Employee of the Month (with the chevron of merit)

fireball, originally uploaded by bartemeo-negro.


So today marked my first day on salary at my company. I suppose you could say it was my big "first day on the job". And what did I do on this most momentous of days? I blew up $3,700 worth of equipment.

Oops.

We have an entire set up of modules, power supplies, and cables to test our stock of old modules. Occasionally, some of them have shorts. Since they were designed I the stone age there isn't any fail safe on them to prevent damage. Usually shorts just results in lights and buttons not working on the module or some build up of heat. But for every couple of thousand modules tested, maybe one will give off some serious fireworks. It was jus my lucky day!

I plugged in said module with the immediate result of an explosion of sparks flying in my face. The power supply on the other side of the room to which I was connected also produced a large bang and began emitting a large cloud of acrid smoke. Every module and circuit in between met the same fate.

What gets me is that it should have happened to one of the techies, not me. I happened to have some free time and was just helping out in the lab. It wasn't user error, but just blind luck.

Well, at least I made a big impression.