The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Bill wrote:
In message , Alan
Braggins writes
In article , Huge wrote:

Thanks for reminding me that I've previously had to taxi a
support person
halfway across London to plug in a keyboard extension cable for
someone.

I've heard of someone flown to Singapore to look at a problem
after a phone call which went roughly "You're sure it's plugged
in?" "You're really sure it's plugged in?" "You're really
absolutely certain it's plugged in?".

Turned out it was plugged in, to a four-way extension lead which
was also plugged in - to itself.

I once drove 50 miles to Wimbledon, tennis, to a TV scanner after a
similar conversation. I found that the customer had added an extra
4 way multiblock to the set up, one with a switch on it. I
explained to him how the switch worked and drove 50 miles back
again.
Two of us drove 65 miles to London,, to Arthur Andersen, and a BT
engineer did the same, wasted 4 hours while the customer faffed about
and the BT engineer finally discovered the IDSN line that was strung
up and over the door of a steel cabinet that had cut through the
insulation.

I can have my time wasted more than that.

A couple of months ago I had to drop the job I was doing and I had to drive
100 miles north to swap a broken hand drier in a gents toilets (contract
work and we have to turn up when required).

I spoke to the manager and he showed me the faulty hand drier. I asked him
why the job could not wait (ie allow someone to arrive there for 8am in the
morning do the work instead of driving there in work time) as there were two
hand driers and the other one still worked. He claimed it was H&S, went for
a **** and then never even bothered to wash his hands or use the working
hand drier.

It would still have been a 200 round trip, but at least I could have done
the outwards journey when there was no traffic.

--
Adam