badge
          Flame

          Never do that to a Dev that knows GDPR. Deliberately entering false data into an account record.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Unless it involves personal information its not a GDPR issue.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          At a previous job, the site outsourced some CMMS data-entry work to a company in India. Often the work wouldn't get done until after the "target finish date" in the ticket. I noticed they were quietly changing the deadline on the tickets to make it look like they were completed on-time. A quick email to the person handling that contract, and the outsourcer's completed-on-time metrics suddenly didn't look too good...

          Want to extend the deadline? ASK ME FIRST. Editing it without asking is falsification!

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Oh God, yes.... "While you're here, could you just..." = all nighter in the customer's data centre trying to recover an Important Server from a disk failure before morning. Lesson learned, stick to the SoW!

      5. Zarno

        My usual response if it's a late-in-week question: "Let me check back with home base to see if that is within the scope of this visit, and if it would need any PO changes."

        You can never be too sure what the people higher up above you and your customer contact have talked about or agreed to after the fact.

        Still annoying when the "One more small issue..." turns into an extra week, but at least they pay for it.

    2. Greybearded old scrote
      Stop

      There should always be a swear box for any use of the 'J' word.

      1. The commentard formerly known as Mister_C Silver badge

        and another for any use of "standard" as a description without qualifiers such as "our standard", "their standard", "our competitor's standard".

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      and then said to myself "Let me just....."

      The real killer is finding you have to sort out some other mess before you can even start the job.

      1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
        Headmaster

        In our business, the swear word/phrase is "BKM" (best known method).

        Customer managers seem to love using it, without ever qualifying it. So the usual response is "best known method to do what exactly?"

        It's amazing how often that seems to throw them off kilter, leading to the standard response of "everything".

        Most often it leads to the quiet lesson in the fact they can't have everything.

        And the usual example I counter with is "what's the best vehicle?" without qualifying whether you want to drive very fast around a track, move a wardrobe with it or to park it safely in a city-centre location.

        The "BKM" for each is of course rather different, and as it's an at least semi-real world example, it does usually get the point across.

      2. tfewster
        Facepalm

        > finding you have to sort out some other mess before you can even start the job

        I find that a reboot before I start MY work exposes most booby-traps. I might have to fix a non-bootable server, but provably it wasn't me that broke it ;-)

        1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
          Facepalm

          I think around here the response would be "yes you did break it, you rebooted it!".

          That is certainly one of those no-win situations of course.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'd just started a new job and was in a machine room looking at a server. There was another guy who was messing around with some fibre cables in another cabinet in an adjacent row. He was trying to trace one in particular and decided to give the cable a tug. All I heard was a load thump and a shout of pain as a small router got pulled off the top of the rack and hit the guy squarely on the head. Not all equipment in a rack is actually 'rack-mounted". He was very lucky that day!

    1. ssharwood

      See? Steel-toed boots can be needed in the datacenter. Call HR and expense 'em

      1. molletts

        I think I'd be a little cagey about letting someone into my datacentre if he was wearing steel-toed boots on his head.

  7. Giles C Silver badge

    Carry spares

    Whenever I go to do a job in the comms room or similar, I usually end up carrying a box of various cables so that I can replace anything that looks dodgy or is about to be stretched to the point it can play music on it. Sometimes I don’t use anything but on rare occasions have had to go back to the supply cupboard. Fine when the site has supplies but when working remotely you almost take the entire stock room with you.

    Especially tricky are when the old kit uses c13 but the new uses c15 I.e. high temp power leads… c15 power leads are some of the elusive kit that exists, mostly because someone uses them where a c13 should be so you can’t find any spares….

    1. pirxhh

      Re: Carry spares

      I do cyber security stuff for a living, often on offshore rigs. My kit is compact (as the space on the helicopter is limited) but pretty comprehensive. I know that I can get safety gear onboard if needed (don't get me started on each drilling company seems to require a different brand of impact gloves), but I don't rely on anything else being available as the next shop is... not exactly nearby.

  8. Sam not the Viking Silver badge
    Pint

    Leave well alone

    Whilst doing proving trials on a piece of kit at a power station, we decided to 'clean the area up' a bit. With a roaming vacuum cleaner, my aide-de-camp unknowingly knocked the air-supply to one of the machinery instruments.

