What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

[Morlock49]

Some of my biggest oopsies are the following:

when I had just started working for a company in the uk and I was given a new VW passat estate as my company vehicle. On that same morning I had to help with an installation of a copier, so I put the cabinet in my car and started driving to the customers. What I did not do was lay the cabinet on its back or strap it down, so when I accelerated away the cabinet went straight through the rear window. Watching me leave was the Boss and the rest of the service department. Somehow I managed to keep my job, as I was still on the probation period then.

Also with the same company, I did manage to take out a customer's Flag pole when I reversed into it.

Latest mishap happened not long ago
we had just taken on a new customer, and my boss was about to arrive to demo a new color machine to the customer. meanwhile I am moving the customer's existing machine (Konica 7210) to a different room. I try to find a outlet for the 7210 but for some reason the pins are not correct. I goto my car and find a converter tail made up.....It fits. so I plug it in, and as my boss walks in to see me I switch the 7210 on and watch as a cloud of thick smoke emits from the back of the machine. Not being used to the american voltage system, and thinking everything was 110 volts I had somehow managed to plug the copier into a 220volt outlet. Lucky for me, the only damage done was blowing up the power supply board, and for the moment no-one in the office lets me forget it.

[slybot]

Ee..eeh! slybot. your stories make me both laugh and wonder. Now, you finish the story up! What happened to the panasonic in the end?

well, the machine still worked fine and we kept servicing it for a while. the senior staff who's office it was in retired i am assuming. (havent seen him around for years) and we havent done worked on it since as it was old as the unit was as old as the hills then and probably got replaced by a different brand.

[Comatose]

OUCH! That hurt.

We had a guy at the shop working on a cheap Wal-Mart shredder and had it plugged in. We found out that the cheap ones will grind off a thumb as easy as the more expensive ones. Sad part was he played bass guitar.

I pull the plug when I work shredders in the field...except for, right before Christmas I was working on 2 giant Intimus security shredders, and I and the head tech at the factory were unable to determine what was wrong. He was having me test some of the switches by unplugging them and making a jumper with a paper clip to check the circuit. If you have never seen the inside of a big box like this, this beast has giant capacitors that are almost as big as a copier drum. In other words, it takes a lot of juice to start it. the PWB 'A" is in a confined space, and as I was tring to hit the spot with my home made jumper, I missed and slid my paper clip onto a hot post, which tried to start the machine, which caused the capacitors to open up, which caused the tech to get blown back about 5 feet. About the second I made contact with the hot post, time stood still for a second, and as I could feel the electricity start to run up my arm, I managed to utter the words "OH SHIT", before getting kicked out of it. Those are the words that when yelled loud enough, will bring everyone in the office to stand around you, and since they all knew me they did not hesitate to laugh and make fun. For about a week later I still had a burn mark on my hand that iched. On the plus side, I fixed both of them.

Unrelated to shredders but worked for an electronics company, we builr rack mount systems with hot swap power supplies, anyway the test technician was testing a new power supply for heat build up, so in his wisdom he took the rack to a bech away fron the testing area (rubber mats and emergency cut off buttons) put temp sensors around the PSU, Plugged it in, put tape over the plug switch so it could not be turned off, put portable screens around it so nobody could interfere, the put his hand in and touched a het sink that had 120V DC running through it........ He screamed like Ned Flanders seeing purple drapes...
After someone ripped the plug out the socket he lost most of his thumb but lived (thanks god) but maganed to sue the company lol

[jinxs]

first week out in field, I replaced parts for a toshiba machine, not checking the serial number
when i realized that i changed drum, developer and cleaning blade for the wrong machine~!

[srv]

When I started in this business in the 1980's one of my first calls was a dev change on a mita machine.I dumped the old dev in to a black plastic bag I thought was the customer's rubbish bin.It turned out that it was they're outgoing invoices.Whoops!

[cccjjn]

Dinged a brand new $1200 wide format drum. OOps!!!!

[kronical]

Stopped by a customer to do a courtesy checkup on their machine. Everything was fine but I noticed the fuser pressure levers were completely backwards. I figured I'd correct them to ensure they don't cause any future problems, and when reinstalling the fuser into the machine, hit the ground wire on the live HV contacts and fried the power supply. Shoulda just left it alone.

[copyruss]

Ok - showing my age on these...

Was a newbie tech, 2nd week on the job. First week was "training" - went with 5 different techs, saw 5 different ways of doing things and saw everything from SCM to Mita to Sharp to Panasonic. Anyways, first call ever was on a SCM 152 - a liquid machine - that was jamming. Manager said easy fix: flip machine on back and replace feed tires from underneath. Unfortunately he neglected to tell me about removing the toner and dispersant tanks. Liquid hate everywhere.

