O.T. Strangest 2am call out

[The Plc Kid]

That was only one of many like that from that boss. About a month after that i let them hold that place and i came to work where i am now.

I was only working for college money and i had no family to take care of so there was no way i was going to put up with that any longer. I went in on weekend shift and when my shift was over i loaded my toolbox on my truck and left him a notice on his desk effective that day.

A contractor that we used there i became good friends with and he told me after i left that he made a mint there. They did't have anyone that could fix much past a broken bearing and if the guy hired someone good he would normally pull a stunt like that in the first 2 weeks on average and no one would stay there.

To the best of my knowledge they are still struggling.

 

[Binaural]

Wow. Now I know where Biff moved to after he got canned. Your boss must have been the same guy. Biff did the same thing to one of the draftsmen at that place. He wanted a drawing done and the poor guy was heaving in the trash can. Biff was calling him a wimp (and something else more derogatory with the same meaning) and telling him to suck it up. One of the owners happened by and had mercy on him and sent him home.

...but his dog loves him, right?

 

[scalelar]

Ok this isn't exactly on topic but its close to The Plc Kid's story. Many moons ago a colleague and I were starting up a new production line. I had the process end and D had packaging. D's boss had selected Delta Tau for the control system on eight new cartoners. These were VME based P-mac. D was the only one who was working on the development for the cartoners. Well about three days before startup D has a motorcycle wreck. A fairly nasty one. There was no one to turn to so D's boss talked him into coming in in a wheel chair. No LIE! D was having a hard time coping. He was on pain medication and you could tell he wasn't mentally stable yet either. Now the bad part of this is on the second day he was back his boss came and told him he was going home. He didn't feel well.

 

[The Plc Kid]

I saw this same boss get in a argument with one of the mechanics about the way he fixed something and the mechanic was presenting his argument and the boss jacked him up on the wall.

That was the first time i ever saw anything like that in a buisness. Out on th street but not in a buisness.

Glad he never pulled anything like that with me or he would have found himself in need of medical attention.

 

[silva.foxx]

Glad he never pulled anything like that with me or he would have found himself in need of medical attention.

... like wondering why his he could smell one of his own ears?

 

[skywalker309]

Guys I know what you mean. This happened to me today. Luckily it was around 10 am and I was already on the plant. Bubba call me over the radio saying he needed me to go to a conveyor. I said I'm busy right now I´ll go when I finish (I was toubleshooting another machine). Like 20 minutes later I arrive to the conveyor and find another two Bubbas trying to get online with the PLC, they said they couldn't.

When I look at what they were doing I said first of all the USB cable is connected backwards (I know it shouldn't fit if inserted wrong but that port is damaged, but anyways that laptop has another 3 USB ports, and I´m not going to replace my laptop because one of the ports it's damaged)

Then I tried to get online but I could not, I look at the cable they were using at it was the wrong one. I got the right one out of the bag and got online. Then I asked the guys, "Why do you want to get online anyway?" They said the conveyor won't start and that everything was ok, that it had to be something related to the PLC. I told them Ok I'll check it

So I look for the output that energized the contactor that starts the motor and it was missing to inputs, when I read the descriptions, went to the panel, flipped the switch from manual to auto and pressed the start button. And I was "do you really needed me to do that? "

Nor the guy in charge of the line, nor the mechanic, the new electrical guy nor the supervisor figured that out. I mean a whole bunch of Bubbas

 

[nehpets]

In my neck of the woods we call bubba's,'numpty's
The shift numpty was asked to change a timer preset value on a PLC so got all the equipment out and found the correct timer in the program, He spent 2 hours trying to change the preset only to find no matter what value he put in there it didn't seem to effect the process.

When I arrived to check out "faulty" PLC I Found he was not even in Online mode DOH!

Steve

 

[rpoet]

The special effects company I used to work for had performer flying equipment on the Broadway production of Curtains. We had a 7.5hp servo flying winch on the show for flying one of the characters.

I'd been in Dallas, TX on another job for a week+, and had just shipped my tools home via UPS (cheaper than overweight bag charges) when my phone rings. "The flying winch isn't working." I was put on a red eye flight the next morning to Newark, NJ, and took a $65 dollar cab ride into Manhattan.

I took a look at the winch; the local stagehands told me that the redundant brake was overheating and smoking. The redundant brake on this winch was an electrically operated disc brake. It turns out one brake pad was dragging on the disc when the caliper opened. The caliper is self-centering, but it has limits. Since it was supporting people and was rental gear, the local guys didn't want to touch it.

I finally got out of them that they had tried to move it, and one of the stagehands had tried to lift the winch frame by using the brake as a handle. That racked the caliper on its bolts enough to cause the pad to drag.

I had to open the brake, loosen two bolts, close the brake, and then re-tightened those bolts. The winch ran perfectly after that.

I not sure who ended up paying for everything - flight, hotel, per diem, etc... - but the total bill came to about $4000 for my 22 hrs in New York City. I did 15 minutes worth of work; That works out to $16,000 / hr in my book. Not too bad.

