how to piss off an IT guy, part two

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Earlier this week, I installed a server at a customer's office, and noticed a badly faulty ground on the circuit it (and his other servers) were plugged into - in fact, I noticed it that hard way, when I plugged the VGA cable in and got shocked. On closer inspection, I discovered that the monitor was plugged into a different circuit than the servers were, and the shock came when I touched both the buttplate on the VGA cable and the chassis of the server. On further inspection, the UPS for the servers had its ground fault light lit.

I unplugged the UPS, plugged it into the (good) circuit the monitor had been plugged into, and notified the customer, warning him that this was a potential fire hazard as well as "not a good place to plug servers into".

Fast forward to today: I get a call back from the customer. He has called his building manager, who has brought his electrician, who says there is nothing wrong with this outlet. I express irritated disbelief. Customer puts me on the phone with the building manager's electrician, who says "I checked it, and there's nothing wrong with that receptacle." I explain to him that there is a faulty ground, and explain to him how I discovered this, including the fact that in addition to "the little light lit up" I in fact got shocked by the damn thing, and for that matter verified to my own satisfaction that I could GET shocked by it any time I liked by repeating the experiment.

He stubbornly says "well I plugged stuff into it and I didn't get shocked."

I go through the story again. I tell him he has to be touching something connected to the ground on both the bad circuit and the good circuit in order to get shocked. He says that he has done so, which is precisely as true as when users tell me they have rebooted their windows machine before calling me / not rebooted their Unix server before calling me: in other words, a complete crock of shit. This pisses me off. I patiently explain to him again that, regardless of what he did or did not feel, the ground is hot, it lights up the ground fault light, it is faulty. He now informs me that he "put it on his tester" and it was fine. I inquire further about this "tester", and it turns out that what he has actually done is put his multimeter, set on AC volts, between both the hot and the neutral, and the hot and the ground, and - this is a direct quote "I got 120 volts, so it's good."

Stop. Breathe. Flies. Honey. Vinegar.

"That's not the way to test for a faulty ground." "Yeah it is - I'm an electrician!"

For those of you who not only are not electricians (as I am not) but also don't know any more about electricity than this guy does, you don't have "120 volts" on any given circuit to begin with. You actually have 115V +/- 10%. Meaning the actual, nominal, good reading on any given "hot" power line can be anywhere from 103.5V to 126.5V. Meaning that anybody who makes a claim like "if I have 120V, nothing can be missing" is probably their own cousin, uncle, and probably would be their own stepfather if only their mother were "the marryin' type."

The way you actually test for a ground fault is by checking the current flowing across the hot line and the current flowing across the neutral line, upstream of the possible fault, and checking for a discrepancy in current. Note: CURRENT, not voltage. (For reference, a GFCI - Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor - will break a circuit at 30milliamps of current discrepancy between hot and neutral.)

What you do NOT do is check voltage across hot-to-neutral and hot-to-ground on a multimeter, on the circuit while it's not even loaded, say "looks like 120V, it's all there!" and refuse to, you know, FIX THE FUCKING FIRE HAZARD. THE ONE THAT WAS BAD ENOUGH TO GIVE ME THE SIXTY CYCLE SHUFFLE EVEN WHILE BONE DRY. AND LIGHTS UP GROUND FAULT LIGHTS ON ANYTHING YOU PLUG IN THAT HAS A GROUND FAULT LIGHT.

At this point, I accepted the futility of trying to talk to this "electrician" and instructed him to put my customer back on the phone and told my customer "Don't argue with him, don't talk to him, don't explain anything to him. Just tell him YOU WILL REPLACE THIS RECEPTACLE NOW and see if the ground fault light goes out."

Customer: "OK, I'll try. What the hell, we're moving out of this building in another couple of months anyway."

For the second time today: I hate people.

Comments

[lux-aeturna.livejournal.com]

Good job not losing your cool. I would have in your place.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I learned a long time ago that there are some situations in which the customer can't get anywhere because they need somebody with technical expertise to speak for them, but then there are ALSO some situations where a tech can't get anywhere because no amount of expertise will un-stubborn the other side.

In the latter case, it's frequently a lot more effective to get the customer - who in this case is also the actual customer of the third party - to just bitch and yell and rant and be obnoxious until they get what you want done. If YOU try to get it done, 1. you aren't the vendor's direct customer so they don't want to do it and 2. they will try to get in a "whose techie dick is bigger" contest, whereas if the customer yells they will just do what they have to do to make him happy.

This is also frequently a face-saver for a really fucking dumb tech (like this electrician). If the customer makes them do it and won't listen to any "explanations", they don't have to actually admit they don't know their dick from a vienna sausage. Whereas if they back down to me...

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

What you need to do is have the electrition zap himself...

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

Well, he said he already touched the good ground and the faulty ground, so he'd just say that again. What you have to do is tell the customer how to do it, that he might bring these items into contact with the electrictian himself. For confirmation purposes, you understand.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I love this (keep it in my tool bag) and caught so many problems from "electricians" it's freaking SCARY! (http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100062242)

[stevieg.livejournal.com]

+1

I <3 this tool.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I've got one of those in my tool kit, along with one of these (http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100027519). Worth every penny.

[manuka.livejournal.com]

Just need one of these to round it out:

[dreamatdrew]

Pipiru piru piru pipiru pi!

[fixerkitty.livejournal.com]

Here's an idea to play with:

If the building winds up catching on fire due to a known electrical fault, and it's not repaired, the building owner and/or $company is going to catch holy hell from their insurance company when they try to get reimbursed. I'd love to see the looks on their faces then--and so much for the redneck electrician, they'll sue him for whatever he's worth and then some. >:D

[kallell.livejournal.com]

you could state for the safety of everyone involved you are "required" to call the building inspector as the situation endangers the health and safety of all involved etc etc blah blah blah



however, i think i may see where the mistake is. The guy may hev been telling the truth. He may however hgave been to dumb to comprehend that you moved it to safe outlet and may have been testing the good one

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Nope. I made very certain of that when I was on the phone with him. It's not hard to figure out which is which - the bad outlet is behind a desk, whereas the good outlet is below a window. The customer also knew exactly which one was which, as I'd showed it to him (and demonstrated the problem) the night that I discovered it.

This guy was just a shitty electrician. You'd be AMAZED how little a lot of electricians know about electricity. They usually don't really need to - the job requires a lot more construction knowledge than electrical knowledge.

Unfortunately, this guy was also weak in the construction knowledge, or he'd have known HOW to check for ground fault even if he didn't know what it really was or why it mattered.

I still can't fucking believe he thought there is exactly 120V on any given good power circuit. He must have never used a digital multimeter in his life. I am guessing he's probably got one of those old-school analog meters with the little wheel marked in six or seven separate circles for different settings and ranges.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

Jaysus.

Is this idiot licensed?

One more reason to be grateful I work in a hospital that has fairly competent maintenance people. Reporting a faulty ground here results in the receptacle being jerked immediately and everything getting checked.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Color me unsurprised that a hospital is a bit more aware of and responsive to potential injury hazards than the typical leased office space building. =)

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

I think I've watched too much Holmes on Homes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_on_Homes) but actually, I'm not surprised that someone is an "electrician" and just that dumb.