OT, sickening goof up..

[The Artful Bodger]

Years ago.... clients on the other side of the word complained that they had moved the equipment we supplied from one room to another and now it would not work. Obvious thing was to check the recabling etc, I told them (via email) that the gray cable had to go on the first socket in the machine and because englis was not their first language I put 'number 1' in brackets.

Days went by and I found myself on a plane, a few planes actually and more than two days continuous travelling to reach their site. I went straight to their office and they showed me what they had done including the gray cable plugged into socket labelled '1', the only problem was the first socket was labelled '0'.

46 hours of travel to do a job that took 30 seconds then the same to get home again, but I did get to see a lot of movies that week.

[wtrueman]

Not as good as the artful: Called into work at the chalet where I was head of maintenance. Four hours for clicking a switch. Wayne.

[morehelium]

Hmmm. So who paid for the trip?

[oldtiffie]

Why not do a sketch with hand-written instructions and scan it to jpg plus pics in jpg format and attach the jpg files to the email?

I used my fax extensively for that sort of stuff as most people had a fax and maybe a basic computer or computer skills. The fax in "hi-res" resolution was not a bad printer or copier either at times. Further, the client could hand-write and or sketch and then fax his stuff to me. One of us might follow-up with a phone call as well.

[Evan]

I spent the majority of my working life troubleshooting problems over the telephone. My work territory here covered an area of 45,000 square miles so it was essential to solve as many problems as possible by phone or at least get the client back in operation until I was able to make a service call. It is especially difficult when trying to explain complex technological equipment to people than haven't a clue what a volt is.

Of necessity I became fairly good at it and that was one of the primary reasons I was able to handle the workload for as long as I did. I eventually quit when the company informed my they were upping the workload to the equivalent of two full techs, a double workload. I said, "I don't think so" and resigned. They thought I was just joking when I sent my resignation in giving them 5 weeks notice. That turned into a panicked scramble to find a replacement when I showed up at the regional office in Vancouver to take care of the details 3 weeks later as I had said I would.

The pay was good but the job was very high stress. I protected about 1.5 million yearly revenue for the company. By the time I quit the company was nearly bankrupt because of the relentless drive to squeeze even more blood from a stone. By a minor miracle of fortunate timing they managed to survive. At one point Xerox was no more than 30 days from folding. As it happened I quit just a few months before the economy busted and had managed to get out with my pension intact and all in cash for the time being.

[grannygear]

[QUOTE= because englis was not their first language I put 'number 1' in brackets.
[/QUOTE]

Let me take a wild guess: China, perhaps?

[Black Forest]

I bought my first computer in 1976. It was a DEC PDP 8 mini computer. It came in a desk. Maybe two months after taking delivery I went into the office in the morning and tried to boot the computer. Nothing. Fiddled with it for a little while and called for service. Later that day the technician came out to our farm. He walks into the office looks at the computer and grabs the desk/computer slides it over a little and get this.....plugs the computer in!!!!!!

Then asks if we had cleaning people come in to clean......Yes I answer.....He remarks that this happens a lot to first time owners.....He comments that damn cleaning people always unplug stuff and never plug it back in...

Thank you very much, that will be $58.60! I will always remember the amount of the bill for plugging in my computer! I was a little intimidated by this magic desk. I paid at that time $30,000 for a mini computer and diablo daisy wheel printer. This thing had two 8 inch floppies of 250kb size. I was king!

[mike os]

PDP8? proper computer LOL, my first computer job was sysop on a pdp11 (mind you in 76 i was still in school)

[The Artful Bodger]

Let me take a wild guess: China, perhaps?

Close, Afghanistan.

[The Artful Bodger]

Hmmm. So who paid for the trip?

Those who were sponsoring the project paid for it.