Re: 1 minutes: best downtime story

Consultant at a company I used to work for was on site at a Building Society. He was in the computer room. The operators told him to turn the lights off when he left, the switch was by the door.

He did. As he left, he hit the switch and closed the door. About 5 seconds later, alarms went off and suddenly the computer room halon system fired. The power was also cut. Oops.

On restart, one disc drive wouldn't come back up, it was screwed by the power off. A new part was ordered and had to be shipped from the USA. It arrived next day at Heathrow and was couriered up to Leeds (or thereabouts!) by urgent courier.

Courier got lost and stopped to ask a newsagent where the address of the computer centre was. Newsagent duly told him. Courier left and found that his car had been broken into and the new, rare, specially shipped from the USA, hard drive had been stolen!

Causes?

1. Leaving a consultant alone in a restricted area.
2. Allowing said consultant to operate switches.
3. Consultant assuming that the big red switch was the lights!
4. Thieving bar stewards in Yorkshire (or thereabouts!).

It was eventually fixed.

Cheers,
Norm.

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Norman Dunbar
Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd

Registered address:
Thorpe House
61 Richardshaw Lane
Pudsey
West Yorkshire
United Kingdom
LS28 7EL

Company Number: 05132767
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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Fri Mar 15 2013 - 15:37:32 CET