I assume the faild servoid was the thing that was
smoking.
Yes - or, more precisely, a cigarette in his mouth/hand.
If this had happened to me, I would have escorted that
idiot off the
site, and told DEC to send somebody who actually had a clue if they
expected me to pay the service contract! No, I am not joking.
In Montreal of the late '80s, that would have been approximately
impossible to make stick. I got a little heat even for getting upset
over it. (Montreal is a city of contradictions - like some of the most
sensible and progressive things I've seen in North America in some
respects, like public transit, and yet among the most bass-ackwards in
others, like smoking.)
[%] I
don't usually like to use phrases like "field circus" (or
"salesdroid" or similar denigratory mutations),
I don't know why
you avoid such terms. They are sadly all too
appropriate.
Sometimes. ("How do you tell a field service tech who has a flat tire?
He's changing tires to see which one is flat.")
And there are stupid Poles, and miserly Jews, and airheaded blondes,
and many other such stereotyped groups. But there are also plenty of
smart Poles, and generous Jews, and brainy blondes - and competent
field service techs. (In each of those four cases, I have personally
met examples, and in two of them, known said examples fairly well.)
And I don't like to tar the large groups with the brushes appropriate
for the small - if nothing else, I belong to too many such large groups
myself.
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