Your personal "darwin" moment experiences

[mobile chicane]

Heres one that should run for a while.

Working as a field service engineer I get to see all kinds of equiptment abuse, misuse and the ocational unwhitting suicide atempt.


ok to start the ball rolling.


industrial waste compactor with an open top hopper that you could drop a mini into with a blade that goes from fully open ( intact mini ) to fully closed ( 1/2 ft long mini ) in bout 30 seconds.

Whilst running two imigrant types who work loading the compactor have over ridden all the saftey gates and are jumping up and down an a blockage just above the still moving blade one slip and it would be polish pate for 2.

I killed the power pulled the main fuze and confronted the site manager who told me that they had been seen doing it a couple of days previous, one had actualy slipped and the other had just managed to get to the emergency stop in time

Asked my oponion I said I'd rather sack a live man than tell a corpses widdow why their kid had no father.

They both got the sack btw.

[mobile chicane]

The petrol station asistant who removed a warning sign and turned on a 3 phaze supply that I was working on for a joke lost his sence of humour when I dragged him out to the power board and forced him to touch the earth spike ( the bit with no voltage on it ) with the phraze now its your turn for a 415v bolt.

[stegger]

The only thing i get is people sitting on photocopier platen glasses at christmas parties taking copies of there arses

[dave g]

had a motorcycle in for its annual service,after telling one of my trainee mechanics to pull both spark plugs out for a plug change..he was still there 15 mins later when i came back from a delivery..yep,still trying to PULL the plugs out..DOH!

i had to go outside and kick the bins...

[mobile chicane]

Originally Posted by dave g

had a motorcycle in for its annual service,after telling one of my trainee mechanics to pull both spark plugs out for a plug change..he was still there 15 mins later when i came back from a delivery..yep,still trying to PULL the plugs out..DOH!

i had to go outside and kick the bins...

CLASS next time send him off for a metric hammer

[MK999]

When I was working in Wickes you used to get a lot of people asking where the lightbulbs were, I had to point to them the aisle that was lit up like blackpool illuminations directly behind them.

[neiloliver]

(1) We had an operator, who whilst welding nickel links to NiCd cells, blew a hole in the negative can.. resulting in electrolyte leakage.. which got on the back of his hand...

To remove the electrolyte (which is potassium hydroxide) ... he licked it off..

(2) I was on a flight from BHX to Germany on one of the dumpy little BAE jobs.. the ones with little sings and four engines.. We were going down the runway when one guy in a window seat half way down the plane started shouting "My God, the luggage doors are open!!"... the crew had to to tell him it was the wheel housing....

N

[Kopite]

Originally Posted by neiloliver

To remove the electrolyte (which is potassium hydroxide) ... he licked it off..

i just don't understand why anyone would think that it'd be safer on the tongue than the hand???

did you bitch slap him Neil?

[neiloliver]

wanted to.. but had to take the idiot to hospital...

He does not work for us any longer...

N

[DCM]

used to work on RN Sea Harriers, the wing tips were rather, erm, dangerous when the aircraft was on trestles, so the tips were removed until they really NEEDED to go on, as the trailing tip was basicaly two sheets of 18guage riveted together. We had a rather odd Scottish chap who worked on the team, talked to his tools and himself, and was constantly being warned about running aroung the slot where the aircraft was.

So, in a rush, one day, to get the aircraft ready to come off trestles, he run round, right into a wing tip, which, for him, was scalp height..... it lifted the scalp the size of the palm of your hand right up.... blood everywhere..... he went home after....

[RogerM]

I wish I had some good work related stories but as I am the HS&E guy for my department I never get to see any ...... people acting like idiots get shown 2 things

1) the door
2) where to find an empty box to put their stuff in as they leave.

I'm also of the mind that I'd rather see a guy sacked alive than go to a funeral ....

