My boss is an Idiot rant...

[Airbozo]

SO here is a story that will cause some concern and laughter.

An Intel server system came back from a customer due to not powering on. We put it on the bench and sure enough, no leds, and the power switch did nothing. Now I know this system was working since I signed the burn in qa checklist. We check everything and decide the motherboard failed.

While doing the troubleshooting I inadvertently stuck my thumb in one of the cooling fans, cut my thumb below the nail and busted off one of the blades on the fan. So I tell the purchaser to order a motherboard and fan. I proceed to write up a CAR (an ISO report) and wait for the parts.

The stager brings me the box from Intel and when I open it there is only the motherboard. I have my guys start the motherboard swap and go ask the purchaser what happened to the fan. He tells me my boss told him not to order the fan since it could be fixed. I hit the roof.

I asked him why he did that and he started treating me like a child informing me than the fan can be fixed. I disagreed, telling him one of the fan blades was broken off and nothing he did would be able to solve that. He shoo's me away and starts working on this broken fan. Meanwhile I get on the phone to order a fan (another cluster frack that ends up taking over 4 hours just for a fan). In the back ground I hear him dorking with the system and I have to keep shutting it down and pushing him out of the way so I can get part numbers and serial numbers.

He is getting pissed at me for getting in his way and I remind him he is wasting his time trying to fix a broken fan. He tells me I am wrong and that he has already fixed the fan and is testing it. Turns out his "fix" was to break off another blade to even out the balance... He couldn't grasp the fact that this is a customers system and a broken fan is a broken fan and has to be replaced! He spent 3 hours playing with that damn broken fan and still thinks it is fixed!?! Since he told the purchaser to cancel the fan order, it took me a half a day to deal with it and I am now half a day behind...

Sometimes peoples stupidity just freaking amazes me!

I am now talking with the VP and GM of the company to get this guy OUT of here...

[msmrx57]

3 hour screwing around trying to "fix" a what $15 fan? Hell I'm a cheap bastard and even I would screw around with that if it was my own system.

[Snowman]

3 hour screwing around trying to "fix" a what $15 fan? Hell I'm a cheap bastard and even I wouldn't screw around with that if it was my own system.

fixed... and I would never spend that much time on it either just replace the fan and move on with life.

[Trace]

Time is money as they say. 3 hours is definitely more than 15$

[Airbozo]

Well to be honest the fan is over $35. It's an odd sized Delta Fan.

...but this is for a very high profile customer (multi-billion $ company). If I sent that system back with his "fixed" fan, they would quickly cancel all orders and send back all the servers we have sold them in the last year.

All the wasted time aside, I am just astonished that he still thinks it is fixed...

[TheGreatSatan]

Ah, balancing. How clever

[Luke122]

LOL.. Airbozo for President!

[x88x]

Maybe this is why most fan manufacturers use an odd number of blades...no possible way of some idiot doing that.

[Snowman]

Why not just glue one or two bb's where the fan blade broke always worked to add that needed weight to the front of a derby car.

[Luke122]

Why not just glue one or two bb's where the fan blade broke always worked to add that needed weight to the front of a derby car.

LOL.. and when they let go, and fly into the guts of a $100k cluster, hilarity ensues.