    Unexpectedly, rotating machinery started shutting down, other bits of the system stopped.... A long chain, all the way to the power-station big bits underwent a staged shut-down procedure. As our part was the first to react, a quick scan of the instrumentation revealed a rather low pressure-indication. The offending air-valve was spotted and normal service on our machinery resumed with positive results on the rest of the system.... blame, finger-pointing and most importantly, embarrassment avoided or at least minimised.

    The inquest via the data-acquisition system implied an 'instrument fault'. The sensor was changed (unnecessarily) and I made sure the offending valve was locked in the on-position. That part of the process was then duplicated, with a further standby as it was clearly a single-point-of-failure; not good in continuous processes.

    Good result ---->

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Leave well alone

      This is how things should proceed, and good on you for doing the right thing!

      1. Accidentally do something

      2. Notice it and make it right again

      3. Make improvements so #1 is less likely to happen again.

      Too many people forget to do #3.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Leave well alone

        CAPA is a thing. Corrective action is only the first half - you have to prevent it from happening again!

  9. wyatt

    I've learnt to walk around places with my hands in my pockets. Stops me touching things that I'd then be responsible for fixing. It also helps for when installations are CCTV'd- you with your hands in your pockets is less suspicious that the person who doesn't have them in!

    1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
      Joke

      Oh I don't know, someone else caught on CCTV with their hands in your pockets would I think look rather more suspicious...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Especially if you were smiling...

    2. chivo243 Silver badge
      Coat

      First rule of onsite support, keep your freekin hands in your pockets, coat pockets look a little less *ahem* busy?

    3. pirxhh
      Pirate

      Unless offshore, where not wearing gloves and walking on any kind of stairs without using the handrails are fireable offences.

      1. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
        Boffin

        Or in a cleanroom suit, in which they are also rather lacking...

  10. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    As a Glaswegian, I appreciate the suggestion that one leaves Glasgow to go back to civilisation.

    1. Muscleguy

      One reads between the lines and realises they’re at Faslane. Civilisation is outside Faslane.

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Pint

        I was in a "modern bar" Bass owned in Helensburgh, while doing a survey of the Loch for the MOD, who wanted submarine degaussing coils installed.

        Next morning, one of the chambermaids\servers for breakfast who had seen me in that bar last night asked me:

        Where you there when that guy got stabbed last night?

  11. DS999 Silver badge

    Never clean/tidy anything

    Unless that is the sole purpose of the maintenance you are undertaking, and it includes an outage window (which will be necessary when you need to unplug/replug things to de-knotify tangled cabling) and no don't trust redundancies like dual LAN / N+1 power supplies etc. to handle that even if they are properly tested at regular intervals because Murphy's Law and all.

    There's no good that can come of it. Even if you do it successfully without causing any problems, there are exactly two possible outcomes. One, no one notices it so you get zero credit and anyone else working in that area will not appreciate it or try to maintain the organized state you created. Two, it is noticed and that means the finger of blame will be pointed squarely at you if anything you possibly might have touched goes bad - it'll be up to you to prove your innocence by finding a ticket someone else worked that meant they touched it after your tidying.

  12. munnoch Silver badge

    Glasgow .. far from civilisation .. secure location

    If the location was truly secure, as in machine guns and German Shepards, then its just across the loch from me.

    And I'll overlook the jibe about the lack of civilisation in the Greater Glasgow area, aw'right pal?

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Glasgow .. far from civilisation .. secure location

      I was watching the survey boat from Mambeg Country Guest House.

  13. mtrantalainen

    Am I the only one that read the story as "the takeaway is that you must always have redundant data links for critical connections"? I'm sure that they wouldn't have had such a panic if the problem was that the bandwidth was cut in half (LACP or 802.3ad) or that the traffic simply moved to the redundant link (any other channel bonding mode) after a single fiber failed.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Redundant data links *that have been tested regularly and monitored as if they were live".

      I have seen someone attempt a demonstration of how redundant their links were - up until the live link was taken down and the redundant link refused to work (it was up, but just wouldn't work). That took the entire production environment down. If I close my eyes, I can still see the look of terror on the poor guy's face (and he was a friend - I felt so sorry for him).

      Or the other case I saw, where the main link went down, and we found the redundant link was also down - and had been for months. No-one noticed because the redundant link state was not being monitored.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Redundant data links *that have been tested regularly and monitored as if they were live"."

        I've seen redundant data links ... untested.

        Yep, same cable trays, and when they dug into the trench, both were cut ... Good times.

