I know a few of you won’t have heard this story before and I was reminded of it
today, so… Don’t worry, it’s not that technical and geeky!
I used to work for a company in Leeds which did hardware and software installs.
One of our consultants – let’s call him Andy, as that’s his name – was part of
a 2-man “squad” doing some work in various garages up and down the country. The
job spec from the customer was to do some work on the NT server, and to upgrade
a chip in the satellite communication gear.
We knew nothing about the satellite kit apart from what we were shown. Open
box, pop old chip out, slip new one in, close box.
Now, on one site, Andy decided to go above and beyond the call of duty. This
was not unusual – he really was a superb engineer. Very smart, very hard-
working and never left a job any less than 100% complete. After he’d finished
with the server work, he opened the satellite box up. As it was located in the
actual garage workshop, ihe found it to be full of rubbish. Dust bunnies
galore, small bits of swarf… general much and nastiness.
Being his usual helpful self, he decided a quick clean wasn’t out of order. He
approached one of the mechanics and asked if they had a can of compressed air
he could use to blast the dust out.
“Best we have is the air hose we use for tyres and stuff,” says the
mechanic,”Over there, on the wall.”
Superb. So Andy goes up and gets the hose. It reaches to the desk he’s working
on, so he sets it at the right angle and pulls the trigger.
About 5 litres of multigrade oil sprayed out of the nozzle and onto the circuit
board. Wrong hose.
Now I don’t know about you, but I personally would have dropped the hose and
run ashen-faced to the car, expecting a P45 in the post the next morning. Not
Andy. Nobody had noticed. He hung up the hose, and popped the top on the box.
Spotting the manageress, he asked if she had any tissue or anything he could
use to clean up a bit of mess.
She directed him to the cleaner’s cupboard and told him to help himself to
toilet roll. He grabbed one of those huge (one foot diameter) rolls and headed
back to the workshop. Within 15 minutes he had the entire box stripped and in
bits spread over several sheets of loo roll. Each of the parts was scrubbed and
laid carefully in place.
After about half an hour, the manageress walked past. “Ooh, you’re right. It
was a bit mucky, wasn’t it?” And walked off.
The whole lot was carefully plugged back together again and by some miracle
still worked. Nobody at the garage had a clue as to what had just happened.
