Coworkers tinkering with toasty electronic goodness

[Impetrix]

Seconding, tripling, quadrupling the NSFW-ness of AMV Hell Zero. Srsly.

For starters, it contains clips in which the aforementioned and seriously-underaged-yet-naked-gotta-love-Japan Angel-Devil girl takes the giant spiked club, lops off a boy's head, which produces a copious fountain of blood from his exposed brain, and does a magical-girl-style-did-I-mention-she's-just-a-kid-and-naked spinny thing with the club to heal him.

For the rest... let me put it this way. It includes "Scatman" and "how much is that doggy in the window" as songs. The latter song in particular, uh, has multiple interpretions; more than one are used....

[MadRocketScientist]

Morning-Stars have the weighted head connected to the pole by a chain, I believe, while Maces have large weighted heads, featuring flanges or spikes, attached directly to the pole.
This would be more of a simple "spiked club" than even a true Mace, though.

Ball + Spikes + Chain + Stick = Flail

Ball + Stick = Mace

Ball + Stick + Spikes = Morning Star

Gotta Love The Wiki

[technical.angel]

Anyone else slightly worried that this is becoming such a big topic??

[qaxons]

I know that anime *scrounges brain* Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan if I'm not horribly mistaken... but yes, I have all of the AMV Hells (except the one in production) and they're all pretty NSFW in some parts, but Zero... wuuuuugh

As to the topic... uuuuh, what were we talking about again?

[Geek King]

Morning-Stars have the weighted head connected to the pole by a chain, I believe, while Maces have large weighted heads, featuring flanges or spikes, attached directly to the pole.
This would be more of a simple "spiked club" than even a true Mace, though.

Blame it on D&D. They have steadfastly refused to admit that a mourning/morning star is a chain flail with a spiked ball on the end, even though the historical records of the weapon have been shown to the editors. It is a fun debate in Geek culture that we pull out when we're tired of debating Babylon 5 vs. Firefly, or the latest episode of Chuck.

EDIT: That wiki entry gets changed fairly often too. Its a debate that the serious don't take seriously, and the foolish take foolishly.

[Naaman]

Blame it on D&D. They have steadfastly refused to admit that a mourning/morning star is a chain flail with a spiked ball on the end, even though the historical records of the weapon have been shown to the editors.

I try to steer clear of the armour illustrations as well

[MadRocketScientist]

Blame it on D&D. They have steadfastly refused to admit that a mourning/morning star is a chain flail with a spiked ball on the end, even though the historical records of the weapon have been shown to the editors. It is a fun debate in Geek culture that we pull out when we're tired of debating Babylon 5 vs. Firefly, or the latest episode of Chuck.

EDIT: That wiki entry gets changed fairly often too. Its a debate that the serious don't take seriously, and the foolish take foolishly.

Do note the wiki concedes the fact that the names are used somewhat interchangably. Personally I follow that distinction if only as a way to keep it all straight in my head.

And boy did this go off topic

[wagegoth]

For my troubles, I saw fit to *cough* acquire the administrator password to make problem solving easier. :P

At my previous firm, the local IT department gave the admin password because I was perpetually having to call them for stuff that they knew they could trust me to do on my own.

[SpyOne]

I guess I am that guy, sort of.

I know better than to mess with the computers: because it is constantly networked to the computers at the main office, even rebooting the computer in the store can cause issues it will take hours to fix, if you do it at the wrong time.
ALWAYS call the help desk and ask permission.

With strictly mechanical devices, however, ....

We are open 24 hours, and our machines are vital to our providing product to the customers. Things like the coffee grinder.
If we call "maintenence", it will be several hours before they show up, at least an hour of their poking around, and then often meets with a pronouncement that the machine cannot be immediately fixed.
Well, we probably noticed it was broken when we went to use it, and that means we need it NOW. If our coffee grinder goes down at 4:30 am, our choices are fix it immediately, or have several hundered angry customers.

So, I use the following 3 rules:
1) it can't hurt to undo a few screws and have a look.
2) put it all back together exactly as it was when you are done
3) maintain complete denyability: you NEVER opened it up in the first place.

About half the time, whatever's wrong can be fixed by a monkey with a screwdriver (or even more easilly). But when it can't, it all gets put back exactly as it was, because of rule 3.

[protege]

3. Bossman refuses my offer for an immediate fix, instead deciding to call "an IT guy" who takes 2 weeks to show up. In that timeframe the problem has compounded itself beyond my ability (I did offer to fix it before it reached that point).
4. Bossman rants about how long it took and how much it cost. Usually the "IT guy" charges him more than I would have.

You forgot the other things... when stuff breaks in the office, I usually know what the problem is. However, I'm told to call our 3rd party tech (who is a self-proclaimed "expert") ...who then tells me to do what I was going to do in the first place! Oh, and did I mention he charges $50 per hour?

Even better, are the times when stuff breaks and I'm *not* at work. Then this fool gets called, and I have to walk him through how to do various things over the phone. Uh, did I mention he's an "expert"

Events like that are *exactly* why I turn my cellphone off on weekends, and tell my grandmother that if he calls that I'm *not* there

[mattm04]

Everyone knows to not mess with the servers in the store, but our new GM actually called the IT people out to move his computer to a different desk. The gladly compiled at some insane amount of money per hour.

[Dreamstalker]

I'm not "allowed" to call Bossman's friend (the aforementioned "IT guy"). Only he has that number.

How is it that waiting a week or more for the matter to complicate itself and then having to pay through the nose is preferable to paying me for all of an hour to fix the problem when it first occurs and is therefore still simple?

(and for the love of Nyarlathotep, if you touch anything, document what you did and when as in most cases reversing the fiddling will fix it!)

[powerboy]

That guy is me. But with me, I actually know what I am doing.

[Der Cute]

Ok, Im the IT chick that the workers have to call to fix their darn machines.

I can understand wanting to fix it yourself - but it doesn't always mean you're fixing the ROOT issue. You may just be applying a bandaid - without knowing you did it.

Also, if a Paid Person is Paid to Fix Malfunctioning Unit, the Paid Person can be SUED for damages if Malf Unit is FUBAR'D after Paid Person attempts to fix it.

And, usually, the managers want you to do your described job duties - if you get electrocuted, and your job is cashiering, how well would THAT go over?

Yeah I sound responsible. Yeah, shoot me.

But I FULLY understand why you'd want to open the puppy up and find out what's inside!!

Cutenoob

[Ree]

I work with a guy who's always tinkering with stuff.

It ticks me off, because I usually have a tone of things for him to do, and he's wasting time tearing something apart trying to fix it. (Usually he never gets it finished, or it doesn't work anyway, or it only holds for a day or so, because he's glued some part that needed to be replaced.)

I am the one who gets called all the time whenever there's a problem with printers and computers.

I will say, "I am not tech support. I have no clue about this system."
They still call me anyway.
Then I get on the phone and leave a message for tech support to call me and talk me through it.