An electrician I once worked with told me he'd found a perfect mollyguard for the 13Amp sockests he used. It was a hard plastic oblong cap that covered the switch perfectly with semi flexible plastic strips at either end. It was part of the packaging from something else so otherwise just waste. A small amount of sticky backed velcro top & bottom kept them in place. He'd installed a few over the years with little if any problems. Then one day a customer said called him and said they had certain equipment being turned off overnight probably accidentally. They asked if he could fit guards as a result. It was a retrofit but easy enough to do and quite cheap.
Customer less impressed as the guards keep 'falling off' so he paid a visit one morning and the Velcro was still there on both the guide and the guard. He stuck the 'fallen' ones off back on and they're fine which is baffling. Everything's fine when the staff leave at night but not the next morning.
Intrigued he made enquiries and it's only happened on certain nights. Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday nights are the culprits. After sabotage can't be ruled out he installed a camera linked to a long play VCR. As some of you will have already guessed the cleaner came three nights a week. Despite there being clearly labelled 'Cleaning Sockets' the cleaner wasn't using them. So they just used the closest socket pulling off the guard as they did so. The cleaner was a little Italian lady who didn't understand why some idiot had put things over the switches or indeed why you shouldn't unplug something.l
Biting the hand that feeds IT