I got to see a Broadway show for free (7th row center seat) and had a REALLY nice sushi dinner that night.


-rpoet

 

[Tharon]

In my neck of the woods we call bubba's,'numpty's
The shift numpty was asked to change a timer preset value on a PLC so got all the equipment out and found the correct timer in the program, He spent 2 hours trying to change the preset only to find no matter what value he put in there it didn't seem to effect the process.

When I arrived to check out "faulty" PLC I Found he was not even in Online mode DOH!

Steve

I have made the mistake of trying to monitor of modify values while a machine was running, and sitting there scratching my head when things don't change. Then I see I'm not Online and just think "Damn it..."

 

[Binaural]

I saw this same boss get in a argument with one of the mechanics about the way he fixed something and the mechanic was presenting his argument and the boss jacked him up on the wall.

That was the first time i ever saw anything like that in a buisness. Out on th street but not in a buisness.

Glad he never pulled anything like that with me or he would have found himself in need of medical attention.

It's unbelievable how unprofessional some people can be, isn't it? At many workplaces, pulling a stunt like that would get you fired.

 

[The Plc Kid]

It's unbelievable how unprofessional some people can be, isn't it? At many workplaces, pulling a stunt like that would get you fired.

That's why when he made a big deal for me to come in when i was puking my guts out i saw that this was not a place that i wanted to invest any more of my time into.

Here in the ATL if you have good skills maintenance jobs are a dime a dozen. I could have gotten him into some real trouble a couple of times but it was not worth my time. I just found something better and when i did i gave no indication of ill will i just gave my 2 weeks and moved on. Life's too short and a job is too easy to find to put up with mess like that IMHO.

 

[OkiePC]

I don't have anything all that dramatic, but a huge waste of time for me. I got called at 11pm on a Friday night and had to leave a hot date to drive 40 minutes to the plant because a machine was "going nuts". I full stage tire assembly machine no-less.

So I get there and see dim relays, put my meter across some coils and measure 58 volts.

Loose neautral? The only part of the machine going nuts was the tire elevator (which interlocked with a jittering transfer ring), so I climbed the catwalk opened the first j-box up top, and there was a big 10 gauge white wire looking back at me as soon as I swung it open. I had them kill CB1, already had Bubba's screwdriver in my hand, so I landed the wire, and they fired up the machine and it was running before I got back down the ladder.

I handed Bubba's screwdriver back to him, and told him to pay me for four hours, shamed him for bothering me after only testing with a test light, and walked out the door. That was my record. I walked out 17 minutes after I walked in the door, locker time included. Lucky guess, but hey, that makes up for the mortar-stuffers that have racked my brain for hours...

Yeah, my boss got in trouble for giving me a four hour minimum, but he was smart and explained that he was unaware that the 2 hour rule was plant wide policy, I miss 'ole Eddie. I tried to find him on fakebook, but he has a very common last name, and could be in one of several states.

 

[The Plc Kid]

Okie what is the 2 hr rule? here we get 8 hrs pay for being on call and 4 hrs for each call in plus whatever time you worked on the call in. Often i get in the range of 40-50hrs OT for call in because it happens so much and for stupid things.

My best was 6 minutes in and out. Setup techs were puting a new die in a 600 ton press and they called me in because they could not get the pendant to work. It was removable and it was not screwed in tight only about half of the contacts were making. Saw it plugged it in and left. I got called in once because bubba could not jump out a limit switch on a oven door that we did not have a replacement for. I had been trying to talk him through it for 2 hrs over 3 phone calls. Bad thing is he has been going to the local tech / Trade school for electrical for the last 18 months.

I am still trying to figure out what they are teaching there.

I'll take the money though. More pizza and beer for the frat party.

 

[briancr]

my record on the job call, 5 minutes. many years ago, when computers and modems were communicating at 2400 baud. got a call, one modem wasnt communicating, the system was using two modems. after many frustrating hours on the phone and could not get it working, told the plant engineer to call in a computer company to have a look. the plant was a 2 hour flight away. anyways, they could not get it sorted out. packed my bags, took a flight, got there, had a look at the computer cmos settings, found both serial port interupts set the same. changed the wrong one, system good to go.

oh well, at least the beer was cold on the plane going home

 

[alan_505]

I had one the other day where they had installed a drive from another site when they put the power on, the leds would come on once and then nothing.
They wanted someone straight away, no one was available locally so I flew interstate and then drove 4.5 hours, arrived at closet town at 12:30AM went to site the next morning (another 45km away), after site induction and getting the paperwork sorted out we drove another 10 km to the VSD, pulled the covers of the drive and traced the power cables, they had wired the supply cables to the motor terminals and the motor cables to the supply terminals. Swapped the cables around and put the power on and the drive worked OK.
Someone had written in black permanent marker above the motor terminals LOAD, but they still connected the supply cables to these terminals.

Another one I had was again an urgent flight interstate, whilst picking up the hire car keys I had a phone call from the distributer asking if I was in the airport yet, he then told me the customer had worked out what was wrong and I was not needed so I caught the next flight home (same plane that I came up on).

Alan