lets have your stupid work stories
Discussion
we all have daft stories of things that have happened at work, i know i have loads, but i'll start off with just one.
due to the nature of security work i will not be to specific on dates and places.
back in the 90's we had a site where we provided 2 guards, they had a caravan to sit in while on duty, it kept you dry, but the heating was rubbish, so in the winter you were very cold, some guards got round this problem by having a bonfire.
so if it rained, you could be dry but cold, or wet and warm.
one night i get a call that the caravan is on fire, i go to the site, and talk to the guards
they told me that they couldn't work out how the caravan had caught fire, as they had put bricks around the base of the fire to stop it spreading
i asked them where the bonfire was as i could only see the burned out caravan, i assumed they had made it too close.
they told me again that they had made a circle of bricks and made a small fire inside the circle, they thought that the circle of bricks would stop the fire spreading, so again i asked how close to the caravan was it?
they then procede to tell me that they set the bricks up on the floor of the caravan as it was raining, but the caravan should have been safe from catching fire becouse of the bricks
needless to say, they were sacked immediatly
due to the nature of security work i will not be to specific on dates and places.
back in the 90's we had a site where we provided 2 guards, they had a caravan to sit in while on duty, it kept you dry, but the heating was rubbish, so in the winter you were very cold, some guards got round this problem by having a bonfire.
so if it rained, you could be dry but cold, or wet and warm.
one night i get a call that the caravan is on fire, i go to the site, and talk to the guards
they told me that they couldn't work out how the caravan had caught fire, as they had put bricks around the base of the fire to stop it spreading
i asked them where the bonfire was as i could only see the burned out caravan, i assumed they had made it too close.
they told me again that they had made a circle of bricks and made a small fire inside the circle, they thought that the circle of bricks would stop the fire spreading, so again i asked how close to the caravan was it?
they then procede to tell me that they set the bricks up on the floor of the caravan as it was raining, but the caravan should have been safe from catching fire becouse of the bricks
needless to say, they were sacked immediatly
Odd Work Stories - Multiple
1. Colleague who use to put salted peanuts in his Cola - drink it and then eat the peanuts - it gets worse, he use to coco to clients on the phone and made weird bird noises
2. Strange incidences of the mens loos being blocked all the time, going on for months. I walk in and found a colleague stuffing loo roll down the toilets to block them. It turned out whenever they p'd him off or he was stressed this was his relief (so to speak). A few weeks later he was reprimanded for his behavious he'd become addicted and got caught trying to block the ladies loos !
1. Colleague who use to put salted peanuts in his Cola - drink it and then eat the peanuts - it gets worse, he use to coco to clients on the phone and made weird bird noises
2. Strange incidences of the mens loos being blocked all the time, going on for months. I walk in and found a colleague stuffing loo roll down the toilets to block them. It turned out whenever they p'd him off or he was stressed this was his relief (so to speak). A few weeks later he was reprimanded for his behavious he'd become addicted and got caught trying to block the ladies loos !
Here’s one from me:
I used to work in a call centre environment a long time ago and a number of stories spring to mind but this one especially. We had a new starter join us with little experience in a sales environment, she was a quiet girl and not very outspoken, she was the crazy type who looked angry 95% of the time she was in work (dark-punk looking clothes on dress down days). One morning she received a call (the customer was commenting on her bad service and continued to insult her). She flipped.I have never seen anything quite like it.
Queue flying keyboards and monitors, this thing was a f***ing juggernaut express. She was quite powerfully built as far as females were concerned and so everyone was in shock when she proceeded to insult those sitting around her when they asked her to calm down. About a week later I was feeding our exotic fish tank in our office and I found a small wireless mouse which used to be hers - I remember seeing her throw this thing half way across the office floor and it was sitting at the bottom of the tank with nemo. It was quite a distance!
