It finally happened....

[Blue Ginger]

Blue Ginger: That bit of personal magic has many names (some of them unprintable), but I call it "the breaking touch". I've heard claims that it's the mark of a "natural" QA/QC tester.

Hahaha. I'm Australian. There are no unprintable words.

I have been called a walking disaster zone by one poor overworked IT team. I somehow broke the connection between a laptop, computer and projection equipment by turning everything on and carefully, slowly following the steps IT had given me. The result was the computer refusing to recognise the connection between itself and the projector, that I didn't even touch because it was hardwired into the room. And sparks. From the screen. The screen that had already been lowered from the roof thingy by someone else.

$3000.00 worth of damage. I made the IT boss cry. It was all brand new equipment and I was the first to set it up outside of training sessions.

They had the company that set it all up come back in and they couldn't figure out how it happened.

Luckily it was only a temp job for 2 weeks. I didn't touch any meeting equipment beyond the catering after that.

[greek_jester]

I somehow broke the connection between a laptop, computer and projection equipment by turning everything on and carefully, slowly following the steps IT had given me. The result was the computer refusing to recognise the connection between itself and the projector, that I didn't even touch because it was hardwired into the room. And sparks. From the screen. The screen that had already been lowered from the roof thingy by someone else.

$3000.00 worth of damage. I made the IT boss cry. It was all brand new equipment and I was the first to set it up outside of training sessions.

They had the company that set it all up come back in and they couldn't figure out how it happened.

How the... Just how? Seriously, how?

Actually if sparks were coming from the screens on first use it was probably some internal fault, and just your bad luck that you were the one to have to set it up. But still...

[dalesys]

How the... Just how? Seriously, how?...

Murphy was a blithering OPTIMIST!

[Mental_Mouse]

How the... Just how? Seriously, how?

Actually if sparks were coming from the screens on first use it was probably some internal fault, and just your bad luck that you were the one to have to set it up. But still...

A lot of equipment will go violently if its operating assumptions are violated. Back when I'd just walked into my first "real" programming job, I once fried a monitor (yes there was smoke) by using three different adapters to connect it to the wrong port.

And faults can come from out of your immediate sight: Power supplies are often not half as steady as warranted, or the power line can be outright miswired. A failure that was "seamlessly covered" by fallback techniques can come back to bite you when something else is looking at the broken unit instead of the fallback.

Or perhaps your executives take to meeting in the conference room with all that fancy equipment, and who's gonna tell them they can't smoke in their conference room? Seriously, cigarette and other smoke gets sucked right into cooling vents and builds up on circuit boards until wires start to short, fans start to jam, etc etc etc. Electronics hate smoke -- smoke has a perfect storm of getting past anything short of an actual air filter, and containing a foul brew of torn-up molecules looking for someplace to dump their stray ions.

[workerbee222]

A couple entities have removed SCOs, I'm guessing because customers found a way to circumvent the system and lower their grocery bills.

It's common to have an employee supervise the SCOs. I've only been one place where that employee was really on the ball and invested in making the checkout experience work.

[RealUnimportant]

... who's gonna tell them they can't smoke in their conference room?

Ah, one of the many benefits of living in a country where smoking indoors at a place of business is illegal.

[EricKei]

bee - Yup. The thing is, at every store I've been to that has them, there will typically be only one worker trying to police 6-12 SCO units. All it takes is for one person to tie the worker up (whether unintentionally or not) and the thieves can just breeze on through, "forgetting" to ring up their most expensive items.

[Tama]

Which is why our Malwart has installed cameras over them. Which admittedly can only help after the fact

[raudf]

I hate the SCOs. Loathe them and the feeling is mutual. I can and do crash them just by scanning an item or cause it to have to send a silent plea for help. I could handle regular registers just fine, (with the exception being the fossil that was Monkey Ward's idea of a register. That crashed with EVERYONE.) Just seems like I hit all the bugs in the SCO system.

Oh, and my mom once said that I took "Unbreakable" on items as a challenge. Came in handy when the techs at the shop couldn't get an item to show it's quirks for repairs.

The opposite is also true for me. I kept a Windows ME computer running for two years without a reformat and reinstall. If something is a lemon, it will behave beautifully for me. If it works fine for everyone else, it will die for me. Except SCOs. They all hate me.

[Blue Ginger]

How the... Just how? Seriously, how?

Actually if sparks were coming from the screens on first use it was probably some internal fault, and just your bad luck that you were the one to have to set it up. But still...

That's the problem, it wasn't first use. They had been 'playing' with it in training sessions the whole week prior. (I was only in the room, but didn't get to fake set up a meeting.) I was the first to try it on the Monday for an actual meeting.

Bumped into one of the IT guys a few months later at a pub. The company that set it up still had no idea what went wrong. They had to re-wire everything in the room. Luckily I hadn't touched the laptop before the sparks started. Given it was an executive's laptop, that would have been really, really, really bad.

I was also added to their 'how did this happen' stories shared with friends. And used as a warning to anyone new they were training in the new-new set up, as in 'no matter how you mess up the connections, you are ok as long as there are no sparks'.

And raudf, I am so glad I'm not the only one who has crashed the bastards by just attempting to scan something.

[EricKei]

Which is why our Malwart has installed cameras over them. Which admittedly can only help after the fact

Assuming those cameras are real, yeah ^_^

I kept a Windows ME computer running for two years without a reformat and reinstall. If something is a lemon, it will behave beautifully for me.

That's actually pretty damn impressive. I installed ME once...and only once. It crashed to a BSOD within half an hour of installation, before I'd even had a chance to set it up properly. Aaaaand out it went

[Tama]

I assume they're real, they have a monitor right under them showing you and what you're doing

[Dreamstalker]

That's cool, I've heard of that tech (is it StopLift?). As far as I can figure, our SCOs only have the pre-existing cameras...which are fisheyes on the wall meant for the register drawers that are no longer there (field of view is largely blocked by the SCO screens).

Nobody actually wants to use them, they'd rather stand in line and get pissed at the single cashier for "being slow".

[EricKei]

Could be worse. Owner of a lil' Italian joint where I did time had a camera installed after months and months of "money going missing" from the till. Note that the owner was notorious for "cashing" his wife's checks in the till and then just taking a bunch more out so they could go to the casino.

When he finally put the camera in, he made VERY sure that there was one place the camera could NOT see: the cash register. Their money problems, for some reason, failed to resolve themselves. Can't imagine why not.

[raudf]

The SCOs in the local MalMart have the cameras built into them and it shows you as you walk up and start scanning. This set is from the attempt at "Scan and Go," so it's in a "cube" next to the doors, guarded by the door greeter and a cashier. Does any of this reduce the shrinkage they cause? If you think so, you have a spot reserved for you in corporate.