Years later, I was working on a Mita 412, starting a PM. The imaging assembly, which included the dv unit, toner hopper, drum and cleaning unit slid out on rails. You were supposed to remove those units, then remove the frame off the rails to get into the transport section. Being lazy and having done it dozens of times before, I proceeded to take out the unit complete. I took out the 3 screws on the left rail and when i got to the 3rd screw on the right rail, the rail mount was missing a screw, the rail twisted, dumping the whole imaging assembly, which also broke off the front cover. So there i was, 40 miles from the office, toner friggin' everywhere, broken front cover, broken toner hopper, trashed drum, sweating bullets, and customer looking at me like "WTF?"

The third was not me, but I was a party to it. I was helping a sales rep install a Mita 900d. Those of you fellow old-timers remember that they had "cold fusing" - massive steel rollers that weighed a ton - thus that end being the "salesmen's end". We were carrying this pig up a spiral staircase, me calling him "pussy", him not knowing his end weighed about 10x as much as my end, when his pants seam split from belt loop to zipper and so loud it echoed. His eyes were as big as Buckwheat's. We started laughing so hard we had to sit with this monster on our legs on this staircase. I was crying I was laughing so hard. He had to tie his sport coat around his waste to hide the massive rip and did the demo like that. Priceless...

[DAG COPIERS & COMPUTERS]

Poor guy, oh kronical !!!, It must have been one of those really BAD DAYS in one's life.
A courtesy call turning into a ' nightmare', surely u must have cursed the day, and GOD forbid, if you are a suspicious person [ a common thing in this part of the world], you would have cursed the first person you met that day in the morning, as you leave the gate of your house,[male or female], as being responsible for your bad luck that day.

[BondoFox]

Re: What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

I was behind a Sharp 8100 copier, on the floor. A tad on the dusty side, but I was after another issue, probably a misfeed or jam condition.

While I was there, one of the office girls walked by, the only one I think, cute-looking blonde. I'd seen her before, but this time I wasn't standing up and being the professional meet-n-greet technical guy. And I watched her walk past in her crisp white blouse, purple skirt, white pantyhose, and purple pumps that matched her skirt.

And as she walked past I let out a "Wow!"

And as fast, I realized what I'd just said!

So smooth as I could, I used my finger to gather up the dust and dirt and covered with, "What a dirty machine!" and went through the motions of cleaning it.

Nothing was said, if I was even heard in the first place (and I have every reason to believe I was!), I got away with it!

There's your "oopsy"!

[BondoFox]

Re: What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

Continued proof that no good deed ever goes unpunished. 8)

[CableGuy]

Re: What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

Used to work for a Toshiba subdealer and oneday went with the service manager to the local Toshiba office to have a look at a finisher, or sorter as known then. We were having some issues with one of ours, they left us to it on one of their showroom machines. As we were try to recreate the fault, a sudden flash and bang..... we blew the top off of one of the IC's on the sorters controller board, needless to say we weren't very popular.


Also, in my younger days. After a particularly heavy night out and not much sleep, my first call was at a church office. After having a look at the Roneo duplicator and explaining what I had found and done etc, the nice old lady in the church office offered me a cup of coffee or a breath mint. I can only guess I must have smelled like a brewery.....

[Lagonda]

Re: What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

I was sitting on the floor cross legged (that must have been over 20 years ago when the knees still bent) when I managed to invert a cleaning station and poured toner all over my lap. Muttering expletives I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and started to clean myself up. Just as I was running the nozzle around my crotch I got the distinct feeling I was being watched, I turned around to see the two young office girls staring at me open mouthed. Rather red faced I retired to the gents to finish the job.

[imthinman]

Re: What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

Not long after I started working in the industry. I was delivering a new Canon 6060 to the companies largest customer. While unloading the 6060 rolled off the tailgate and turned over. I was horrified. I went to work and got it upright on the sidewalk I had cleaner so I got some serious scuff's off but It still looked like hell. But in I go and and the machine worked like a champ. The customer was a giant business so the end user was happy to have a working machine. I left quickly and avoided any service calls on that machine whenever I could. That was many years ago and it still serves to remind me that it is better to be lucky than good.

[blackcat4866]

Re: What was your biggest oopsy on a call??

... I was delivering a new Canon 6060 to the companies largest customer. While unloading the 6060 rolled off the tailgate and turned over. I was horrified...

I was not so lucky, but not to blame. the service call was for installing a machine shipped in from another location.

One of my larger companies shipped a NP-6060 from Florida to Michigan in the back of a semi. Since it tended to roll around on the castors, they flopped it on it's back on a palate and banded it down real good. Then 10 or so hours in the back of the semi.

You can image my distress when I see this poor dead beast lying on it's back on the palate, with three large bands cutting through the covers. Their first question was how to stand it up again. We used straps and a forklift.

It was a total loss. Every single board on the back of the machine was shattered into bits the size of a quarter (25 mm) or smaller. I was able to rescue the imaging unit, developing unit, and some drive components, which were set aside to repair the three other NP-6060's on-site.

The hardest part was explaining to the comptroller that this was a usable machine until it was put onto the truck, and now it's scrap. =^..^=