Field support chap got married – which took down a mainframe

Reg readers are so dedicated it seems some of you are married to the job, although you also admit that no relationship is perfect when you send stories to Who, Me? It's the column in which we share your tales of making massive mistakes and somehow staying together with your employer afterwords. This week, meet "Zeke" who told …

[Mast1]

Errr, embarassingly similar with my (much) younger self, but nobody to see it happen.

Working on kit with a 5V 200A power supply to power a rack that I had buit from the boards upwards, and hence written the safety and instruciton manual.

"Remove jewellery".

I thought I knew better for a brief job inside the rack: no need to remove the wrist watch with stainless steel strap, I am nowhere near the bus bars.

Bzzzt..... LEDs dim, and two brown marks appear in the steel.

Fortunately the PSU had an active overload detector, so the only other damage was to my pride, but it enhanced my wisdom.

[Ball boy]

Back in my uni days we had a lecturer who'd spent time working with mech. engineers on ships. It didn't take much to get him to go off topic and recount some past adventures. I can vividly remember him, completely unaware he was doing it, automatically feeding his tie between two shirt buttons to keep it out of trouble. Muscle memory.

[jake]

There's a reason that ties were fair game for anyone with a pair of scissors at most early (mid '70s) Silly Con Valley companies ... hand-built one-off prototypes often had voracious cooling fans. The theory was that if we starved 'em of ties they'd be too weak to do much other damage. Not even IBM Field Circus folks were safe from the shears ... HP, somewhat wisely, decided ties were pretty useless fairly early on, as did DEC's Palo Alto contingent. Most of the other big names followed. Some of the Military Brass working out of Ford Aerospace, Varian & etc. had special dispensation to do without neck-ware "so they'd fit in with the locals" ... We had high hopes that it'd become a world-wide movement and we'd be done with the useless things for good.

_{The only real use for a tie is as a handle when trying to shake sense into the wearer.}

[An_Old_Dog]

Usefulness of (Clothing) Ties

The only real use for a tie is as a handle when trying to shake sense into the wearer.

They have also been used as handles for women to drag their male partners' heads down low enough for convenient kissing.

(/me grins to himself at old, fond memories ... but still hates wearing 'em.)

[jake]

Re: Usefulness of (Clothing) Ties

And that's not shaking sense into the wearer?

_{For low frequency variations of shake, of course ...}

[ChoHag]

Re: Usefulness of (Clothing) Ties

I believe the plan is for the shaking to happen afterwards.

(extra-careful checks for typos on that one...)

[kventin]

Re: Usefulness of (Clothing) Ties

... at what time the tie is entirely optional (albeit usable)

[C R Mudgeon]

Re: Usefulness of (Clothing) Ties

Nope. It's shaking it out of him.

[Stevie]

Re: women to drag their male partners' heads down low enough for convenient kissing.

Slowly, passionately their lips met.

Then she crossed her legs and broke his glasses.

[Montreal Sean]

Re: women to drag their male partners' heads down low enough for convenient kissing.

Oooh nurse!

[phuzz]

We had high hopes that it'd become a world-wide movement and we'd be done with the useless things for good.

I think it might have worked, at least for a lot of people. The only job I've had where a tie was mandatory was a waiting/barstaff gig. My first IT job I had to wear a proper shirt, so I requestioned a bunch of the short-sleeved shirts the field engineers had, so that I wouldn't have to spend my own money on them. Since then, I've been able to wear what I like.

If you're not customer facing, why bother dressing up?

[agurney]

When I was starting my first career, as a teacher, I was hauled up in front of the beak within my first five minutes of a teaching practice placement for not wearing a tie .. the head of the art department obligingly cut me one from paper and all was well.

[C R Mudgeon]

I went from being a jeans-and-t-shirt type at university in the late 70s out into the corporate world, where ties -- and the suits to go with them -- were still de rigeur.

I landed an interview with a start-up, naively unaware of the cultural differences -- I wanted to work there because the work itself would be more interesting.

I went to the interview dressed in my usual suit and tie... to be met by my interviewer, who was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of bib overalls.

"Man," I thought. "Now I *really* want to work here!"

I did, for a few years. It had its ups and downs -- a lot of the latter; it was a pretty f'ed up place -- but it was utterly transformative. Of all the other places I worked after that, all but one flowed, directly or indirectly, from contacts I'd made at that early position.

Even the retrocomputing project I've been making a few bucks at in my retirement consists of reviving the antiques that were the hot new thing we were developing at that place.

