Two weeks ago we had a week long “Technology Symposium” in one of the local hotels. Basically what this amounts to is a few dozen of our best customers come to see what new stuff we have to offer, and they get to tell us what they do and don’t like, and when they need it by.
Some idiot in our company decided 3 weeks before the symposium that he had an idea he wanted to build and see what our customers thought of it. That, unto itself isn’t such a big deal. What is, is that the asshole involved several other people in this project, but didn’t see fit to let them know that. So one week before the big show and tell I get a phone call from our Supervisor of Manufacturing asking how that project was coming. Of course I’m all “Project? What project?” Needless to say, myself and a few other engineers from other departments busted our asses and produced a total piece of shit that vaguely resembled what we were told to build. In the process we managed to piss off almost every department in the company.
Then it got worse, the ****ing customers took one look at this piece of shit and say “yeah, we love it, build us a few, oh yeah we need that in 11 days.
**** me!
The guys that had been thrown under the bus with me all agreed with me that there was NO WAY IN HELL that we were going to send something this bad into the field. So we all sat down, made massive revisions and totally redesigned every major component of the system.
Fast forward to today. We have been kicking butt and taking names. I’m closing in on 80 hours for this week but sometime in the next four hours we should be able to assemble this thing and see if it works. The customer expects the guy to be up and running in Lynchburg, VA next Wednesday. It’s tight, but I’m feeling pretty confident that the remaining issues can be handled in time.
A few hours I was informed that I would be flying to Lynchburg to support this guy in the field. Okay, no biggie. So, in my mind I start running down what needs to be done to get ready. Looking at how much equipment I need to take, I have decided to use what we call a tote. In reality it amounts to a very oversized hard plastic suitcase that is lined with foam that can be configured to hold different pieces of equipment and allow them to be handled by the gorillas at the airport safely.
One problem.
One of the pieces of equipment is a tube, just over 2 ft long, black, with connectors on each end. No markings or anything, in short, it looks like a pipe bomb. It gets worse. This guy is fully EMI shielded and sealed, which means it can’t be opened, nor can it be viewed with an X-ray. In short, this is almost exactly how you would build a pipe bomb. In an effort to make it look less like a pipe bomb, I have installed a handle on it. Now I have what appears to be a pipe bomb for the bomber on the go.
Who wants to bet that before I am able to get on any plane I’m going to have a very long conversation with some bone head security officer in a dark room in the SeaTac airport on Wednesday?
It’s gonna go something like this:
Security: So, What’s in the pipe?
Me: 172 feet of EMI cable, and two resistors.
Security: Can you open it for me?
Me: No.
Security: Why not?
Me: It’s welded shut, it’s not intended to be opened.
Security: Mind if we X-ray it?
Me: Go ahead, but you won’t see anything.
Security: Why not.
Me: It’s totally shielded.
Security: Why would it be totally shielded?
Me: Because nuclear power plants have large EMI fields inside, and my equipment is very sensitive. Without the shielding all I would get is noise.
Security: Let me get this straight. You are trying to take what looks like a pipe bomb onto a plane, so that you can fly to a nuclear power plant and take it inside? You won’t show me what’s in it and I can’t view it with X-ray.
Are you starting to see where I’m going?
Me: Uhhhhhhh…… Nice shoes!
Topic: Funny story a friend just told me (Read 736 times)