Another 5 minute job...
Not really IT related, but many years ago when I was in the Air Cadets the unit I was part of picked up an (ex forces) minibus from the armed forces scheme for tossing decent ex military equipment to the cadet forces cheaply.
The minibus was a brilliant buy for practically nothing, in excellent condition. The only problem was that it didn't have seatbelts. (This was the late 90's, so not legally required for busses at the time) However, it was thought that it should have them retrofitted given that the minbus would have teenagers in. A local garage who dealt with that make of vehicle was approached, who decided that it'd be an incredibly simple job, just drill holes through the bottom of the vehicle and then bolt the seatbelts on stalks reaching the seats through those holes, which was a standard optional extra kit from the manufacturer.
It was such a simple and easy job that the garage decided that they'd do it free of charge to get some free publicity by getting in the local newspaper by doing a handover to us after they'd done the work.
So, the minibus went in to this garage, a mechanic produced a drill and applied it to the right section of the floor and applied a bit of pressure. The drill sank straight through the floor... and into 2" worth of sucessive layers of the most hardened steel money could buy (harder than the drill bits) followed by layers of Ceramic (Chobham armour?) and Kevlar that the Army had applied to the bottom of the vehicle in case it ran over an anti tank landmine or buried bomb in Northern Ireland. This was apparently not one of optional extra kits the manufacturer supplied for that type of vehicle.
The job was apparently the most difficult fitment of seatbelts ever recorded in the country, requiring 3 drill bits per hole, and about half an hour per seatbelt as they had to push the bolts up from underneath the vehicle and tighten them from the inside, as doing it the other way the bolt heads sank into the Kevlar making it impossible to get the spanner around them... It should also be noted that knocking on the side of the minibus also made the sort of sound you'd expect if hitting the side of a main battle tank rather than a flimsy bit of metal a fraction of a milimetre thick.
So it's not just IT; some jobs are easy looking on the surface, but rather more complicated if you look at them in detail or actually try and do the job.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
