Smoke/steam microwaves, fire alarms and power isolation equipment.
At one point the crew in the operations command centre wrangled permission to import a mini fridge, microwave and an electric kettle to the actual room. Since the room was built to sustain computers, monitors, a couple of printers and not much more I was somewhat surprised. One weekend evening, just as someone was preparing their mid shift snack of Orville Redenbacher's puffed plastic in the microwave, the local electrical feeds suffered a minor hiccup, and the isolation switch between our A-B feed controller failed. The surge/dead combo resulted in most of weekend of panic work for rather a lot of us, but the poor young lass that was making popcorn was left with the impression that a microwave burning popcorn can take out a data centre electric feed.
For the record, the mini kitchen was removed shortly thereafter more for the fact that 'offensive odours' were generated than for 'electrical issues'. And I don't know about anyone else, but burnt microwave popcorn is one of the most offensive odours *I* have to suffer. The youngest still manages to periodically overdo the popcorn on the weekends.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
