Dumbest colleagues you have ever worked with 9

[JonC8191]

I thought the lady a few years back who thought the rest of us were idiots for believing that the moon landing happened would never be surpassed.

However ...

A current colleague turned down a free-of-charge flu shot the other day. Now she is disinfecting her work area because two people 1250 miles away have ebola.



I'm the reason why Paradise Lost

 

[edfair]

flapeyre's comment:
"We used to use IBM Cleaning Fluid for such tasks"

So did I, by the gallons. To the point I was continuously being harassed about my purple tinted short sleeve white shirts. (557s if you know the drill but typebars from other machines)

Worked well for the interlock disks, but they were a royal pain to take out and put back in place. One of the places that lubrication was a problem and they seemed to love picking it up by migration.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[flapeyre]

Ed: I still remember the part number: 1280017 for the gallon; 450608 for the little 8 oz. can.

I was mostly a a Selectric, typebar, and IPE guy. Some Series III and 4520 copier work. Also fixed PCs and worked in the parts room.

-- Francis
Francisus ego, sed non sum papa.

 

[djj55]

I had forgotten about the IBM cleaner as I did not use it personally. I did use 1,1,1-trichloroethane for degreasing test specimens. Fingers would be dried out for a couple of days.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[edfair]

djj's comment:
"Fingers would be dried out for a couple of days."

My hands would be dried out and purple for weeks.

flapeyre's comment:
"I was mostly a a Selectric, typebar, and IPE guy."
Did some selectric but mostly B's as IO for various stuff.
Interviewed for the typewriter division but was rejected. 2 years later accepted for EAM and scheduled for computer school, later cancelled, and assigned to keypunch/sorter accounts. A year later went to school and trained on the big iron.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[flapeyre]

Back to the subject:

Once worked on a Selectric that was having problems with carbon sets. The secretary was using 9-part (!) carbon paper, and the bottom copies were not clear (no kidding).

The kicker? The typewriter was right next to a Copier II.

-- Francis
Francisus ego, sed non sum papa.

 

[edfair]

Back to punch card days, spent about 5 hours trying to find why a collator was mismerging cards at a customer's office. End result was a 3M duplicator that was printing the 3 at the top of the card but not punching the hole. While they were sorting the deck prior to the collate they put the rejects into the file by the number printed.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[flapeyre]

A colleague of mine once spent the entire day trying to fix the carrier on an Electronic 75 before he gave up and took it into the shop. We ended up replacing the carrier. He could have done the same thing in 20 minutes, cover-to-cover, but he thought he knew better.

From this and similar instances, I learned that simpler is better. They should have gone to daisy wheels from the get-go.

-- Francis
Francisus ego, sed non sum papa.