      2. Giles C Silver badge

        Had that happen to me, main link went down and it turned out the backup was already down.

        We tried to improve that and used a laser link on another site. Main fibre went down and the laser failed as there was thick freezing fog so the light was refracted off course.

        Oops….

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "the takeaway is that you must always have redundant data links for critical connections"

      It probably was redundant. Where do you think that other link magically appeared from?

    3. Roland6 Silver badge

      Having messed around a little with fiber connectors, I’d say the take away is there are too many; just because it has say an LC connector doesn’t mean it is actually the right fiber termination…

  14. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    The Rules

    1 - A five minute job never takes five minutes. More like five hours.

    2 - Never start a job on a Friday afternoon. The job will be far worse than you could ever imagine and there will be no way to back out.

    1. H in The Hague

      Re: The Rules

      "1 - A five minute job never takes five minutes. More like five hours."

      First law of time estimating:

      - Make an initial guess (say, 5 mins)

      - Double the number and use the next larger unit (so, 10 hours)

    2. chivo243 Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: The Rules

      Never start jobs on Friday! or Monday! Never buy a car assembled on those days either!

      1. Mog_X

        Re: The Rules

        Both my children were born on Friday afternoons, which explains a lot.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Angel

          Re: The Rules

          "Both my children were born on Friday afternoons, which explains a lot."

          Shirley the day you had a very small part in their creation is the relevant one?

    3. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: The Rules

      Never, EVER start a plumbing job when the home center is closed!

      Electrical, carpentry, landscaping are all fine. But plumbing is a one-way journey that almost always involves the purchase of an unanticipated part.

      Corollary: shutoff valves work only once, then they break. Those cheap chromed things under the sink? Perhaps not even once.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The Rules

        House rule: plumbing if for someone else. Most other things, yes, plumbing means finding the plumber's phone number.

        1. J. Cook Silver badge

          Re: The Rules

          Both of these.

          I specified quarter turn ball valves when I had my house replumbed, because the area I live in has exceptionally hard water that will freeze out the standard gate valves without fail after two years.

          And yes, I don't do my own plumbing anymore; I'll pay for someone to come by and bring the store with them (aka their truck.)

          1. doesnothingwell

            Re: The Rules

            "hard water that will freeze out the standard gate valves without fail after two years"

            I've learned to turn all open water valves a quarter turn towards closed, they're less likely to jam open and you can work them back and forth when they do.

      2. Roopee Silver badge

        Re: The Rules

        Agreed - isolators have only one job, and if they sit there unused for a decade until you decide to replace the washing machine, they will fail to do even that one, simple job...

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Rules

        Ugh. Unpleasant flashback:

        The dishwasher was having some trouble with its water inlet valve. So I turned off the valve under the sink that fed the dishwasher, put the dishwasher end of the hose into a bowl and started working... only to see the bowl continuing to fill. The sink valve was leaking by.

        So I turned off the gate valve for the house... which successfully closed, then started spinning freely. The shaft had snapped off with the valve in the closed position.

        So I picked up a replacement valve and rented crimper at the hardware store, turned the whole-house water pressure regulator (upstream of the gate valve) to zero pressure, and started cutting the pipe... only for water to spray everywhere. The regulator didn't actually go all the way to zero pressure/flow.

        Cue an emergency call to the city to turn off water at the meter...

        (It went better after that. Successfully replaced the gate valve with a quarter-turn, figured out what was wrong with the dishwasher, and used an adjustable wrench to turn the water back on at the meter rather than call the city again. The undersink valve, however, was never replaced. Not worth it.)

    4. Giles C Silver badge

      Re: The Rules

      Also don’t start work on the car when your other car is parked in front of the one you are working on, you need another part and can’t get the other car out because it is blocked in….

  15. GlenP Silver badge

    Not tidying but...

    I know the feeling! A while back we had a fixed electrical installation test on a Saturday. It was mid-afternoon by the time they got round to the server room supply and I duly shut everything down and unplugged it from the wall (I've been caught before).After the testing was complete I fired everything up only to find two network switches were completely dead. I'd usually have a spare or two around but I think they'd gone to another site to fix a problem, it was too late to get replacements that day and Sunday wasn't looking hopeful either.