I used to work in a call centre environment a long time ago and a number of stories spring to mind but this one especially. We had a new starter join us with little experience in a sales environment, she was a quiet girl and not very outspoken, she was the crazy type who looked angry 95% of the time she was in work (dark-punk looking clothes on dress down days). One morning she received a call (the customer was commenting on her bad service and continued to insult her). She flipped.I have never seen anything quite like it.
Queue flying keyboards and monitors, this thing was a f***ing juggernaut express. She was quite powerfully built as far as females were concerned and so everyone was in shock when she proceeded to insult those sitting around her when they asked her to calm down. About a week later I was feeding our exotic fish tank in our office and I found a small wireless mouse which used to be hers - I remember seeing her throw this thing half way across the office floor and it was sitting at the bottom of the tank with nemo. It was quite a distance!
(1) The boss' wife was the senior programmer in the company. Annoyed with a 'feature request', she threw a hole punch which put a hole in a whiteboard mounted on a wall. The whiteboard dropped from the wall and the computer network failed. The whiteboard had chopped a network cable clean in two!
(2) Working for a computer manufacturer, one disgruntled employee put their tuna butties in a PC case on the production line. Cue a call to our customer services - "My PC smells of fish."
(3) Working for a computer manufacturer on the 50p per min premium rate support line, a customer rang and ranted to the point of crying that her PC was not working despite many attempts to resolve. I took her number, called her back at lunch (FROM our premium rate line) and got her sorted in 30 mins. She was happy, I got my arse kicked for calling outbound.
(4) for the gimps: One 'senior' technical team leader attended site to deal with a failed RAID 1 array - two hard disks mirrored in a computer. One disk had failed. He took BOTH disks out and banged them together to try and fix them... They both failed.
(2) Working for a computer manufacturer, one disgruntled employee put their tuna butties in a PC case on the production line. Cue a call to our customer services - "My PC smells of fish."
(3) Working for a computer manufacturer on the 50p per min premium rate support line, a customer rang and ranted to the point of crying that her PC was not working despite many attempts to resolve. I took her number, called her back at lunch (FROM our premium rate line) and got her sorted in 30 mins. She was happy, I got my arse kicked for calling outbound.
(4) for the gimps: One 'senior' technical team leader attended site to deal with a failed RAID 1 array - two hard disks mirrored in a computer. One disk had failed. He took BOTH disks out and banged them together to try and fix them... They both failed.
TurricanII said:
(4) for the gimps: One 'senior' technical team leader attended site to deal with a failed RAID 1 array - two hard disks mirrored in a computer. One disk had failed. He took BOTH disks out and banged them together to try and fix them... They both failed.
In a similar vein...
Engineer goes out to investigate a disk failure - two disks in RAID1. Engineer removes the wrong disk and replaces the working one with the new disk. Then mirrors the faulty disk's data across to the new disk. Doh!
The old man used to work for British Steel in the '70s. One day he was sat in the staff room and the roof of one of the buildings onsite pretty much took off. The reason:
A chap had been using an oxygen welder to repair the inside of a very big crucible. Whilst the chap went on a break, someone disconnected the oxygen feed so that it filled the crucible with heavily concentrated oxygen. Chap returns, lights up his welder... you can guess the rest!
Edited by Simbu on Wednesday 29th June 12:03
I once had to ask an engineer to leave the site. He was installing a UPS on a Sun 690, which at the time was leading edge. He wired it up, and we started the server, which automatically started Sybase.
He proceeded to show us how good the UPS was by reaching over and flicking the switch on the front of the UPS, which cut all output. Cue the 690 dying. We powered back up, lots of fsck errors, and plenty of dbcc work.
He then decided that rather than do that he would unplug the cable in the floor, and proceeded to pick up the cable from UPS to Sun to demonstrate. I had to snatch it away to stop him from doing this.
He was told to leave the site, and I refused to sign off the paperwork for the UPS, requesting that his company contacted us about the service.
He proceeded to show us how good the UPS was by reaching over and flicking the switch on the front of the UPS, which cut all output. Cue the 690 dying. We powered back up, lots of fsck errors, and plenty of dbcc work.
