So today I got into trouble for foul language. I was cursing, but I thought it was under my breath. Boss said he could hear me from his cube (pretty embarassing) After he finished chewing my arse, I showed him the results of my hardware tests validating my design. He asked why I would be cursing if I'm having success. I simply explained that I curse when I'm happy

Happy, turrets

I have that problem too, now that I think about it.

 

I think this qualifies as embarrassing and fortunately was no skin off my nose.

A little background first since I am not well known here.
I am and always have been partially sighted, legally blind, and then some these days as it would happen to be.

Back in the days when I was working in aerospace I worked for a company that build among other things high UHF / microwave transmitters.
Nicely built stuff, at this time I was an RF tech on their special products line.
If you love electronics and are a self starter you would love this job...

Anyway.........

On a dry September day I was working on an L-Band transmitter that I had been aligning. The transmitter was on the environmental plate on my workstation with the top off and covered in two inches of red shop rags, soaking at the most comfortable temperature of -56 degrees C.
After thirty minutes of this it was time to turn it on everything was fine except for the transmitter frequency came unlocked on channel five. So instead of being on a channel somewhere in the middle of the 1.4GHZ band it was a hundred MHZ away and drifting everywhere. So off comes the rags and a couple of voltage measurements were made to determine what was going on. I needed to adjust the back bias voltage on the VCO's varicap diode. Since all the adjustments made to this transmitter were not done with trimmer pots, caps or not even with software, (1985) but by fixed component values, clip leads connected to a resistance decade box was the method of choice. The key resistor was located on turret terminals on the bottom of a vertically mounted PCB twice the size of a postage stamp. No big deal I had the first clip lead attached and while attaching the second clip lead, my nose touched the aluminum housing of the transmitter.......

Yah you guessed it, my nose was stuck....

While I was groping for the environmental plate controller to warm up transmitter, My boss's boss happened to walk by and started uncontrollably laughing. "Sue just pull it off" he managed to get out in the midst of his laughter. I started laughing and said "I don't think so".

It took about three minutes to warm up the transmitter enough to melt the connection between my nose and the transmitter. From that point on I put a small dab of Dow Corning #4 compound on my finger and rubbed the end of my nose, it did prevent that from happening again.

 

fortunately was no skin off my nose.

Unitl now I thought that was just an expression

 

One of several episodes comes to mind. In '82 the company I worked for purchased 5, 1KW lasers for cutting metal. The beam exited through a movable nozzle which was NC controlled. One of the machines was in fact two lasers grouped together, names East Baserail/West Baserail.

Anyways machines were new and management was watching in full force as I was working on the East, scope connected to axis card, trying to tune out oscillations.The adjustment pots were on the opposite side of the machine from where scope connects.
Problem was, the adjustments I was making was on the West machine
It wasn't till the third trip when I realized what I was doing.I quietly stuck my head in the proper cabinet, 2 feet away, twisted the pot about 1/4 turn.
And all was well. Don't know how many saw that, and wasn't about to ask.

 

I got caught having sex once but I wasn't embarrassed. I was actually quite proud.

 

I got caught having sex once but I wasn't embarrassed. I was actually quite proud.

With someone else?

 

With someone else?

Who asked you!?!?!?!?!? Me and my gerbil are leaving!

 

You guys give me great laughs today. Here, and in the IC megafactory thread. Thanks!

 

You guys give me great laughs today. Here, and in the IC megafactory thread. Thanks!

Post a link.....I live for this stuff at work.

I spit my Gatorade yesterday, almost went into my keyboard

 

This is the one: http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?p=602528#post602528