And my clothing style is... cargo pants and t-shirts.

[ChrisBedford]

"If you're not customer facing, why bother dressing up?"

Yeahhh... in the 80s and 90s, some of the more uptight companies (in South Africa, anyway) still felt that "internal customers" should be afforded the "same respect" as actual customers, so ties were mandatory even if you never saw a single customer ever.

I remember going for an interview in the late 80s in uniform - I was serving in the Navy in an office job, and it was Summer so we were in Whites (not the ice cream suit, but white long trousers and open-necked short-sleeved shirt) and I just drove from the base to the job interview. Took criticism from one member of the panel for being "so casual". Yeah. OK, stick-up-your-arse, thanks for your time... in retrospect, so glad I didn't get that job. not sure if it was about the lack of tie / blazer / crimplene slacks (this was after all still the height of Saturday Night Fever outfits here) or my less than obsequious attitude, but I think I dodged a bullet there...

[BartyFartsLast]

In my career as a field tech and site engineer I've worked at hundreds of places and only had to wear a tie at one site.

I did get threatened with a written warning for not wearing a tie at a call at a bank if been diverted to afterr a *long* overnight job at a police station.

Having been awake for nearly 36 hours, my reply to the jumped up little shit of a manager was not kind and I invoked the EWTD on him then switched my phone off for a few hours sleep in the car.

[Peter Ford]

I worked for a internet agency in London - no dress code at all (shorts, t-shirt and bare feet were OK in the summer), but we had a client that I visited occasionally that were much less relaxed. The real pain was that we often visited them on a Friday, and it was inevitably a dress-down Friday where they were expected to pay a charity donation to dress down. So, even though I'd dress up a bit (polo shirt or rollneck) I'd get stung for a tenner...

[ricardian]

On a long, residential course with a dozen other folk umpteen years ago our new instructor appeared without a tie and manglement quickly instructed him to find and wear a tie. However, it appeared that the local rules only said "a tie" and did not specify what sort of tie. There, for the rest of the course we all scoured local charity shops for the ugliest possible tie and our instructor happily wore them.

[Highinthemountains]

No ties allowed

I worked in IT for 47 years and remember the suit and tie days very well. It didn’t matter if you were a programmer or a FE running bus and tag cables under the floor, that suit and tie had to be on. I eventually moved on to more dress relaxed companies, including my own. My company attire was company logo’d shirt and jeans or shorts in the summertime.

I once had a Dell service rep come to my store to do a warranty repair on a customer’s machine that I had. He came into the store, introduced himself and said he was there to do the repair, wearing a tie. I welcomed him, showed him the machine and told him he could do the repair, but the tie had to go. He started to get agitated about it, so I told him he could do the repair out in the parking lot on the hood of his car then. He said that his company required him to wear a tie. I told him, my store, my rules. Besides, who’s going to know if you aren’t wearing your tie. He took off his tie and did the repair.

[DoctorPaul]

From very early in my career I adopted the mantra "never trust a programmer in a suit"

[Roland6]

From very early in my consulting career I learnt wearing a suit massively reduced the number of clients who expected me to deal with hardware issues or write programmes…

In my later career, I was grateful for the changing business dress code, I could replace the suits with more comfortable and cheaper clothes.

[JWLong]

Circa: 1970's

Working in Bowling centers world wide for the major manufacturers the mandate that management wear ties to distinguish themselves was soon modified to be that managment was to wear "clip-on ties only at all times".

This came about after an assistant manager (night manager) was working alone after sending the night mechanic home early because it was slow. He was found in the morning not breathing anymore, yet the machine was still running.

Seems that his "required tie" had become entangled in a 205 inch "B" series (high powered) ball wheel drive belt that was driven at at about a 400:1 ratio by the 1-1/2HP drive motor. Not a good mix!

Glad I didn't have to clean that machine afterwards.

[MachDiamond]

"automatically feeding his tie between two shirt buttons to keep it out of trouble."

He should get a Colin Furze Safety Tie!

[Simon Harris]

"5V 200A"

That's not something you want going through your ring.

@The Reg... please can we have a Frankie Howerd icon.

[Blank Reg]

I had a similar incident with my wedding ring some 40 years ago, though it was only a rack mount PC so far less than 200A, it still stung. I've not worn a ring since then,

[Dr. Ellen]

Current and voltage both high and low

In grad school, I worked with humongous magnets with equally humongous power supplies. We were strongly warned NOT to wear rings, lest we touch the wrong terminals. It would have ended poorly, with loud shrieks and a burnt-off finger next to a blob of gold on the floor.

The precautions around the high voltage were different

[AnotherName]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

Back in the early days of my RAF trade training we were working on valve (tube in USAsian) transmitter and receiver equipments with 300V+ floating around the innards. We were warned then not to wear rings when working on faults or maintenance for safety reasons. When I married a few years later I told my wife it wasn't worth me having a ring as I would have to keep removing it and the chances of losing it would be higher for that reason. Fifty years later and I've never had a wedding ring.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

"Back in the early days of my RAF trade training we were working on valve (tube in USAsian) transmitter and receiver equipments with 300V+ floating around the innards. We were warned then not to wear rings when working on faults or maintenance for safety reasons. "

Another issue that can crop up with big transmitters is large magnetic fields that turn a ring/watchband into an induction heater in an instant.

I never got into a habit of wearing jewelry due to the warnings about such and electricity as I learned electronics. Watches I destroyed by not taking them off when playing drums.

[david 12]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

I offered to get a ring tattooed on my ring finger when I married. I wouldn't have minded -- I was pleased to be married, and not ashamed of it, but there was no way I'd be wearing a physical ring, even at home.

And our mech lecturer wore a clip-on tie.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

"And our mech lecturer wore a clip-on tie."

I just laugh at the old photos of machinists wearing a button-down shirt and tie under their apron. I wear second hand clothes that I don't mind drenching in cutting oil and coolant. I've had days where I would come home filthy from the machine shop. I made denim seat covers for the car that I could wash and would hold up to metal chips. I should have made some robust shoe covers.

[jake]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

I was talking to a "white coat" at ICL about 35 years ago. I asked "Why the white coat?". He said it was a holdover from the days when tens of thousands of relays created a lot of dust, and high voltages concentrated that and the naturally existing dust ... and then they threw in paper tape, punch cards and mag tape, all of which create more dust. So the coats were to protect the clothes of the wearer.

I pointed out that that was hardly a necessity anymore ... He just smiled sadly and said "We're British. We like uniforms."

[MachDiamond]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

"I offered to get a ring tattooed on my ring finger when I married. "

A person I worked with at a wood shop did that. There's too many opportunities to lose a finger due to a ring in that sort of work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Current and voltage both high and low

Having gained a ring scar on one finger (nearly lost the finger) as a result of getting it caught on some electrical equipment, my wife to be accepted that I wasn’t going to wear a wedding ring.

[BenDwire]

.... and two brown marks appear in the steel

And the third on the underwear, I suspect.

[Alan J. Wylie]

VAX field service engineers

I can still remember, in the early 80's DEC VAX field service engineers removing their wedding ring before working anywhere near the computer's backplane. Apparently the current available from the power supply could heat the ring to red heat in only a short contact.

And I can still remember FIELD / SERVICE and SYSTEST / UETP too. The good old days of insecurity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: VAX field service engineers

My father was a motor mechanic (and, back in my younger days, I did most of my car maintenance) he was strict about removing all jewellery when working on a car (in fact, doing almost any DIY work). He told me, quite graphically, of a fellow mechanic whose wedding ring shorted a battery terminal - not pretty. In my first job I was working with metal forming equipment that used high current to melt metal between dies - reinforced the warning. When I visited offshore North Sea oil installations I didn't need to be reminded of no-jewellery rules when "on-plant". It's not just electricity - just getting a ring caught on something and it's quite painful. And the comedy routine where someone gets their shirt tie caught in something is no laughing matter.

[Alan J. Wylie]

Re: VAX field service engineers

It's not just electricity - just getting a ring caught on something and it's quite painful

My mother was in the WAAF during the war, some of the time she was servicing airplanes. Lots of stories to tell - the technicians were "encouraged" to go up in the plane on the first flight after servicing. Winding up the undercarriage on an Avro Anson. Pilots showing off with aerobatics and trying to impress the attractive young woman sitting next to them. But what sticks in the mind most is the scar from a ring that got caught on the fuselage as she got out.

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: VAX field service engineers

There is a footballer who lost a finger, due to a ring when he climbed a fence

[Timo]

Re: VAX field service engineers

Jimmy Fallon (US comedian and late-night TV show host) did that to his ring finger.

https://www.nynjcmd.com/jimmy-fallon-suffers-ring-avulsion/

I grew up in a rural state, and we were shown the farm safety videos in high school. Lot of pictures of people that jumped off something and left their ring and finger behind. Also the effects of loose shirts caught in PTO shafts.

[J. Cook]

Re: VAX field service engineers

... or lathes, for that matter.

seeing a bodie bent in ways it was never intended to does something to the deep paths of one's brain. (and possibly bringing up the contents of the stomach, too.)

[cmdrklarg]

Re: VAX field service engineers

My uncle lost his ring finger on the farm. He was up on the box of our old grain hauling truck to look inside, then he jumped off to the ground. Ring hooked on something; bam!

[agurney]

Re: VAX field service engineers

"There is a footballer who lost a finger, due to a ring when he climbed a fence"

I know a newly married goalkeeper who sadly lost his ring finger when the ring caught on a hook holding the net when he dived to me a save :(

[KarMann]

Re: VAX field service engineers

This is actually a significant part of the reason I took to wearing bow ties, which don't suffer from that problem. As an added bonus, when I was riding my motorbike, it was much less inclined to wrap itself around my neck and strangle me.

Dammit, why are none of the icons obviously wearing bow ties? Well, pretend these two swords make for a lovely bow tie. --->

[Zoopy]

Re: VAX field service engineers

> This is actually a significant part of the reason I took to wearing bow ties, which don't suffer from that problem

There's something that 90% of people in the forum want to tell you, but it's best if you hear it from a trusted friend over coffee.

[KarMann]

Re: VAX field service engineers

It's 'I wear a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool,' isn't it?

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: VAX field service engineers

Just don't try to match it with a fez...

[Roland6]

Re: VAX field service engineers

> Bow ties are cool,

Particularly, when after a meal you can relax and undo it James Bond style, and so discover most of the people around you are wearing clip ties…

[CJ2025]

Re: VAX field service engineers

In some of the IT and engineering companiesI have worked in over the last three decades, the wearing of bow ties was reserved for the PhDs

[Shooter]

Re: VAX field service engineers

Before I was married, I was subjected to quite a few graphic safety posters featuring degloved fingers due to rings. After I was married I always kept my wedding ring in my pocket or the truck when I was working.

Also only wore cheap plastic watches for the same reason.

Nowadays you can get a silicone wedding band that's non-conductive, breaks easily, and still keeps the missus happy. (Or mister - my wife often works with power tools and wears one.)

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: VAX field service engineers

Or Mr and Mr, Mrs and Mrs, y'know

[RJW]

Re: VAX field service engineers

BT Technicians in the days of the strowger telephone exchanges were also not allowed to wear rings and bracelets for the same reason.

The telephone exchanges were powered by a massive 50 volt battery, which could heat a ring to a high temperature very quickly.

[jake]

Re: VAX field service engineers

A friend of mine reached behind a large bank of relay racks and managed to get his Rolex watchband across the large 48V supply ... The resulting loud "CRACK!" and fans spinning down, coupled with the smell of roasting/burning pork, were rather disturbing. To say nothing of the screaming. I managed to calm him down & get him to the ER ... Xrays showed little balls of gold melted into his wrist behind the 3rd degree charring. The surgeons later told him he was lucky to still have full use of his hand. Today, 40 years later, the scarring is still impressive, despite skin grafts. He got a new band for the watch, and now wears it on his other wrist. It still works.

And people wonder why I always take off my wedding ring when working on electrical stuff. Yes, that includes cars, trucks, bikes, boats, etc.

For the record, the power supply was no worse for the wear, and the equipment in the relay rack automatically powered back up as if nothing had happened ... Thank you, Lorain.

Oddly enough, we were both working for DEC at the time. Beers all 'round for the memories :-)

_{Note that the "watch pocket" in a pair of Levis 501s is the perfect place to park a ring for the duration ...}

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: VAX field service engineers

SYSTEST / UETP

Surprising how many people forgot that one when "securing" their systems. I remember wandering semi-randomly around JANET back in the 80s, and finding many accessible systems. That was in the days when the worst that would happen was a polite "who are you?" request.

[munnoch]

Re: VAX field service engineers

My Dad never wore his wedding ring for that reason. He started out repairing televisions in the days of valves and got enough belts off of them without needing any other extraneous conductors.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: VAX field service engineers

It makes the hairs on my neck rise when I see the idiots on YouTube dicking about with high current sources like Li-Ion packs or car batteries whilst wearing.a ring on each finger

[ricardian]

Re: VAX field service engineers

Each of our early PDP machines required a 240v 30A supply.

[Joe W]

Schedule a effing downtime!

And don't skimp on the over hours payment.

It is literally as simple as that, as long as you treat your staff with the respect they deserve and make your company a place they like to be at. If I hate the place (first, why would I still be there) I won't really enjoy doing maintenance at night, and no small amount of money will motivate me.

Working on an open powered up machine is high risk, I had a mate drop a network card onto his machine's mainboard once, grateful it was not a production environment and he was just showing off hotplugging.

The card was fried, the rest of the system survived, surprisingly.

Yeah, try to avoid it.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

"The RETAILER would not let Zeke conduct that investigation with the power off, because it needed various systems to continue operating."

Now do you see why Zeke couldnt' do it?

Of course it didn't work out for them but even so decisions like that aren't necessarily in IT's control, let alone a field tech's.

[MatthewSt]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

As the experts, and the people they've hired to fix the problem, you tell them what you need. If they'd said he couldn't touch the servers they'd have said "we can't do it" so why is needing the power to be off any different?

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

Agreed. I would simply say the risk of damage or serious injury was too great. The choices are: shut down for a short while, or short out something and have a much longer outage.

This should also teach the customer a valuable lesson on the need for redundancy in critical systems.

[cosmodrome]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

I guess, that's why the newer SUNs would disconnect the power when you opened the case. No need to discuss with customers or management if to shut down or not - you just couldn't service them while powered up.

[mgb2]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

A lot of newer systems will shut down when the case is opened. This was typically on 1 or 2U boxen that had high cooling requirements, and removing the cover would disrupt that. So while it had the effect of shutting down the system, I believe it was all for thermal considerations.

[Stevie]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

You don't get many belts off the valves in an old fashioned TV.

You're usually too busy getting belts off the smoothing capacitors in the power supply and flyback electronics.

YEEEEAAAAARRRRRGH! Aggleaggleaggle!

[ITS Retired]

Re: Schedule a effing downtime!

To say nothing about the storage capabilities and self recharge of the picture tube itself.

[Stevie]

Re: storage capabilities and self recharge of the picture tube

Really? I'd not heard about thaAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!

[Lazlo Woodbine]

My brother's wedding ring saved his fingers, literally.

We was a truck mechanic back then, and was working on an engine with the cab jacked up, when the hydraulics holding the cab up suddenly failed, the cab fell down onto his hand. Luckily for Peter, his newly acquired wedding ring took the brunt of the force.

The ring needed cutting off, whcih was a much simpler task than sewing all his fingers back on.

[KarMann]

Cue the pressure door scene from The Abyss.

[jake]

That's why one ALWAYS blocks up any kind of tilt-up with a mechanical block, usually a block of wood cut to fit exactly into the necessary space, although I've made a few out of steel occasionally.

As any fool knows, hydraulics always fail at the worst possible time. My personal epiphany was when a buddy and I were taking a big marine diesel out of a dry-docked tug boat. I was inside the boat, checking clearances, communicating with my friend via walkie-talkie. He was operating the big ex-naval shipyard Towmotor forklift, when one of the hydraulic lines burst ... which caused the second line to burst, thus dropping the forks. Missed me by no more than six inches.

_{Nowadays, I always replace all the hydraulic lines on used hardware before using it ... and I STILL don't trust it!}

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Peter learnt everything from our dad... he being the one who tilted a cab forward before checking everything lose was fastened down, cue driver's TV tumbling from the bunk and through the windscreen.

Still, dad was the only man in the country who could fix the gearbox on the first ever ERF vehicle when it failed on it's 75th anniversary run, so dad, who was born the day the first ERF rolled out of the factory, was called from his 75th birthday party to fix it...

[Stevie]

Bah!

I had a steel garage door break it's springs and come down on my right hand.

Thank Azathoth for that chunky silver American Eagle ring, now with an impressive flat formed into the thin bit on the palm-side.

Had to deep-six it for some surgery in '22, and it is a bit tight now, but I've got to do some more work on that garage door.

I wonder if I can get the Ring of Finger Un-amputation reshaped and re-sized?

[Sherrie Ludwig]

Re: Bah!

I wonder if I can get the Ring of Finger Un-amputation reshaped and re-sized?

Silversmith here: It's an easy fix, if the ring is just sterling silver without any stones mounted. Just heat the ring to annealing temp (cherry red). I let it cool down naturally (in case it's Argentium silver, which can go brittle if quenched) then take a rawhide mallet and a steel ring mandrel and shape/stretch to size. Ask around, it shouldn't be a long or expensive job.

[Roland6]

Re: Bah!

