Hi Amy, This is my IT horror story and one that I have told many times. I was working for a charity as an IT helpdesk Technician, learning the ropes. I was in the role for just under a year. I was informed that in a few weeks the Charity was hosting a major meeting of top doctors and scientists in their field, Epilepsy and neurological conditions in young children. The meeting was to be held in a conference room in one of the country's state-of-the-art medical centers on-site and mediated by a professor flown in from Australia especially. The room was filled with top professionals from all over the world when I got a call: 'Hi Sean, One of the projectors in the main conference room is alerting its filter needs cleaning. Could you pop down at 11 and give it a clean as we'll be on a tea break then.' So I set off with my step ladder and canned air trying to be professional. When I reached the room the audience was mingling in the back getting teas and biscuits. I quietly set about removing the filters and dusting them out of a window. I then climbed my step ladder in the middle of the room under the projector and before replacing the filters I blew the inside of the projector with the canned air. BIG MISTAKE! The canned air meeting the hot bulb caused an implosion resulting in two fireballs and plenty of dust exiting each side of the projector in spectacular fashion if this was not enough to attract the attention of the room then the floating ceiling tiles being pushed into the roof void certainly was. As previously said this was a new building in 2010. The perfectly hung fire doors with their fluffy door edging meant the air from the blast had nowhere to go so pushed up the tiles. This was by far the most embarrassing moment of my IT career. I turned to the onlookers and said 'Well that definitely cleared the dust' Nobody was impressed. I reset the dozen or more tiles. Reset the filter status and cleared off back to the IT department. Just thankful the projector works and remained fixed to the ceiling. John (Sean) Begley PGDip, CCNP, MCITP
... View more
