Electrocute Thyself
Eat Monster has been training on the test and troubleshooting of our power supplies. She's not doing very well with it, I'm afraid. Because our instrument came out of the research and development labs in the early 1970s the wiring and PC board design is complex. It's a hand tuned, hand tested box that can be really frustrating for many of our technicians to deal with. All of the newer generation products we have are more software/firmware controlled making the test process much easier. The power supply module in this old dog does a number of things. It converts 110 or 220 AC voltage to DC, filters the power for spikes and noise, and splits the power into several line voltages that the rest of the box runs off of. Some of the testing has to be done manually while the boards are powered up which is dangerous. If the person testing the supply isn't paying attention to what they're doing, well, they could end up getting seriously hurt.
Located at the power supply test bench an operator will find special insulated tools just for the job of dealing with live high voltage parts. All of this has been explained and demonstrated to Eat Monster but I guess she wasn't listening. She has repeatedly grabbed and used uninsulated tools while working on live power supplies. It's not a good idea to do that. Tonight while I was working in the assembly area building up some board mods and card cages, Eat Monster sat at the power supply test station trying to troubleshoot a defective board. Everything was plugged in and live, of course. Out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was bright yellow sparks coming out of the top of the test fixture in front of Eat Monster. As I looked over my shoulder I caught a glimpse of her whole body shivering and her eyes were tightly shut. In either hand she had an uninsulated tool. One looked like a flathead screwdriver and the other was some sort of a metal rod. Sparks were shooting out of the tip of one tool. I couldn't tell which.
There was nothing I could do for the Eat Monster as she sat there electrocuting herself. I didn't have anything large enough that was non conductive to knock the tools out of her hands or get her away from the test set. So I watched her frizzle fry. The muscles in her hands were constricted due to the voltage she was absorbing. It must have taken her a great deal of effort to do it; she finally let go of the tools. It was like she forced open both hands with superhuman strength and threw the tools away from her. As she did so, she still had her eyes completely shut and she began opening her mouth and licking at her lips. It was weird to watch. With her jaw wide open she licked at the roof of her mouth like she had just eaten peanut butter mixed with grapefruit rinds. I got the impression the whole experience of electrocution was very distasteful for Eat Monster.
Located at the power supply test bench an operator will find special insulated tools just for the job of dealing with live high voltage parts. All of this has been explained and demonstrated to Eat Monster but I guess she wasn't listening. She has repeatedly grabbed and used uninsulated tools while working on live power supplies. It's not a good idea to do that. Tonight while I was working in the assembly area building up some board mods and card cages, Eat Monster sat at the power supply test station trying to troubleshoot a defective board. Everything was plugged in and live, of course. Out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought was bright yellow sparks coming out of the top of the test fixture in front of Eat Monster. As I looked over my shoulder I caught a glimpse of her whole body shivering and her eyes were tightly shut. In either hand she had an uninsulated tool. One looked like a flathead screwdriver and the other was some sort of a metal rod. Sparks were shooting out of the tip of one tool. I couldn't tell which.
There was nothing I could do for the Eat Monster as she sat there electrocuting herself. I didn't have anything large enough that was non conductive to knock the tools out of her hands or get her away from the test set. So I watched her frizzle fry. The muscles in her hands were constricted due to the voltage she was absorbing. It must have taken her a great deal of effort to do it; she finally let go of the tools. It was like she forced open both hands with superhuman strength and threw the tools away from her. As she did so, she still had her eyes completely shut and she began opening her mouth and licking at her lips. It was weird to watch. With her jaw wide open she licked at the roof of her mouth like she had just eaten peanut butter mixed with grapefruit rinds. I got the impression the whole experience of electrocution was very distasteful for Eat Monster.
posted by factory_peasant at 8:30 PM
3 Comments:
As always a great post! I still can not understand how the company ever decided to hire her. Which manager was responsible for bringing her in? It must have been Squirmy's revenge on you guys.
Man, on second thought I think you should have grabbed the heaviest parts cart, put all your muscle into it, and rammed her at full speed. But who has time to think when you are watching somebody get fried.
barley- i don't remember who actually interviewed Eat Monster. Squirmy hired her onto our line though, so he's just as guilty for bringing in this asshat woman.
Wad- made the punctuation changes. they made good sense. i'm gonna hafta get you a case of beer when this is all overwith...
there will be more of the aftermath of this incident in the next post so some of your questions will be answered. i decided to break it into two parts. originally i posted more, but as an afterthought i realized i could do more with it in seperate installments. stay tuned.
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