5 Jun
2010
5 Jun
'10
1:17 a.m.
<snip>
At a previous employer, we had a "Health and
Safety Officer" who did
this, arranged for additional mains sockets to be added to desks, and
so forth. By default you'd get a 3A fuse fitted to a set of desk
sockets, even if you requested an 8-way socket with a 13A fuse. Plug
in eight set-top-boxes for a network test, hit the ON switch... and
watch as the whole desk loses power. This was his policy, even if the
socket strip was itself rated to 13A.
<snip>
I visited Unisys in Blue Bell years ago, and brought a custom
interface
we had made to connect C Itoh printers to 1100 mainframes with me (in
prototype form). This was a plant that was what I figure was old line
Sperry, because they had these ancient types in white lab coats that
were all over the place.
Their only purpose was to plug in things and move equipment. I ran
across a fellow who was standing to one side smiling the first morning
after I had unpacked and wired my system test up to work. The liaison
engineer had not told me about this madness, and I saved a couple of
hours of bullshit by having done it myself. I always managed the rest
of the three days I was there to need to do wiring while Santa was
missing from the area.
But they acted like it was a reasonable thing to do, and I was to just
go along.
Another form of madness is when you run into a mixed shop where there
are IBEW or unions involved. They will shut down not only your job, but
the entire site if you do something on your own, and demand a big scene,
and have it unwired before they wire it for you.
I know of at least one guy who had a run in with them at a site and the
fellow called his shop steward and they halted work before they jumped
on my buddy.
Really a bad day for the a-holes, because he was in possession of a
journeymans card, up to date. They had to reimburse about $2000 worth
of delays for that stunt.
Doubt that happens too often though.