Please don't break our gear...

[Emmeileia]

Last Thursday I was leading a group of highschool kids on an orienteering exercise. They were supposed to be kids with behavioural and anger issues, but they were some of the best behaved kids I've worked with. One of their teachers, on the other hand...
I had finished teaching the kids about using GPS units, and was about to show them how to use a compass as a back up. The teacher in question told me she had used compasses before, so I passed her one so that she could help with the demo.
She took to compass, held it at a couple of odd angles and then SHOOK IT hard, saying "It's not working, it's not working".
Well...it sure wasn't working after that!
If you don't know how to use a piece of equipment, just say so! And really, not shaking a compass seems pretty obvious.

[bainsidhe]

And really, not shaking a compass seems pretty obvious.

Lemme guess, she was expecting one of those ball-shaped floaty-type compasses you see in peoples cars? She probably thought some part was stuck when it didn't float around.

[Lyse]

Not about the sucky teacher, but I'm tickled to hear that your "troubled" teens were so well behaved. Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise

[MadMike]

She took to compass, held it at a couple of odd angles and then SHOOK IT hard, saying "It's not working, it's not working".
Well...it sure wasn't working after that!

Sounds like what my ex did at our old apartment. We had a closet with sliding mirrored doors. She tried to slide it open, and it stuck, probably because of all the junk she had crammed in there. Rather than reach around and try to move whatever was obstructing it, she grabbed the door with both hands and started shaking it as hard as she could. Before I could stop her, she had cracked the thing across the middle.

Since I was the only one with a job, guess who ended up having to pay for it?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I took one of mine out in the woods and went to work with a wrist rocket on it.

Did you know you can fire a glass marble through a sheet of mirrored steel and it will look exactly like a bullet hole? Well, you can.

On topic, people who do things like this...I cannot imagine what they're thinking. I've had people do some really assinine things to my stuff.

[Andara Bledin]

Did you know you can fire a glass marble through a sheet of mirrored steel and it will look exactly like a bullet hole? Well, you can.

A projectile hole will tend to look like a projectile hole.

^-.-^