[i4n]

Originally Posted by DCM

used to work on RN Sea Harriers, the wing tips were rather, erm, dangerous when the aircraft was on trestles, so the tips were removed until they really NEEDED to go on, as the trailing tip was basicaly two sheets of 18guage riveted together. We had a rather odd Scottish chap who worked on the team, talked to his tools and himself, and was constantly being warned about running aroung the slot where the aircraft was.

So, in a rush, one day, to get the aircraft ready to come off trestles, he run round, right into a wing tip, which, for him, was scalp height..... it lifted the scalp the size of the palm of your hand right up.... blood everywhere..... he went home after....

I saw a RAF CPL do a similar thing on a Jaguar flap trailing edge, but this was a bit higher so it went right across the top of his head - I've never seen so much blood in my life!

Also saw a guy trip over the arm of a nitrogen trolley (which had been in the slot for 3 days) and go arse over tit, proper cartoon style with windmilling arms and everything!

[losidan]

A couple of classics from when I worked for the gas board...way before you could buy it anywhere else.

1. The woman who called in who had just moved into her council house and was unhappy with where her gas meter was situated...........In the front room laying on it's side.

Dont turn anything on love...we'll be there in a few minutes!

2. The woman who's phond in because her prepayment meter was flashing "call help" on the display. She had been shouting it for over an hour and nothing had happened!!
DDDDDUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH

[bigred5765]

working in a quick fit garage many moons ago,had a car in for oil filter and oil change, i drained it, took out the old filter fitted the new one dropped it down of the ramp, and asked the young lad that worked for us to fill it up with oil, and yes he did just that all 10-15 liters of it,lol what a wally, to which he replied you asked me to fill it up so i did right up to the filler cap lmfao,

[MK999]

bet it ran smooth after that

[cwilson]

well heres one for you. while trying to get a old polo going i was pouring petrol down the carb while someone else started it. you can guess waht happened next. thats right i spilt some while it was turning over and it ignigted burnt the engine. i had to chage the whole carb and manifold just get it going again. however it ran better on the new carb! also my half brother was tring to get a fire going with some petrol and he burnt himself quite badly. hes ok now but its just funny to talk bout it now.

[_JP_]

Some quality ones above!

Neil will appreciate this one, we do high power lithumim packs at work and one is cells in a metal shaft that makes for a big battery pack!

One guy was having trouble getting the cells in the metal shaft so he poked them down with a hammer, it acted like a bomb as they were unfused cells +ve and -ve shorted!
He burnt his legs and the cells shot up like a firework out of the building roof, he was lucky, had it of hit him in the face he would have been dead.

[phil c]

when i worked at the mercedes main stealer a mechanic was trying to find a noise from the pulley area on a sl 55 amg with a long screw driver , he got the driver caught in a pulley and it dragged the screw driver in along with his hand , which got wrapped round a pulley and held there by the poly v belt because it stalled the engine , by this point he had passed out with blood pouring out of his hand and arm , we had to cut the belts to free him and was rushed to hospital for a skin graft ,not nice

[Hog]

Had a Polish girl where I work decide to use a circular saw to cut some insulating foam for a water tank. For whatever reason she decided not to use the "push stick" to feed the foam towards the blade, despite being trained to do so.......

East Grinstead hospital did a fantastic job sewing 2 fingers and her thumb back on......

Pretty girl as well - shame she's now only got 1 operational hand

[Lee]

When i worked as a service engineer i had just finished a 3 week job on a shut down, the steam turbine had been powered up and had run for 8 hours or so, the client gave me the nod to leave as he was happy so as i was tidying my tools and stuff away i disconnected my laptop from the system when a rather large clunk and a hole appeared in the side of the turbine casing which was about 1" steel and also in the turbine halls wall. The blades had come loose within the turbine, amazingly nobody was injured and the blades and rotor was found 400m away. People looked at me as if i had done it by disconnecting my laptop. I just turned to the client and said, give me a shout when you have fixed it