Re: Dumb Things People Do

Scott Klement wrote:

Hi Folks... I'm looking to compile a list of (hopefully humorous)
"Dumb Things People Do" to be published in System iNEWS magazine.

I'm going to add one more to this thread ... and it's not actually something I did that was dumb ... but that people THOUGHT was dumb when I initially did it.

Way way (way way way) back, when I was working on the S/36 ... we had a 5360 with the side car, so we had a total of 800mb of disk (big system back then).

The system was in a very big closet (or smallish room) along with all the companies filing cabinets.

I went into the room one morning to change the two diskette cartridges when I thought I heard a very high pitched whining sound. I listened carefully and thought I could narrow the source of the sound to the side car.

I told my boss about it ... he went and listened, but couldn't hear anything. We told a few co-workers about it, they listened, but couldn't hear anything either. They all thought I was crazy.

I suggested we call IBM to have it checked out ... but was told it would be a waste of time.

On my own initiative, I called IBM and asked that our CE give me a call. He did, I explained what I was hearing. He said that he would be in the area later that afternoon for another customer, and he would swing by and give the system a quick check. My boss was kind of annoyed ... but wasn't going to make a huge fuss over it because we were covered under maintenance.

He came by, checked the error logs ... and saw that one of the drives in the side car was indeed logging errors.

Suffice it to say we got a solid system backup, had the drive swapped out, and were back up and running the next morning.

Earned me an official thank you from the president of the company along with dinner & a show for my g/f and myself.

david