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Wow, I feel safer already!

3 October, 2006

Well, that’s another near-death experience narrowly avoided.  Someone from PC Support just came round to my desk and started fiddling around the back of my PC.  I asked him what he was doing, and he pointed out that he had been ‘disabling’ the voltage selector on the back of the PC.  [For the uninitiated, most PCs these days have a voltage selector on the back that allows you to switch (with the aid of a starightened-out paperclip) between 110v (used in the U.S.) and 240v (used just about everywhere else in the World) – it means that the PC manufacturers can make one power supply for all their PCs worldwide.]

And why was he doing this?  Apparently some users had (for God only knows what reason) been switching the voltage themselves, and then wondering why their PC didn’t work any more and calling the Helpdesk.  We’re in Europe (i.e. 240v), and switching it to 110v will blow it up (because the PC is getting twice the power it can handle).  Who are these idiots, and what on earth were they thinking‽ “Hmm, I can’t access my e-mail; maybe if I just change the voltage to the PC…”.

Still, it’s good to see that some Manager has made his mark by identifying this as a major issue, and starting a programme whereby PC Support have to visit every single one of the several thousand PCs within the company and ‘disable’ this capability.  A valuable initiative, on the back of which his career will no doubt take off exponentially.

But what exactly did the spotty intern from PC Support do to make my workplace a safer place, in the 10 seconds or so he spent ferreting around the back of my PC?  I just checked it out – this is too much!  He has stuck a sticky label over the voltage selector!  Outstanding!  And it’s not even a printed label stating “Danger! Do not remove!” or “Leave it alone, dickwad!” (which would have been more appropriate), just a plain white one, which will no doubt dry up from the heat of the PC and fall off in a couple of months anyway.  As safety measures go, it’s right up there with putting a “Caution: Do not aim at face” warning on a shotgun.

I was just musing on how stupid the people who work here must be (1) to switch the voltage themselves for no good reason, and (2) to be tricked into not doing it by a sticky label, when I remembered that about 18 months ago when I moved back to Europe from the U.S., I forgot to flip the voltage selector on my home PC over before I plugged it in, thereby blowing it up.  But instead of accepting that maybe people here aren’t as stupid as I thought, I’m now concerned that I’m just as stupid as them.  Maybe I’ve just been here too long (13+ years), but perhaps this really is the best place for me…

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Pingback from interrobang » Blog Archive » Technology: The Great Disabler
Time 24 October 2008 at 6:18 AM

[…] The official reason given was cost.  Apparently we can’t afford any more new PCs this year (we no longer have a budget  – we have a stretchit).  So instead of getting a new, working laptop, the warranty on my existing one is being extended for another two years.  Which means that PC Support are just going to come round to my office and replace the sticker on my PC that says “End of Warranty 24 August 2008″ with one that says “End of Warranty 24 August 2010″ – as if this is magically going to make the PC all better again!  “Well, the sticker says that it is within warranty, therefore it must work!”  As technical solutions go this is right up there with their disabling of the voltage selector a couple of years back.  The fact that PC Support still say that they can’t repair the smartcard reader is apparently neither here or there.  They’ve given me an external (USB) card reader that I now have to remember to drag around with me as well as my laptop.  And if I forget to take it home (as I did one night) I just can’t log on therefore can’t do any work.  Well, what a great efficiency-measure that is! […]

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