Specialist Movers...
Again not IT-related, but it just shows that 'specialists' are not always what they are supposed to be.
Back in the late '80s I was working for the MOD. Our branch engineering shop had recently had several new Colchester Student 1800 lathes installed. Two weeks after they were wired in, we got orders to up sticks and move our department to another building. We were located in an old blast area, and it seems the mice were using the cable blast-gullies to get into the computing suites and chomping on the also-new mainframes. Ergo everything had to be ripped-out, de-infested, and moved.
Eventually the time came to move our precious new lathes.
Along came the muppets from our on-site "SPECIALIST" crane and forklift department - known as "The Heavy Gang." (Was never really sure if it was due to their equipment lifting capabilities or the size of the huge bellies)
Anyhoo, if you don't know, this version of the Colchester lathes has no central panel under the lathe bed.
Enter our forklift hero, who then carefully slides the two forklift forks under the lathe bed and lifts it into the air. Big-Smile-No-problem...
He then reverses and the incredibly top-heavy (and unsecured!!!) lathe does a perfectly executed somersault off the forks and onto the concrete floor - smashing the speed selectors, switchgear, carriage and cross-slide.
It was then a HUGE engineering site so it's not like they'd never moved a lathe before! To make matters worse, as the Heavy Gang was also an MOD department, the replacement parts and engineer fees cost **us** almost as much as the bloody lathe did in the first place!!
Moral: "Specialist Movers" are often just idiots who don't care about your gear as much as you do. If you can, and it's safe to do so, it's often better to DIY. (We dismantled and moved the mainframes ourselves!!)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