He then decided that rather than do that he would unplug the cable in the floor, and proceeded to pick up the cable from UPS to Sun to demonstrate. I had to snatch it away to stop him from doing this.
He was told to leave the site, and I refused to sign off the paperwork for the UPS, requesting that his company contacted us about the service.
One Christmas we were making the office look festive and bought a large real tree. One of the engineering staff was asked to cut about a foot off as it was a bit too tall for the office. He proudly put the tree into the stand having cut the top of the tree off.
We had the crappest looking tree and he received a lot of pisstaking
We had the crappest looking tree and he received a lot of pisstaking
Simbu said:
In a similar vein...
Engineer goes out to investigate a disk failure - two disks in RAID1. Engineer removes the wrong disk and replaces the working one with the new disk. Then mirrors the faulty disk's data across to the new disk. Doh!
The old man used to work for British Steel in the '70s. One day he was sat in the staff room and the roof of one of the buildings onsite pretty much took off. The reason:
A chap had been using an oxygen welder to repair the inside of a very big crucible. Whilst the chap went on a break, someone disconnected the oxygen feed so that it filled the crucible with heavily concentrated oxygen. Chap returns, lights up his welder... you can guess the rest!
Edited by Simbu on Wednesday 29th June 12:03
Firefoot said:
One Christmas we were making the office look festive and bought a large real tree. One of the engineering staff was asked to cut about a foot off as it was a bit too tall for the office. He proudly put the tree into the stand having cut the top of the tree off.
We had the crappest looking tree and he received a lot of pisstaking
We had the crappest looking tree and he received a lot of pisstaking
It kinda seems correct for an engineer - you didn't give precise specifications for the "project".Reminds me of this:
http://www.steve-oh.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/20...
Me being stupid:
About ten years ago I was in Belfast to rebuild a server from Netware to Windows. The staff were still using their main application (client/server database) so at about 16:30 it was agreed that I'd start backing up all the data apart from the main application database, and do that at 17:30 when everyone had logged off. So, I copied everything apart from the important data at 16:30, then got the 'go ahead' at 17:30. At which point I shut the server down and formatted the disk ready for the Windows install, forgetting that I hadn't copied the main database (years of client data).
Thankfully they had a backup.
About ten years ago I was in Belfast to rebuild a server from Netware to Windows. The staff were still using their main application (client/server database) so at about 16:30 it was agreed that I'd start backing up all the data apart from the main application database, and do that at 17:30 when everyone had logged off. So, I copied everything apart from the important data at 16:30, then got the 'go ahead' at 17:30. At which point I shut the server down and formatted the disk ready for the Windows install, forgetting that I hadn't copied the main database (years of client data).
Thankfully they had a backup.
shirt said:
used to work for corus, that'd be scunny BOS plant/casting house ^^^
too many 'f
k, that was close' moments in my time there [witnessed, and participated in!].
Yep, during the old man's tenure there someone met an unfortunate end on the inside of a tank of galvanising acid. Apparently when they drained the tank they found nothing at all too many 'f
k, that was close' moments in my time there [witnessed, and participated in!]. 
Horrendous way to go.
I used to work at the opposite end of the office to the the EU VP and his PA sat direclt yopposite me about 20 metres away. The building had a flat roof and on the day itn question it was lashing it down.
All of a sudden I jump up out of my seat as the rain had got through the roof and a small amount dripped through the ceiling tiles and landed on the back of my neck and startled me.
The PA, a cute girl with a lovely pert body stands up, pointing at me and laughs (we did have quite a good rapport) shouting to all "Kelk got soaked ha ha ha"
At which point the tile above her gave way and fell through completely and she got drenched head to toe, wet blouse competition, the works.
All of a sudden I jump up out of my seat as the rain had got through the roof and a small amount dripped through the ceiling tiles and landed on the back of my neck and startled me.
