What's the weirdest outfit you've worn to a tech support job?
Dashed hopes and fading memories are my daily Tech Supp uniform
Welcome to the year 2025, which just three days ago was in the future! Welcome, also, to a new instalment of On Call, The Register's Friday column whose ongoing mission is to take your kind contributions of tech support stories and share them with the world. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Worf," who told us he …
I dunno if I'd call it weird, but some might find it strange ... for over 5 decades I have regularly worn my leathers to "emergency" calls. Here in the Bay Area, the bike is often the fastest way to get somewhere ... and I'm not splitting traffic without armo(u)r.
Note that splitting is perfectly legal here in California.
And good on you for wearing full leathers.
My brother, in his wild and carefree youth, was a keen biker, and sometimes grumbled about how hot and uncomfortable his leathers were on summer days.
Well, two incidents convinced him to endure a little discomfort!
The first was him piling at 60mph into a tractor and muck-spreader that turned out from a field onto the road straight in front of him. Weeks in hospital, surgery, metal plates in various bones, but he made a full recovery - no small thanks, the surgeons told him, to the kevlar reinforcement in his outfit.
After that, he found new purpose and pursued his first love - medicine, starting by volunteering with the St John's Ambulance, and progressing from there. Part of this involved him working stints in the A&E ward of the local hospital, where he saw with his own eyes the result of young lads coming off their bikes at speed clad in only T-shirt and jeans.
I believe the term used in that situation is "meat crayon".
My bruv never, ever again went out on his bike without full leather armour.
That's if they don't survive - the human body is remarkably resilient and can often withstand being smeared down a road on various limbs and extremities which get abraded away to nothing, as long as prompt medical attention is then given to prevent blood loss from the inevitable massive bleeds when you've abraded away major arteries.
Of course, whether or not you want to survive such injuries is an exercise left up to the rider.
"Note that splitting is perfectly legal here in California."
In the UK, it is.... until it's not. A traffic cop friend explained it to me thus.
If you are filtering, and you are involved in a Road Traffic Incident during a filtering maneuver, you will be prosecuted for dangerous driving (riding). No ifs, no buts, no excuses, you will be charged and it will be dealt with by the courts. The courts usually take the view that you would not have been involved in the RTA if you were not filtering as surely as you would not have been involved in an RTA if you hadn't turned into the path of oncoming traffic.
As the Highway Code explicitly states that filtering is allowed, by giving guidance on how to do it, I would say that officer is wrong. The argument doesn't carry any logical consistency either - no road traffic accidents would happen if people didn't drive. No-one would cut themselves in the kitchen if they didn't use knives or go into the kitchen.
I used to do that all the time. I particularly liked the bit where I discovered that the "pocket" for the back protector plate in my jacket was the perfect size to slip a 15" laptop in over the plate. I could rock up on site and then just unzip the bottom of the jacket and drop the laptop straight out onto the work bench without having to try and get a laptop bag secured to the bike.
Did occasionally get a few stares from people stomping through the office with a helmet on and steel toed boots, but no one ever said anything.
I once went to a job interview by bike and went into the meeting still in my leathers. It was more of an exploration of possibilities than an actual interview, but maybe I still misjudged it,,, Fortunately my employer at that time was bought out of insolvency and life went on.
I was summoned to the Dean's office back in the 90s when the network went down after work hours, on a Friday. I was at the local climbing wall at the time, si I naturally arrived with my dreadlocks swinging in the air, a tank top, camo cargo shorts, my climbing harness, SPD sandals (I commuted in my MTB back then), and covered in chalk.
I still remember the Secretary of Academic Issues telling me that was no way to interrupt a Faculty Council meeting, only to have the vice Dean telling her they were lucky enough to have me there, as I wasn't being paid any overtime.
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My weekends of Dark Ages reenactment occasionally intersected with my weekend tape swapping duties in the 90's. Period clobber normally mostly hidden under a 20thC coat though, although sword and larger pieces of armour frequently hanging off my backpack. The only witness being the security guard as it was the weekend and he was far too cool to mention anything.
