It's the late 90s and I was working in IT for a small (200 employees) company.
One of my tasks was performing daily data backups, which ran for about four hours and started after everyone else had left for the day.
We had an intercom system in the building, where if you picked up your phone and dialed a specific extension, you could page someone, or make announcements so everyone could hear.

One night I was in the process of running Ethernet cable from switches on the second floor down to individual terminals on the first floor, so there was a lot walking around the building.

I like to have music when I'm working, but I didn't have an MP3 player at the time, so I thought... "I have music on my PC and no one is around. Why don't I just...", and I went around and cranked the volume knob on every ceiling intercom speaker in the whole building. Then I dialed into the intercom from the phone in my office, put the handset up as close as I could to my PC speakers, and boom, music throughout the building.

Cut to a few hours later, it's late, I'm tired, the backup is finished, so I close down the system, hit the lights, lock the doors, and go home.

The next day, I come in, not thinking about anything from the night before, and get to work. About 11:00am, the owner's secretary got on the intercom to page someone.... and blew everyone out of their seats. There was an almost collective, "What the fuck??!!" from everyone, and an "Ohhh, shiiit" from me, because of course I immediately knew what happened.

I ran around like a madman, turning the volume down on all of the speakers that I had forgotten the night before, while saying, "No idea... Yeah it's crazy... No no, it's fixed now..."

No one ever found out exactly why the volume was so loud that morning.

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[–] 32 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

I was working on prescribed fire as in controlled wildfire to support ecosystem function. The wind changed in expectedly. The fire jumped containment. We switch into actual firefighting mode for a solid 1/2 hour. Then the wind switches back to predictions. Problem solved. Mop up of the slopover still takes hours and it gets dark.

As we get back to the truck, keys are dropped and kicked in an attempt to catch them. There is tall grass everywhere. We search for an hour in the dark after an exhausting day for our only way to go home. Keys are found. We work at dawn the next day. Not my worst day in the office, just the least predictable.

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  • [–] 13 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    Always carry a magnet with you.

    I work in installations where vegetation is allowed to grow nearly wild, except for the mandatory twice a year cut and I've had a situation like the one you describe, with a very important key falling out of a pocket.

    We also usually carry a large magnet around, to pull open iron covers. It's about 15cm wide and 2cm thick. It can pull.

    The key just vanishes into the plants covering the ground. We fetch the magnet, point it into the general direction of where we think we heard the key fall and cross our fingers. We were rewarded with a very satisfying metalic ding after a few passes.

    Then it was the hassle of prying the key from the magnet.

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