![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reminiscing
May. 3rd, 2006 12:41 pmOne of the reasons I have never advanced as far as I might have in this company is because I am, in technical terms, a shit-disturber. If I am not directly getting into mischief, I am subtly steering others into mischief. While it has come back to haunt me a few times (like that exploding ketchup-packet incident), there have been other times when only I and my accomplices knew the truth.
When we worked in a yard office out on the coast, we had an ongoing feud with the day-shift staff. The folks working on days were convinced that we were all misfits and thieves on nights. To some degree they were right, and we did our best to live down to their expectations of us.
One of the bones of contention were the coffee supplies. The day-shift had enough people around to have a well-organized coffee fund, and they maintained a well-stocked supply cupboard with creamers, sugar, coffee, and various implements and utensils that one would associate with coffee and the making thereof. Naturally this cupboard was locked by the last person to leave on days in order to protect the precious coffee paraphernalia from the (in their words) "thieves on the other shifts".
We quickly discovered that with a couple of paper clips and a bit of patience, there was no cupboard lock that could not be overcome. Usually we would only tap into the free supplies if we ran short on our own cache (or when they accidentally locked up our off-shift supplies with their own). I had the lock-picking down to an art, and could be in the cupboard inside 10 seconds on average.
Except for one night, when the lock was being particularly stubborn.
I struggled with the lock for about five minutes before announcing my defeat. I yanked the bent paper-clips forcibly from the lock - or, well, that was the plan anyway. What actually transpired was that I yanked on the paper clips and the entire lock mechanism came flying free of the cupboard, sailing gracefully over my shoulder amidst a spray of pins and springs. The two co-workers who bore witness to the event assured me, between gales of laughter, that my handiwork would likely not go unnoticed when the next shift showed up in a few hours.
Amazingly enough I managed to find all of the parts for the lock, but the pins were all different lengths, and there was no indication as to which pin went where. After some debate I finally put them in at random and reassembled the lock mechanism. I assume that I must have either lucked them into the right order, or at least close enough for the key to work with a bit of jiggling because I never heard another thing about it.
Come to think of it, I never heard anything about the "throwing star through a wall" incident either - but that's a story for another time.
When we worked in a yard office out on the coast, we had an ongoing feud with the day-shift staff. The folks working on days were convinced that we were all misfits and thieves on nights. To some degree they were right, and we did our best to live down to their expectations of us.
One of the bones of contention were the coffee supplies. The day-shift had enough people around to have a well-organized coffee fund, and they maintained a well-stocked supply cupboard with creamers, sugar, coffee, and various implements and utensils that one would associate with coffee and the making thereof. Naturally this cupboard was locked by the last person to leave on days in order to protect the precious coffee paraphernalia from the (in their words) "thieves on the other shifts".
We quickly discovered that with a couple of paper clips and a bit of patience, there was no cupboard lock that could not be overcome. Usually we would only tap into the free supplies if we ran short on our own cache (or when they accidentally locked up our off-shift supplies with their own). I had the lock-picking down to an art, and could be in the cupboard inside 10 seconds on average.
Except for one night, when the lock was being particularly stubborn.
I struggled with the lock for about five minutes before announcing my defeat. I yanked the bent paper-clips forcibly from the lock - or, well, that was the plan anyway. What actually transpired was that I yanked on the paper clips and the entire lock mechanism came flying free of the cupboard, sailing gracefully over my shoulder amidst a spray of pins and springs. The two co-workers who bore witness to the event assured me, between gales of laughter, that my handiwork would likely not go unnoticed when the next shift showed up in a few hours.
Amazingly enough I managed to find all of the parts for the lock, but the pins were all different lengths, and there was no indication as to which pin went where. After some debate I finally put them in at random and reassembled the lock mechanism. I assume that I must have either lucked them into the right order, or at least close enough for the key to work with a bit of jiggling because I never heard another thing about it.
Come to think of it, I never heard anything about the "throwing star through a wall" incident either - but that's a story for another time.