    I could get the servers back online with the kit I had but it was looking likely the local staff would be without their PCs and phones until some time on the Monday morning. Cue some creative thinking, I was able to swap a small switch in a separate cabinet for an even smaller one and retrieve the 24-port switch I happened to have at home (it fell off the back of a previous employer's office, honest, Guv) so by lunchtime Sunday everything was connected up again. New switches were sourced on the Monday and another older one was replaced at the same time to provide a spare just in case.

  16. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    Let me just add this one optimisation to the code ...

    I was working on implementing an imaging filtering algorithm by a competing research group to compare to our own new shiny algorithm. The authors of the competing algorithm weren't allowed to share their implementation due to IP issues, so in the interest of fairness, we decided to do our level best to squeeze every last drop of performance out of our implementation of the competitor's algorithm (as much as we did to our own algorithm) before comparing them. We had successfully reduced computing time by a factor of three on both methods, when I thought of another optimization for our competitor. It boiled down to reusing earlier results rather than recomputing them, at no extra memory cost. Easily done. It knocked another 7% off the wall-clock time. Not much, but nice to have, and it took just ten minutes to implement.

    It worked like a charm on all images in our test set. Except for one, where it seemed to enter an infinite loop, never terminating until we killed it. I spent hours and hours trying to work out what was wrong, but ultimately had to give up. We left out this last optimization in the final test. The 7% didn't make much difference anyway, as our algorithm was far faster, and had a better worst-case computational complexity: O(N log N) vs O(N2 log N).

  17. vogon00

    Similar but different...

    Someone was trying to get two bits of optically-connected kit talking in the lab...which were right next to each other, connected with a short bit of fibre. No matter what they did, both interfaces stubbornly reported 'loss of signal'.

    The laser transmitters we supposedly both 'on', and the fibres were the right way round. I got asked to look into it after a few days of frustration:-)

    Optical power meter showed loads of signal at the Rx input....so WTF? 'Being overdriven', thinks I. No optical attenuators available so how to test the 'overdriven' theory?

    Solution:grab a biro/pen and tightly wind the fibre round it two or three times....messed with the TIR just enough to reduce the huuuuge input signal to something the laser Rx could resolve...and things sprung into life!

    Only mentioning it in case someone finds that particular trick useful....although don't re-use the fibre afterwards!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Similar but different...

      Was looking round for a couple of fibre cables for a workbench test...

      Found some old ones on a shelf... folded in half and stuffed in a Jiffy bag (padded envelope) by the supplier!

      Didn't work... something about a minimum bending radius...

      1. Tim Cockburn

        Re: Similar but different...

        Cable guys at a MOD site in Germany. Squadron leader asks if he can have a bit of fibre. " I want to have dashboard lights inside the cab in the model locomotive I'm building" I guess he was going to melt the end to make a bulb .

    2. Niek Jongerius

      Re: Similar but different...

      Eerily similar to a test I did. We had to network a building across a road, and got a set of directional dishes. Set them up inside, on dish at my desk, the other one through an open hallway into another office, about 40 feet away. The connection was crappy at best. After many aligning attempts and teeth gnashing, it was time to call tech support. I explained the setup, the guy asked if I throttled the gain on both ends. Turned out they were at full blast, and basically completely blinding each other. Turning it down to the lowest setting made it all sing and dance.

  18. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Finishing early

    When this happens, the excuse to use is that it's best to leave straight away to beat the rush hour crowds and give you time to write up your report of the work done in the airport whilst everything is still fresh in the memory. The fact that the airport has a bar and you plan on spending the extra time there is best not mentioned.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Had a visit offshore for the simple expedient of changing power supply transformer taps from 240V to 110V (yes, a replacement chassis would have been a better job, but ... Reasons). Fortunately our kit had a huuuuuuge supply tolerance and the 240V setting just about worked ok on 110V.

    Anyways.

    Prior to leaving for site. I had been at pains to confirm a 240V service socket would be available. Yes it was they said.

    No it wasn't when I got there.

    The guy went off to investigate.

    While he was gone another guy appeared, jumping a large lead acid battery - gawd knows what it'd have been used for. He went away and shortly reappeared with another.

    Now 12V + 12V is 24V which is exactly right for the business end of a Weller soldering iron.

    Any charge in those? Asked I.

    Dunno was the reply.

    Anyway, he gave me the OK to use them. I can confirm there was more than enough charge to do the job.

    .

    Not all angels have wings. Some have overalls and carry lead acid batteries.

  20. jay_bea

    Fibre-related

    The mention of fibre reminds me of a recent boo-boo.

