Posts by The Oncoming Scorn 3805 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Feb 2018
"I was very, very clear"
The trouble with being very clear, is that upper Manglement will look right through it.
Icon - Because in the old day, a drink that appeared out of nowhere might contain the kings shilling & you'd find yourself unexpectedly drafted if your lips touched it, hence why pewter tankards had glass bottoms so you could check before & during consumption. It's a tenuous reason for the icon, but WTHH, it's Monday!.
A fact I learned the hard way...
CRT's are electrically capacitors & even a dead set for many years, if briefly powered on & still seemingly "dead" they have already stored a massive charge in those few seconds if you FAFO by going to remove the final anode cap on the now powered down TV.
Industrial electronics & indeed computing seemed a safer career path.
Back in the day, when our product was sold in Boots, I received a support call about the length of the connector*, could he de-solder it & pull it forward a fraction for extra clearance\pull it back for a tighter fit as he had a soldering iron....
I vaguely recall advising him it would void his warranty but stupidly trusted in his abilities it was the 80's & all sorts of tinkering went on.
Some months later... a shipment of repair under warranty devices came in from Boots, I opened up this one box & that phone call came flooding back to me, the 8PTDT switch was in pieces, heat gouges & the traces destroyed, because this guy's soldering iron was a plumbers soldering iron.
I sent it back saying this wasn't warrantable repair with a lengthy letter of my findings, a few weeks later the branch rang me up asking why it wasn't repaired, as the prototype Kieran* complaining loudly about his interface, why it wasn't repaired or replaced. It transpired that my letter had got misplaced so I took great pleasure in reading it to her (Off my Amstrad PCW8256 screen), she listened with equal pleasure & said she was greatly looking forward to informing the customer of this on his return, I think I faxed her the letter (she didn't have a email address).
*From memory this was our comms interface for the Spectrum128.
**Male version of the Karen.
The shouting & the outpouring of abuse & the fingernails digging into my arms due to her going from false alarm's\zero to full on labour meaning the epidural had to be skipped & was reliant on gas & air for pain management was worse, when it came to the second one.
Which was probably justified considering the fact it was her only natural birth out of the three, you can imagine why when the newly born Ms Oncoming Scorn was taken to be weighed, the midwifes* initial assessment of a good healthy 8 pounds there produced a exclamation of "F**king Hell - 9 pound 9!".
The accuracy of the initial assessment & the swearing by the midwife was a little surprising, as she had been doing this for years & had even trained a friend of ours as a midwife so you would expect her to be unfazed by this.
It is funny how women lose even more of their sense of humour while in labour.
Icon - I'll get my coat, then dash out for a pint & a pie (I hadn't eaten in about 10 hours) while the ex Mrs Oncoming Scorn is having her C-Section, only to be told by less than amused nurse that it would only be about 10 - 15 minutes before Oncoming Scorn Jr would be dropped into my lap. It took another 3 or 4 hours before I was able to get a burger from Filthy Lil's burger van at 1.30am.
Back in the errr day mid 80's I worked for a company with it's own brand of modems one model had a 5 pin domino DIN connection (Same as the BBC Model B).
50/50 chance of plugging it in incorrectly & on ringing for support we told them to remove it, rotate it around 180 degrees & plug it in (In the case of the BBC it didn't matter which end you did that to).
Most people took our advice, but there was one just one that rang daily for a week insisting that we were incorrect it would only fit one way & demanding onsite service to repair it, which was offered if he paid a hefty call out fee in advance to the North of England from Exeter.
My first phones were a PAYG Motorola c520 (Handed over to the ex-wife IIRC) & replaced by a Motorola m3788e on Orange.
I was on a contract job & in the comms room & while troubleshooting asked what phone I was & provider I had, as apparently I was the first person on-site that had decent (Actual) coverage.
For less deserving machines....
"Every single part of me," said Marvin, "has been replaced at least fifty times. Except for one."
"What's that?" asked the girl.
"The diodes down my left side," said Marvin. "They've been giving me a lot of pain recently."
Has Thursday come a day early this week? I really can't get the hang of this adjustment, just as well it's Wednesday lunchtime pub day!
Have they tried experimenting briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest or demanding participation in the decision-making process and finally taken to squatting in basements sulking yet!
Anyway I'm off to my new job as a counsellor to neurotic lifts & it's not even Thursday.
"taking away teens' phone makes them act like humans again" - So back to normal "Kevin" behavior then:
"THAT IS SO UNFAIR!!!!""
""I hate Super Mario, it's sad! I want a bloody Hi-Fi!"
"OH, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!"
Or finally
Mum / Dad: "It's 12:00, it's way past your bedtime, it's pouring with rain, it's dangerous for a child on his own, you've got nowhere to go, and you've got school tomorrow."
Kevin: "THAT IS SO UNFAIR!!! I hate you! ...All right then, I'll go to bed!"
Icon - Glass of whatever we could get away with if we managed to get served in a pub while under 18.
Pie ... PIE PIE....
If there's one thing both Exeter & Plymouth fans have in common its a Ivor (or now defunct Ron) Dewdney Pasty.
Damn I could murder a jumbo one of those right now (From the old Sidwell Street location - Not so keen on the ones from Burnthouse Lane).
