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Subject: Not Quite "Favourite Error Messages"
Message-ID: <3683@male.EBay.Sun.COM>
From: gaijin@ale.uucp (John Little - Nihon Sun Repair Depot)
Date: 26 Oct 90 04:21:53 GMT
Sender: news@male.EBay.Sun.COM
References: <6703@castle.ed.ac.uk> <2355@charon.cwi.nl> <1990Oct22.074251.3216@research.canon.oz.au> <1990Oct23.181838.5779@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Organization: Atsugi Institute For The Criminally Work-Shy
Summary: Hardware, Codes, Field service
Lines: 28

punch@pleiades.cps.msu.edu (Bill Punch) writes:
% 
% Can't remember if I posted this before, but some great error messages
% came off a Xerox 1108 (Lisp machine). The front panel gave all the error
% codes, you looked them up in a book. The lab favorite
% 
% 		"Burdock tried to access the EtherKludge"
% 

   Not quite on the same string, but I once worked in field service for  a
   (fairly   large)   computer   company    in   England   who   used    a
   `prefix-code-suffix' numbering  system for  closing  calls off  on  the
   in-house database.  The normal  thing was for the  F/E to call in  from
   the customer's site and just  read off a string  of these codes to  the
   call-control folks back  in H.Q..   Being a  normal panic-driven  field
   operation the contents of the database were largely ignored other  than
   the all-important "closed" flag.  Finally,  when one of the keen  young
   managerial types decided that he'd run off some stats' he noticed  that
   a large number of calls  were closed with a  certain code sequence.   A
   short while later  an edict was  issued to the  field lackeys...   Thou
   shalt -not- close calls with:-

		"Customer Lubricated: Problem Disappeared"

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 |   John Little - gaijin@Japan.Sun.COM  |  Sun Microsystems. Atsugi, Japan  |
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              - A fool must now and then be right by chance -