BOFH: Danger, Falling Computing Peripherals

Episode 6 "IT WAS JUST A BIT OF FUN!" the PFY burbles. "NO-ONE GOT HURT!"

"Someone could have got hurt," the Boss counters.

"You could get hurt logging in!" the PFY responds.

"No you couldn't!"

"You could if I found you using my username!"

The Boss sighs heavily, which is a sure sign he's run out of arguments and is going to start repeating himself.

"It was dangerous and someone could have got seriously hurt."

"But they didn't did they?" I say, entering the fray.

"That was just luck."

"No, we put signs up!"

"A sign saying Danger, Falling Computing Peripherals is just stupid."

"No, it's descriptive."

"Well what the hell were you doing on the roof anyway? Why not just take the stuff downstairs and PLACE it in the skip?"

"WHERE'S THE BLOODY FUN IN THAT!?!?"

"This is a workplace, not a fun place."

"I beg to differ! We have fun here! Remember that summer we blocked the drains and filled the basement with water to make a swimming pool."

"...And had that Hawaii party," the PFY smiles, recollecting. "And then one of the Beancounters who wasn't invited came down in the lift to get his car! Talk about laugh, I almost bought one!!!"

"I don't know what you got away with before, but this was just irresponsible. What were you thinking?"

"OK," the PFY says, getting serious. "The thoughts were vaguely this: We have an old piece of kit which stays up about as much as an Essex bird's underpants. Everyone in the company uses it, it's complete crap and countless hours of work have been lost pounding away at it."

"Are we still talking about the Essex bird?" I ask, just to keep things light hearted.

Lead Balloon.

"So we FINALLY get to replace the kit, which means we can rip out the box, remove all the aged terminal servers and all the terminals."

"And PLACE them in the bin."

"We had that option, yes. But we thought - rightly so, as it happened - that there would be people in the company who might want to express their discontent in some physical manner by dropping, hurling or in some cases screaming-wailing-gnashing-of-teeth-accompanied-punting these units off the roof into the skip. And it went down a treat"

"No it didn't! It was a complete shambles! The side street was absolutely littered with broken plastic, glass and pieces of metal"

"Yeah, it was fantastic!"

"That street is reserved managerial parking! You couldn't drive anywhere NEAR there with all that rubbish on the ground! Not only that, we've also been fined by the local council for littering, AFTER assuring them that we were having the place professionally cleaned with a magnetic sweeper! And don't think I didn't notice that you put the bin on top of my car park. Some of that glass was embedded in the road surface! Big chunks in some cases! It cost a fortune to tidy up!"

"Yeah Well, No-one said fun was cheap! Anyway, we made a penny or two on it."

"How?"

"We sold the kit to people. 10 quid a monitor."

"What if people wanted to take them home?"

"Ok, so you're on top of a building where you're not supposed to be in the first place, the winds in your hair you feel like king of the world and you've got a pussy old dumb terminal in your hands. Are you going to lug it downstairs, onto the tube and home, or are you going to SEIZE VENGEANCE BY THE BALLS AND GIVE THEM A GOOD SQUEEZE!"

"Y.. I.. How much did you make?"

"Just under a thousand quid," the PFY responds.

"We had 100 terminals?"

"No, but we started auctioning the bigger stuff. The 9 track tape unit went for 120 quid," the PFY replies.

"And the ginormous disk drive went for 150," I add.

"Yes, but that was too heavy to get any real distance from the building. It basically plummeted onto the footpath taking out that parking sign. But if it had had wheels on it like the main CPU unit it would have made the street!"

"How much did the main cpu go for?" the Boss asks, interested now.

"Oh nothing. That was a prize for the best technique."

"Technique?"

"Yeah this woman from Data Entry pool used the cables and did a sort of hammer throw which hit the extreme corner of the bin and the monitor exploded into a ball of bits. It was fantastic!"

"And did she claim her prize."

"She was going to - this morning when a couple of her mates were back at work. It's a bit of a beast to shift and you'd need a bit of a run-up on the ramp."

"What? But I had the skip moved before the cleanup, it's back to car pa...

>CRASH!<

"Bugger me!" the PFY says to the Boss whilst staring out the window. "Right in the driver's side! A good thing you weren't in the car at the time."

"Dodged a bullet there," I say, patting him on the back. "Ooooh, it looks like he might be in shock! And how do we treat shock?"

"More shocks?" the PFY asks.

"No."

"Oh! Sit or lay them down, cover them with a blanket, give small sips of water..."

"And?"

"And... go to the pub?"

"Exactly. But first call the council - there's crap all over the road again." ®

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