17 May
2004
17 May
'04
6:29 p.m.
That reminds me of once, some 15-20 years ago, when I
was working as a
sysadmin. I happened to wander into the machine room while the field
circus[%] tech was doing a PM on our (removable-pack) disk drives. He
had the drive open and the guts all hanging out - and smoking.
I assume the faild servoid was the thing that was smoking. I've had
drives smoke, of course -- like other electronic devices they run on
magic smoke (when it leaks out, they stop working :-)). 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.
FWIW, I forbid smoking anywhere near any of my machines, both for my
health and theirs.
I fear I went rather ballistic; we didn't let people smoke in that
machine room even under normal operating circumstances.
I don't blame you!
[%] I don't usually like to use phrases like
"field circus" (or
"salesdroid" or similar denigratory mutations), but in this case
I don't know why you avoid such terms. They are sadly all too appropriate.
-tony