I damn near killed an idiot who we discovered had been commenting code in Klingon[0] ... Normally, I wouldn't have cared, but the comments popped up during a surprise visit from the CEO with a couple clients in tow looking to see how their customized version of the code was coming along. The customer knew Klingon. Including the cuss-words. He found it funny, thankfully.
[0] The Klingon only appeared in bits of assembler embedded in C ... quite fitting, actually.
Was an early SillyConValley startup, in roughly mid-1986. Code reviews as we now know them didn't really exist as yet.
Okrand's book The Klingon Dictionary had recently come out and many of the local nerds were trying to figure out if the then minimalist language was usable for anything. You can probably find examples from the Usenet of the era; I'm absolutely certain somebody has that old stuff up on a web page somewhere. Trekkies are like that.
It was one Silicon Valley startup talking to another Silicon Valley startup, in roughly 1986. Many of the principals were still young, and educated at Berkeley or Stanford ... and some were still grad students (for example, look up the history of CROMEMCO). Chances are good that they all knew at least a smattering of both. In that era and place, most of us cut our eyeteeth on BSD, C and assembler ... and were Star Trek fans.
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"Luckily, it was a very quick fix – just a printer config problem – and I felt this incident would enhance my reputation as someone who could fix things quickly"
Really? The only reputation it would enhance would be that you will be remembered as a complete and utter stupid twat!!!
But, I also fall into that "stupid twat" category. Indeed I am also a fucking hypocrite because until a few years ago I was a member of our local TISWAS club. Infact, I was one of the founder members...
Hubba hubba…
Back then I was playing in a band in the Uk and discovered Tiswas when it was still a regional programme ‘up norf’ and saw it on hotel TV’s.Sally was (and probably still is) an absolute delight who put up with the advances of many an intinerant rock star...
Oh FFS! Is Twitter/X so sure insecure of itself that you can't see *anything* now without an account? When did they change that? Oh well, I won't miss it. This time, it was easy enough to find alternative freely accessible copy :-)
(I have Twitter/X domains blocked in NoSctipt etc and only temp unblock on rare occasions when someone posts a link that might be interesting, probably only two or three times per year)
As a PFY i worked for a company that made hotel management software and was sent to install and configure it, in a time before internet access was widely available, which meant travelling to various places. In a hotel in Cuba, I worked by the pool bar (using an ethernet connection from the adjacent building to my luggable) setting all configs in my swimming trunks, flip flops and sunglasses.
As a bonus, there were only 2 flights a week joining Cuba from my location so I spent 4 days there for a one day job. One of the best work trips I've had.
I was diverted from a 'quick trip' to Dubai to go and resolve an 'urgent' problem in Hong Kong as it was 'on the way' by somebody's reckoning. A great flight, seated in comfort, upstairs in a 747.
The customer was surprised at the quick response. So much so that they weren't in fact ready. I resolved the problem-that-wasn't-there and flew home to the UK after a few days sight-seeing only to return a couple of weeks later to complete the commissioning of new plant.
I had a similar request: I was finishing a stint in Abu Dhabi and looking to getting home and flying a (free flight) competition during the coming Sunday when one of my least favourite salesdroids rang me from London with a demand that I go to Vietnam the next day to fix a problem on a variety of mainframe I'd never heard of seen before "because I was already half-way there". Like hell:
(1) I don't do anything as unprofessional as touching unknown kit.
(2) Abu Dhabi-London is a shorter flight than Abu Dhabi-Vietnam
A short argument later, and I flew home next day (Friday) and went flying at Sculthorpe on Sunday.
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Sitting by a canal in Oxfordshire wasn't quite as glamorous!
I did, however, complete the necessary work with the laptop connected to a mobile over an IrDA connection (shielded from the sun) whilst at a boat rally. The alternative would have been to go home for a few hours which would have seriously interfered with the drinking time.
Shortly after that the company decided to stop the half day off in lieu we used to get for doing what was, essentially, bean counter work so we passed it back to them - mysteriously the work that "must be done on a Sunday" could then be completed on the Monday.
