Wednesday 16 December 2009

Health and Safety - Course 101

So I am sitting at my desk one day when the door opens and woman sheepishly creeps in to the room carrying an open laptop.

She stops and grins at me for about a minute then finally confesses that her "friend" had asked her come and see us because she (her friend) had spilt coffee all over her (the friend's) laptop. I asked who her friend was and if it was an accident, why she didn't bring it down herself if.

Answer: She was too scared we would tell her off.

The lady left and I took a look at the bedraggled, Nescafe flavoured laptop and I noticed that the screen was blank but the laptop was switched on and running.

After completely stripping the laptop down and wiping out the river of coffee, it took two days for the dismantled boards and components to completely dry out.

When the laptop's owner finally showed up to collect the laptop I asked her why she had left the laptop on after spilling liquid on it. She merely shrugged.

I went on to explain the electrical safety issues of handling electrical equipment that had been soaked in water etc.

"Oh" she replied "I guess I should have known that. I teach health and safety..."

The madness didn't end there.

A few days later as if it was an epidemic another laptop arrived in the same condition. Again the laptop was running and dripping coffee out of every crack and vent in the chassis.

Again I asked why the laptop had NOT been switched off.

The man replied "well I did turn it off when I first spilt it. But I wanted to see if it would still work, so I switched it back on."

Doing so he had burnt out the graphics chip and the motherboard had to be replaced.

Some people should NOT be using technology...

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