The PA, a cute girl with a lovely pert body stands up, pointing at me and laughs (we did have quite a good rapport) shouting to all "Kelk got soaked ha ha ha"
At which point the tile above her gave way and fell through completely and she got drenched head to toe, wet blouse competition, the works.
shirt said:
used to work for corus, that'd be scunny BOS plant/casting house ^^^
too many 'fk, that was close' moments in my time there [witnessed, and participated in!].
Only did 3months on BOS for Multiserv as it was back then, and christ.... Eye opener at 18 (day after my birthday I started) doing 12hour days shovelling the conveyors out up top.too many 'f
k, that was close' moments in my time there [witnessed, and participated in!]. Not a right lot seems to have changed, as 6years later I'm back.... Though at a different plant this time, and with an office job
Mazdarese said:
Me being stupid:
About ten years ago I was in Belfast to rebuild a server from Netware to Windows. The staff were still using their main application (client/server database) so at about 16:30 it was agreed that I'd start backing up all the data apart from the main application database, and do that at 17:30 when everyone had logged off. So, I copied everything apart from the important data at 16:30, then got the 'go ahead' at 17:30. At which point I shut the server down and formatted the disk ready for the Windows install, forgetting that I hadn't copied the main database (years of client data).
Thankfully they had a backup.
That was luckyAbout ten years ago I was in Belfast to rebuild a server from Netware to Windows. The staff were still using their main application (client/server database) so at about 16:30 it was agreed that I'd start backing up all the data apart from the main application database, and do that at 17:30 when everyone had logged off. So, I copied everything apart from the important data at 16:30, then got the 'go ahead' at 17:30. At which point I shut the server down and formatted the disk ready for the Windows install, forgetting that I hadn't copied the main database (years of client data).
Thankfully they had a backup.
fatpasty said:
Mazdarese said:
Me being stupid:
About ten years ago I was in Belfast to rebuild a server from Netware to Windows. The staff were still using their main application (client/server database) so at about 16:30 it was agreed that I'd start backing up all the data apart from the main application database, and do that at 17:30 when everyone had logged off. So, I copied everything apart from the important data at 16:30, then got the 'go ahead' at 17:30. At which point I shut the server down and formatted the disk ready for the Windows install, forgetting that I hadn't copied the main database (years of client data).
Thankfully they had a backup.
That was luckyAbout ten years ago I was in Belfast to rebuild a server from Netware to Windows. The staff were still using their main application (client/server database) so at about 16:30 it was agreed that I'd start backing up all the data apart from the main application database, and do that at 17:30 when everyone had logged off. So, I copied everything apart from the important data at 16:30, then got the 'go ahead' at 17:30. At which point I shut the server down and formatted the disk ready for the Windows install, forgetting that I hadn't copied the main database (years of client data).
Thankfully they had a backup.
Simbu said:
shirt said:
used to work for corus, that'd be scunny BOS plant/casting house ^^^
too many 'fk, that was close' moments in my time there [witnessed, and participated in!].
Yep, during the old man's tenure there someone met an unfortunate end on the inside of a tank of galvanising acid. Apparently when they drained the tank they found nothing at all too many 'f
k, that was close' moments in my time there [witnessed, and participated in!]. Horrendous way to go.
There were something like 40 fatalities in my time there, most of them totally preventable (electricutions, run over by a lorry etc.) Also remember 2 distinct acts of stupidity:
Logistics not securing a 20T coil of steel strip correctly. Driver emded up watching it roll off the back of the trailer on an M4 overpass, ploughing through the guard rail and onto the M4! Was about 6am so thankfully not much traffic, although a motorcyclist needed a change of underwear.
A forklift driver (50T lift capacity, big tonka toys) knocking out one of the gas main support towers, leaving a 50m stretch of pipe unsupported. Cost 16million in lost production and would have bankrupted the company if it collapsed and exploded.
I recall a health and safety inspector remarking corus had 4 ongoing investigations with the SHE. Apparently this is unheard of in number.
Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff