BOFH: HR discovers the limits of vertical mobility BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns So the PFY and I are helping a couple of people move from the HR offices to OUR office. Apparently, the two HR people in question are now so IT and AI-savvy that they're considered to be "Advanced Technology Personnel Consultants" – the "Advanced Technology" bit puts them into the " …
"The Wheelie Chair"... That brings back so many memories, I have moved whole departments like that.
Wrapping the network leads around the pile 'o stuff usually helped keep slippages to a minimum & TBH it was the easiest way of making sure that all of "Bob's" stuff went along with his chair because heaven forbid you mixed those up. 19" CRTs too, none of the fancy 'modern' lightweight flat screens.
The trouble with platform/lab trollies was that the top shelf was never level with the desk which in the era of 21" CRT monitors moving them was a real OH&S hazard.
At least with an office chair with a gas lift you could get the chair roughly level with the desk and finesse the monitor into the chair and lower the seat before moving and not herniate an internal organ.
Surprising how fast even large CRT monitors vanished† when the 17" LCD ones appeared.
† the newly mandated electrical safety testing and tagging killed a good few amongst its other victims.
Been there, done that & someone on our team used the bank's branch managers expensive chair & tore the leather.
I was crapping myself, because I had brought my 17 year old son on site & waiting for the wrong word to be said.
I almost missed this weeks episode, tucked a good way's down the page & I almost thought the PFY was about to break into a rendition of "Beauty & the Beast" "It's a story as old as time itself"
We once had to shift a batch of machines with 21" CRT monitors, all of which had been placed at the furthest corner of their L-shaped desk. That meant that you couldn't reach them at all without climbing on the desks.
Unfortunately, because neither foot was then a the floor, such climbing on desks required a "working at height" permit,
These permits were only issued if you had an officially-recognised qualification.
So wait until nobody who cared was in the area. How did we shift them? Unfortunately that's a trade secret, only given to people with an officially-recognised IT qualification (MCSE is not on the list).
I once had to move my entire office across campus aided only by a "wheelie chair."
I think they're still sweeping up the debris left behind in the process.
Next time I moved I got a student assigned to do the heavy lifting. I think he's beginning to recover.
19" CRT move.
Brings back a memory. Back in my time as a PFY, I was tasked to do the wheely chair move of a 19" CRT. I set the monitor down on the new desk right about where the keyboard normally lives, and leaned over it to plug in the power cord. I had left the monitor cords at their original desks to reduce the amount of crawling around amidst dust bunnies.
Of course this meant the power was live when I plugged it in. Back in the days of CRTs, the power switch was mechanical (like the old AT power supplies), and this monitor's switch was in the "on" position.
Not a terrible issue, except for the considerable amount of static electricity generated on the front of the screen. I briefly felt all of my chest hair stand up before the accumulated charge found a path to ground... to a desk drawer handle through my left kneecap.
All in all, could have been much worse, but still not a fun time.
Doubtless these insurgents would have been given the plum desks beside the conveniently open windows in anticipation of their vertical integration (with the carpark asphalt.)
Personnel Consultants/Advanced Technology would recall IBM's PC/AT which would also have benefited a quick trip to the skip in the carpark.
I started to think that the BOFH would be screwed if they ever got a "healthy" head of HR that liked to take the stairs for a change, but then I remembered the PFY's "stair oil" from a few years back and realised - there is truly no safe way of migrating between floors in that building...
It's always wise to move your own office equipment in case of 'transfer'.
The usual ploy is to 'inspect' anything in transit and if it is superior to your own example or indeed, something you don't have but desire, it gets 'exchanged' en route. As things move along, there is a fair swap of bits and bobs; it's well to get there first as 'quality' deteriorates along the way.
The poor novice who started off with a top-of-the-range laptop is surprised to find it has transformed into a bargain-basement tablet. Worked for me --->
Surely I can't be the only one who figured the vertical limits would be roughly defined by the edge of the roof and the level of the pavement below? With perhaps a few bounces in between if it's not a straight facade?
The boss seems to be developing good working relation with the BOFH. I wonder how long that'll last. Surely he'll get complacent at some point.
At a former employer I was having arguments with the Payroll people over the shredder they were using for the back copy of payslips - there was no way it was data protection compliant as it was 1/4" strip cut and you could very easily reconstruct any paperwork. They wouldn't even head the warnings that a company had just been fined a substantial sum (IIRC £50k) over not shredding pay data correctly.
Strange how that shredder got accidentally dropped when being carried between buildings during an office move! I hadn't said anything but clearly the word had got out to the shop floor people assisting with the move.
I then also had to educate the admin people that the expensive replacement shredder would work a lot better for some maintenance occasionally, a bit of lubrication restored full performance, as you might say.
The wheelie chair.
Been there, done that. Fortunately all such instances happened in my younger days, when four flat screens wasn't the norm but a 70lb 22" CRT bought by high-ego budget holders was not uncommon. In a three-storey block unequipped with a goods lift gravity was never their friend.
"Was that the same guy who was testing that new diver's weight belt?"
"Yes. Apparently handcuffs and a truck axle didn't turn out to be a safe diving device."
This one would have resulted in a fine spray of coffee all around. Coffee was well away while I was reading though.