I kept my pear shaped ring and hung it on a necklace (I just had a jeweller repair the cut needed to get it off the finger). When asked about rings, I would show my scar and the deformed ring…

[Caver_Dave]

When I got married

I was called to see the company owner when I came back from honeymoon. Was it a congratulatory pay rise, or redundancy, or what?

He showed me a photograph of a very burnt finger from where a wedding ring heated up almost instantaneously after shorting some backplane power pins.

He didn't need to say anything - the ring was already off after seeing that!

And it only comes out of its original presentation box for special occasions, as does the metal banded watch that is was presented on the 21st birthday!

[Korev]

Was it a Token Ring network?

[Michael Hoffmann]

Maybe he married Sauron and it was a Tolkien Ring?

OK, I'm sorry already! Please don't hurt me!

[KittenHuffer]

We'll let you off .... but don't make a hobbit of it!

[Korev]

Not don't be Nazgul about it

[Anonymous Custard]

This Merry lark is going to go to and Frodo all day, isn't it...?

[Ozumo]

It's a waste of My Precious time.

[Clarecats]

Well, Tolkien did use Beowulf as source material. So both fit.

[Korev]

I bet that ring cost a packet

[bemusedHorseman]

"Uh oh. That means the token fell out, and it's in this room somewhere..."

[Doctor Syntax]

It's not just stray metal, jewellery or otherwise. My son says he killed a mother board working on it on a hot day and a drop of sweat fell onto it and shorted out some traces.

[chivo243]

I don't wear my ring anymore

I got my ring caught during while filling a rack with new server, a few band aids later I was back to work sans ring. I told my wife and she was fine with it, in fact she stopped wearing hers too when I told her as she worked with her hands in one of her businesses. I told my dad the story, and he held up his hand, and no ring... he had been an assembler of large road making equipment and told me a similar story, by the time he stopped with that job the ring no longer fit his finger.

Fast forward 20 years, and I see my cousin with a rubber ring instead of his cool LOTR wedding ring.

[goblinski]

I am embarrassed that equipment costing tens of thousands could be brought down by short-circuiting two measly pins.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand... ;)

I used to use my wedding ring as a convenient attachment point for an anti-static ground jumper. Never zapped an IC while it was on, but there are some scratches from the 'gator clips.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Ring, ring ...

A colleague and his wife have tattoos where the wedding ring would normally sit, as they both have jobs where jewellery would be a safety/hygiene risk.

Their actual wedding rings only get worn on special occasions as they were made for them by a relative, who crafted them from meteorite iron.

When asked, "Are those rings antique?" their usual reply is, "Yes, they're just slightly older than the solar system."

[Alan J. Wylie]

Re: Ring, ring ...

They are stardust, but they are not golden.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Ring, ring ...

They are stardust

Close to divine?

Mines's the one with the Flower Kings t-shirt in the pocket..

[Brave Coward]

Sorry this is entirely off-topic, but...

... not a single word in El Reg today about the passing of Bill Atkinson?

[Boris the Cockroach]

No rings

allowed where I am.... ok it may save your finger from getting bruised/broken on the pneumatic air closers, but against the robot hydrualics, or spinning machinery... it will be off... along with your finger(or worse)

So mine lives in my pocket on a gold chain (I was tempted to have it engraved with elvish a few years ago, but since it really belongs to Mrs Roach, she'd have given me a right ding if she'd found out)

[Vadheterdu]

I sometime wonder about these stories but this one definitely had the ring of truth.

[Vacationstan]

Lest we forget

When I was a new mainframe computer operator/Airman I was taught to remove all jewelry before entering the computer room, and secure loose clothing such as neck ties. You probably want to keep all your fingers and your neck in tact.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

""I never wore my ring at work again," he added"

Gaffer/duct tape. Bit of that wound round your finger stops awkward conduction events..

OldestBrother deliberately got a very thin wedding ring - he was a tree surgeon and, if he got his hand trapped and the ring was stopping it getting free, he wanted to be able to snap it easily..

[BenDwire]

I've told this tale before, but it seems worth repeating here ...

I used to take my wedding ring off when working in the HV lab in my R&D department, but forgot to put it back on before I went home one night. It was the final nail in the coffin for my (now ex) wife who accused me of 'obviously' carrying on with someone at work. That fact that I'd actually managed to get a 880V shock while developing a 3 phase syncroscope did nothing to convince her of the dangers I faced every day, in an attempt to fund her lifestyle.

Oh well, it was a blessing in disguise, but I've never worn a wedding ring since!

[teambob]

The old trick was to wear your wedding ring on a tight necklace