Golden Screwdriver - or Customer Paied Break
I remember this one from my time in a big blue hardware company, where the grey haired field engineers told me about their times with customers, one of whom caught out an "inspector" (local name for the field engineer) sitting down reading a novel in the computer room. A processor upgrade was called for and the invoice was accepted, to add several hardware processors and 3 hours of time to install. Licencing also stated that the customer was not allowed to se the system internals via a confidentiality agreement and that the engineer was to be left alone for the duration of the upgrade.
The field engineer rolled up at 11 AM with a large bag, closes the door, opens a side panel of the mainframe, reaches inside with a torch, flips a sequence of DIP switches, closes the door, then sits down, back to the mainframe, and reads a novel for the remaining 2 hours 50. An hour later, the IT manager swans in to tell the engineer that he is breaking off for a business lunch and will not be back for a few hours, and so to leave the intervention release sign off with his secratary... Explanations were requested and had to be told that the hardware was already in the system and just needed to be activated through a switch.
All further system upgrades happened for that company around 11.30, and the field engineer was kindly asked to put the IT manager's lunch on expenses to keep him quiet ;)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
