Monday 8 November 2010

Ahh! The confidence of East Coast USA techs

There are times when the confidence of IT Support technicians hailing from the East Coast of USA can raise a smile. (I mean Noo Joisey of course).
We had regional IT teams supporting a global trading activity. The New York team had invented the PC based application (real time price calculation) that would double business [yawn]. Of course it needed special processor and graphics card. The time had arrived when this application would be [imposed] supplied to their Brit colleagues.
"Do you want us to supply the servers for this?"
"No, we can get them more cheaply in the US and we know how to configure them. You can help by unpacking the boxes when we send them over."
"Sure thing Bob."
After several false starts eventually our USA colleagues succeed in delivering the PC/Servers to the London offices. We duly unpack them and store in a secure room. Soon the american geniuses fly over [Club Class] to London to demonstrate their wonder product. They find their treasured servers and plug the first and then the second into the mains power with suitable network connection.
You'd think the loud click and puff of smoke from the first server box when first switched on might just give a hint that there is a slight technical problem here?! Nope, they boldly switch on the second box. Click, and a puff of foul smell smoke from the second box.
"Ah Bob, you did remember that the mains voltage here is 240V Ac and not 120V didn't you...? You probably need to make sure you changed the voltage setting on the Server PSU."

No comments:

Post a Comment

We automatically delete any SPAM comments. All comments are subject to moderation before publishing. Any SPAM is individually reported to Google as such, this reduces the offending site's Google Ranking.