    I recently had FTTP installed, to replace to existing copper lines. It works very well, but the BT engineer left the two old wires running down the outside wall, looking untidy. I decided to remove them, one of which had been cut off at the wall, and the other which needed quite a lot of tugging to get out of the hole in the wall. After a bit of pulling, a thin white inner sheath appeared and with a sudden prickling of cold sweat, I realised that I was pulling the newly install fibre line out of the wall.

    Fortunately it still worked (since I no longer had copper lines to fall back on), but I have to avert my eyes when I walk past it. The disused copper lines are still clipped to the wall!

  21. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    IT Angle

    Messed something up just before your triumphant exit

    Some caveats first:

    1) Not a "triumphant exit", merely the garage door, and

    2) Not IT related, but a tale of the big work following the small job because of a "lemme just ... " (=====> "No clever coding will fix this" icon)

    Ok, so: I was replacing the manual locks on my automatic garage doors for ${reasons}. (Previous owner threw away the keys, etc.) Ok, so I replace the locks, adjust cables. Jobs a good one. Tools can be packed away. But then it occurs to me that the doors make a very nasty squeaking noise when they open / close. A bit of closer inspections seems to (incorrectly‡) indicate that a very large and long coiled spring slid over the guides when it moved. So I detach the spring, as one does, to straighten out the cables that attach the door to the springs. Then I stupidly let go of the door, which crashed to the ground, lifting the cable from a pulley. So I open the door again and reattach the spring, without noticing that the cable is no longer running over the pulley. Now I can't move the door anymore, can't move the cable or the pulley, can't detach the spring because it has (a lot) of tension on it. [Many more sorry details here]. Three hours later everything is back the way it should be. Second door just got its lock replaced before the tools were packed away.

    ‡ Turns out that the ca. 471 hinges on the thing (of this design) needed a spot of oil.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Messed something up just before your triumphant exit

      Add garage doors to plumbing as SEP.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Messed something up just before your triumphant exit

        Absolutely, unquestionably, garage doors are for only professionals to work on. Plenty of DIYers have been killed by the release of tension on that big spring.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You were not supposed to blow the bl**dy doors off

    Sent on a mission to our co-lo suite to tidy things up a bit for an imminent customer visit in the early 2000's (as I held the dubious advantage of living about 200 miles closer to it than the rest of the company)

    Spent the morning tidying cabling and left-over junk, one more thing I thought before leaving - that glass door is on the wrong way round on the middle rack

    No problem - they're reversible - let's just turn it round to match the rest, 2min job and it's all going to look epic.

    Except as part of turning said glass door round it must have clipped something and it detonated into about a billion cubes of glass, as all 'good' toughened glass things do and I'm left holding a metal handle and my feet are buried in glass.

    The Floor is also a large metal air grille, and not only are broken cubes of glass _everywhere_ they're now under the raised floor.

    No way I can pick all that up by hand... so I stole the cleaner's Henry hoover from the hallway and plugged it in to a conveniently placed socket and proceed to hoover up everything I can reach (which was problably only 30% of it).

    When I finish up, I think "it's a bit quieter in here than when I started.."

    I see an AS/400 with no light on, odd.. I think and then I realise the Henry the hoover is plugged into the socket next to it and it's pre EU regulations power rating must have tripped a breaker somewhere that I don't have access to.

    Make some calls, nobody knows who owns that AS/400 or what it does. Until the following day, when it turns out it was quite important to a high st. retailer and there were some creative excuses made.

    Apologies if you're having to do anything under the floor in Telehouse North as I'm sure the glass is still there.. It was me!

  23. J. Cook Silver badge
    Boffin

    The best way to describe fiber connectors::

    .. is a mnemonic:

    SC = Square Click

    LC = Little Click (Smaller version of the Square Click)

    ST = Stab, Twist (Bayonet connector)

    FC = Finger Cramp (from the screw part of the ferrule)

    MT = Mighty Tiny. (those were the ones designed to stuff a duplex patch into the same space as an RJ-45 keystone)

    The only one's I've not encountered have been the MT connectors.

  24. Great White North

    Reminds me of of the Engineer in the corner, he did the Hydraulic design, he would do some of his work with the actual fittings, and

    then toss them in the bottom drawers of his desk (usually 1/4 inch fittings).

    After awhile any time there was a reorg that required a move, the 1st thing we did was book a forklift to move his desk.

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