Re: Dumb Things People Do

The following is a dumb user story I heard from an NCR engineer many years ago:

This company had a computer with 12 disk drives (low capacity by todays
standards). The DP manager came into the room with a disk pack. There was
data on the pack he needed to use for a report. Installed pack on the first
drive. There was the gut wrenching squeal of a head crash. Manager was
undaunted. He needed that data for a report. He proceeded to put that disk
pack on the next drive, same results. Did that on all 12 drives. The drives
used ceramic heads, and I was told that the heads cost two thousand dollars
EACH. The disk pack was damaged, and the manager had destroyed all the drives.
Glad I wasn't there. Had to be some serious talking that went on.

John McKee

Quoting David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:

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


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