Today, I electrocuted myself.

[Dreamstalker]

I've been zapped three times by computer innards. Twice was only via USB which wasn't that bad, but the third was when I was working at a questionable repair shop and the 'assistant' plugged a screwy powersupply (that she could see I had open and was inspecting the insides) into the wall to be helpful.

Luckily I saw what she was doing and was able to get clear before I was too badly shocked, but it was still an moment, especially when I realized if something really bad ever happened she would just stand there...as it was I was on the floor for a few minutes before I could actually get up, and she had an expectant look on her face (what do you expect me to do besides rip you a new one? You are LUCKY this wasn't more serious).

[Mishi]

As my dad jokingly says, "All you need to know is Red to Red, Black to Black. Cut the others and turn them back."
He's an electrician that's done a bit of everything and now works in a power plant. Dad has the unfortunate habit of finding other people's shoddy work and at last count he'd been zapped 6 times. Luckily, his heart has restarted each time by itself with no known damage.

[dalesys]

But it rings at 96 volts. Not enough current to do any damage, but dang! It'll wake you up on a Monday morning. BerZZEEERRRTTT!

B

Try getting rung up when you're hanging out your (upstairs) bedroom window, splicing onto the wires you can barely reach down to!

[Bandit]

I get zapped all the time at work when dealing with the analogue phones and lines. Does not take much to be the ground if the previous people didn't do their job correctly.

Fun Fact - A regular phone line always has -48 volts DC on it. Enough to get your attention.
But it rings at 96 volts. Not enough current to do any damage, but dang! It'll wake you up on a Monday morning. BerZZEEERRRTTT!

B

[Food Lady]

Heehee, you are related to me. I've electrocuted myself on more than one occasion.

[notlovinit]

So for a long time I have had the notion that I am better than everyone around me. I try not to let on to this fact, but I think about it a lot.
First, it was because I was a manager at all the jobs that I was employed at.
Then, it was because I have aspirations of becoming a police officer. How noble and brave of me.
Most recently, it was because I got my B.S. and nobody I know has been to any college and gotten a degree of any kind. I must be so smart. Except for the fact that I don't know how to punctuate properly and grammar is just lost on me.

This thinking I'm better than everyone thing mostly came from my thinking that if I don't show people my flaws then they can't make fun of me and call me stupid. Recently, I realized, this isn't preventing anyone from doing anything. It just makes me a douche. So I will now start admitting my faults, if for nothing else that they might be funny.

So on to the story:
Today I went to this training for my new job installing security alarms. (I'm still not sure if this company is a scam or not, but that is besides the point. They gave me $400 today so I'm happy with them.)

I have no experience with tools and today when they told us all to get our wire cutters out I had to look at what everyone else was getting out in order to select the right tool. I was pleasantly surprised though that even without any prior use of a level I was able to use a level like a champion today. No one else was impressed though.

So anyway, we get to a part where we are practicing hooking up phone lines or something and since all day there hadn't been any live power to anything I just assumed that was the case with this. Although, even if I hadn't assumed that I wouldn't have known that what I was going to do would electrocute me, so I guess that doesn't even really matter.

It started out alright. We started out with these red and black wires and even I knew that black meant negative and red meant positive. But then they started adding other colors into the mix! It started out slow. It was just green as well, which I guess in this situation is also negative. (Maybe even in all situations, I don't know.) So I connected the red to the red and the green to the black. All is going well. Then out of nowhere these stupid blue and white wires show up with no explanation. I knew that they needed to be connected to the red and green wires as well, but I wasn't sure the proper color to color connection.

So I decided the best thing to do was to guess and then see if the phone line would work and if it didn't I could reverse them. No, this is not the way to do things. This results in me connecting the blue cord to the green cord (which was WRONG) and getting shocked.

No one else got shocked in that class.

Note: I just told my mom this story and she has informed me that if I electrocuted myself that I would be dead and that I just shocked or zapped myself and to not be so dramatic. So I guess I fail at terminology too.

But then I googled this and I found that it is common for people to use electrocuted to mean an electric shock so there, mom! Also, it is weird, because google says that both blue and white wires are negative, but I swear that those wires were blue and white and one was positive and one was negative.

Agh, I'll get it eventually. On the bright side, the alarm that I installed was SO level.