Bright idea sparkey!

[dragonbofh.livejournal.com]

Hi there! pretty much my first post here, so here goes:
I just had this wonderful conversation with an Air Conditioning Cowboy Engineer which really brightened my day. Well, I laughed at him anyway.

(Background: Before I started working here the aircon was plumed in badly and leaks, so engineers were arranged to come in to fix it. They didn't carry out any kind of survey or impact assessment whatsoever, just turned up and away they go. They're running the condensation pipes out through the electrical cabinet in the comms room)

AC Engineer: I need to switch your comms room AC off so that the glue on the condenser pipes can set.
Me: No
AC Engineer: If the water flows the glue won't set.
Me: What's the alternative?
AC Engineer: Leave the comms room window open over the weekend, its cold enough outside to cool the room.
Me: dofuckinwhatmate?

Cue a rant to the office manager asking why the holy hell this wasn't scheduled for out of hours when we could take down the comms room power. So far I have yet to have a satisfactory explanation.

Comments

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Walk him to the highest paid person around - explain that he wants to shut down the AC. Then explain you have to shut down the comms room, thus giving everyone the day off.

[arabwel.livejournal.com]

... buh? o_0

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

They're running the condensation pipes out through the electrical cabinet in the comms room.

Wah? What kinda' code do you guys have there?

[dragonbofh.livejournal.com]

The code we have here is one that I did not agree on (only been in this job a couple' months), but I think it involves closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears and going lalalalalala as loudly as you can... I intend to change this...

[major-error.livejournal.com]

FYI, code as in Building Code... (minimum standards can be a good thing)

They're running the condensation pipes out through the electrical cabinet in the comms room.

Wah? What kinda' code do you guys have there?

I read that and thought the same thing....why in holy hell did these airheads [pun intended] think it'd be a good idea to run pipes anywhere near what I gather is a Mains distribution panel...

[dragonbofh.livejournal.com]

ahh, I understand now. Yes I agree its loony although there's already the building's water pipes in there which appear to have been in for many many years (at least these are copper pipes though, not easily-breakable plastic pipes).
I'll just keep a pair of waders in the comms room from now on.

[jecook]

Not to mention the NEC, too. (National Electric Code in the US)

That's a BIG, BRIGHT Spark followed by a extremely expensive outage followed by an even MORE extremely expensive rework job in my book...

Damn, I wish I had that contract to fix... :)

[therealdrhyde.livejournal.com]

Count yourself lucky that he told you that he wanted to turn the AC off and didn't just do it.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

This was a joke, right?

Tell me it's a joke. Please.

Umm. Does your building electrical engineer know of this lovely arrangement?

[shakes head]