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Not so many years ago I was heading to a castle in Scotland to celebrate Hogmanay (New Years Eve to the rest of you) in possession of appropriately smart clothing for a formal dinner and ceilidh in such a location. Due to some supplier issues, I had to divert to a secure data centre en route and meet a colleague to spend several hours unpacking and checking £xm worth of hardware that had arrived later than desirable. Kit dealt with, I carried onwards in the firm knowledge that nobody I would meet that evening would have spent the day in such grubby manual labour around such valuable items.
Had a close call, but not an actual need to turn up while in a) costume or b) uniform. I did turn up to the office to hand in my documents when I was offered the job while my car was loaded for the camping trip I was heading out to, though: Including the polearms, swords and other implements of LRP. That... went mostly without comment. Until I started the job. Then the comments were along the lines of 'so, which system', though.
As to the Uniform: So... not to work, but people from work have turned up to where I've been on volunteer duty: Medical cover at the horse races. I'm a volunteer responder these days as larger events require First responders (a First Aid Qualification, or FAQ at level 3 or higher). Can just imagine turning up to work in that uniform: The jokes would resolve around needing to give CPR to the servers.
No jokes from me about first responders.
Having had a "close call*" with the Grim Reaper and been treated by some paramedics, you'd probably get a "high five" and the offer of a libation of your choice from me.
_______________
* When, at your next exam, your doctor tells you "You're a very lucky man" and she's not congratulating you on winning the lottery, it's a Very Sobering Experience.
So my eldest son at high school had a charity no uniform day, fancy dress encouraged.....
& thus it came to pass my Oncoming Scorn Jr, donned his costume, did his morning paper round in it then went to school, he was running a little late getting to his first class, & they had a guest speaker who was introducing himself to the RE class citing his name, religion & starting to give some further background information such as not recognising a carpenters son as the son of God, when he was treated to Jesus Christs second coming in the shape of my son.
He didn't win first prize for most outrageous\best costume, that went to the kid who came in as a battle ready King Leonidas from 300, with helmet, spear, shield, cloak, sandals & well you get the idea....
I was the manager of a small support team, and a visitor wanted to use our big machines for a performance test, from 6pm till midnight. I left instructions on how to restart the system when they had finished, and gave them my home number ( this was before mobiles), saying phone me if there are any problems.
My phone rang at 01:30 when I was fast asleep. "I'm hope I'm not disturbing you,but.. " It was a nice night so I put a coat on over my pyjamas and went into work.
I went into the machine room, to find the person still there. She saw my pyjamas and said "Ah... sorry I didn't realise you were in bed" I simply followed the instructions and the systems came up.
Next day my boss came in and spoke to me about my pyjamas. The woman told my manager about it - to say thank you for coming out in the middle of the night, so every one got to hear about it!
Had to run the local Joeys section for my Group ( As Group Leader, sections that do not have a qualified leader often fall to the GL to run) so made sure to bring my Scout uniform to work and would change before I left.
Also back in the dim distant past I worked for a stockbrokers in Western Australia and as I lived closest to work, I got the on call job of being first into the office each morning. Because of Daylight savings in Australia, that meant I needed to be at my desk by 5am (8am East Coast time) during summer. I would frequently get calls while riding the bike to work and would go straight into the office in my cycling clothes. So people saw me a few times wandering around in skin tight lycra ;) although in those days I like to think I was reasonably fit.
full Ghostbusters uniform complete with proton pack.... But in my defense it was Halloween and we were allowed to dress up and the company was doing a costume contest.... No I didn't win first place, that went to a lovely lass who was wearing a Halloween costume harlequin outfit with face makup. Mind you I cosplay as a ghostbuster and I had on a full movie accurate costume, and a movie accurate GB2 proton pack with lights and sounds.... Never fails though, anytime you are competing against a good looking lass wearing a sexy costume, it doesn't matter how good your costume / cosplay is you're going to lose.
I did manage to win third place though, we only had two lasses competing for that contest, they got 1st and 2nd place.