Back in the dark ages of the mid eighties I worked for several consulting firms.
One of which dealt with POS systems. One of our clients had a so-called "systems administrator" whose basic function there was to do backups and try to weed out any simple operator errors (change register tapes and make sure the terminals are turned on) before calling either us or the hardware supplier.
She was a cute little thing. Beautiful and simple as a ball bearing, and just as dense. I think she had other undocumented duties but who was I to say?
They had a Honeywell DPS-6 (or so) with a removable hard drive. Now, in those days, a removable hard drive was a simple phenolic disc about 15" across, kinda like a fat record. The R/W head would retract and the drive would shut down. You take the disc out, store it in the proper place, and put another one in. ...or so it should go.
One morning I go into work and I've got several frantic messages from her saying there are problems with their hard drive. Not a biggie. They have a service contract. I'll just all her back and get a tech sent out there.
I called her and she said that when she put the new disc in, the machine made a loud "SKRITTCCCH" sound, the sound a R/W head makes when it crashes against the disc. I teller to put in another disc to see if it was a glitch. She says she already did that. I said I'll have a tech dispatched.
Now the kicker... she asks if they will replace the discs under the warranty. I say no problem, I'll have them bring two discs with them.
She says there's still a problem. I ask what it is.
She says she did this thirteen times, thereby destroying thirteen discs!!!
Did you know one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? But, all I could do is think that, not say it.
I said that would be hard to do. They are instructed to call us immediately when a problem is noticed. They didn't and she was pissed.
I have more fro the coal-fired computer days, but that's for later.
