Things that make you feel dumb

[Perd Hapley]

Ever have your desktop refuse to start up, and you go so far as to switch monitors and check connections, before remembering you have a separate video card installed, and you have your monitor hooked up to the wrong doo-hickey? 

Posting one's Ls is very in these days, so let's see 'em.

[WLJ]

Been there done that although I figured it out without going through all that first.

[Hawkmoon]

Been there, done that.

[Brad Johnson]

Yeah, had that lesson, too.

Once spent all afternoon tracing electrical circuits only to discover a hidden power strip with the circuit breaker tripped.

Then I remembered I was the one who put it there.

Brad

[230RN]

One out of N to the Nth...

Put in new carpeting for a tenant, she complained her front door wouldn't open Got two sawhorses and special measuring equipment over there, dismounted the door, carefully measured, marked, meantime chatting with the tenant, made my precision cut, went to re-mount the door....

Had cut the quarter inch off the top of the door.  Dratshuckspoo.  Had to remount the lockplates, hinges, and brain.

One plus one out of N to the Nth:

Wanted to install an outside hosecock in the old farmhouse.  Did a great plumbing job... my father was a plumber and he'd have been proud of me.  Discovered I had hooked the hosecock to the hot water line.

Terrible when the hot water melts a cheap hose.   SsssPROOOOOSH!

Say, what's the plural of faux pas anyway?

I'm not signing this one either so nobody will know who posted it.

[RocketMan]

If I posted some of my L stories, this thread would be the longest one on the board.

[Perd Hapley]

If I posted some of my L stories, this thread would be the longest one on the board.

Well we can't have that.

[Declaration Day]

I'd have to think about all of my blunders to find one that stands out. Mostly, they involve complex mechanical assembly / re-assembly where I forgot to install a part, then had to backtrack ten or more steps to remedy my mistake.

There was this one time when I was standing at the customer service counter at a lawn and landscape machinery dealer, and I overheard a phone conversation.  Some poor bastard had brought his lawn mower in for diagnosis because it wouldn't start. The customer service rep called him and told him "Sir, there was no gas in your mower."

[Pb]

Coming late to a class you are supposed to teach, and seeing students standing in the hall waiting for you will do it.

[Ben]

I'd have to think about all of my blunders to find one that stands out. Mostly, they involve complex mechanical assembly / re-assembly where I forgot to install a part, then had to backtrack ten or more steps to remedy my mistake.

There was this one time when I was standing at the customer service counter at a lawn and landscape machinery dealer, and I overheard a phone conversation.  Some poor bastard had brought his lawn mower in for diagnosis because it wouldn't start. The customer service rep called him and told him "Sir, there was no gas in your mower."

I could start a long list myself, but both the above things are part of my repertoire.

More times than I can count, I have assembled something to like 90% completion only to find that I installed something backwards or whatever. This after (what I thought was) thoroughly reading the instructions. Also pretty much every season when I restart the small engine stuff which was winterized by running gas out of the carb and shutting off the fuel, I will tug on the start cord for like 15 minutes, cussing like a sailor. I will play with the choke, check fuel, and pull and check the spark plug and continue to get no joy.  Only much later will I see that I forgot to turn the gas lever back to "on". I repeat this every year.

[Ron]

In the service world I inhabit we're often under pressure to work quick due to service call volume.

Being apart of the assemble, realize I forgot something, disassemble and reassemble again club is a club I'm trying to quit. It's especially annoying when I have a helper/trainee along with me. I have slowed down due being aware of the tendency, that and being old doing a young mans game. Slowing down has pretty much brought my "call back" service calls drop to effectively zero. 

My whole life has been a life of experiencing existential crises due to my previous stupidity and pig headedness, rinse and repeat ...  ha ha ha.

I think that is where the "if I only knew back then what I know now" saying comes from. That of course assumes that I wouldn't have been stupid even with better information, and that is a big assumption upon reflection.

[HankB]

Back when I was still working I had a need to measure the profile of a laser - I was using a "beam scan" instrument and was getting unexpected results - the beam didn't have the expected elliptical profile. It took me about 10 or 15 minutes to realize that the mechanical scan head had to have the scan axes aligned with the axes of the ellipse in order to yield the correct results. I mentally kicked myself for making such a rookie oversight, but happy nobody else knew.

Fast forward a couple of weeks - a colleague came to me in desperation - she was trying to demo her project to a couple of high-level folks from corporate (I knew them, they weren't THAT high.  ) and she was getting results she didn't expect, and could I help?

So I went over, the three of them had been working for over an hour on the system with no luck. I immediately saw they'd done the same thing I did, tried to use the scan head rotated out of the correct position. I didn't say anything, just had them demo what they were doing. Then - after turning off the laser, I reached in with one hand and very casually rotated the scanner 1/8 turn. "There you go" . . . and when they turned it back on - sonuvagun, success!

They didn't let me leave until I explained - in detail - what was initially wrong. Impressed the hell out of them - seeing and fixing the problem with one glance - especially since I somehow forgot to mention I'd had the same problem myself.   

[grampster]

My nemesis is tightening that nut just one more little half turn...especially when installing a porcelain toilet.  230RN's problems with upside down doors has infested me a time or two.  Trying to thread a bolt onto a battery connection doesn't work so very good when after 15 minutes of sweat and cursing one finds out the bolt did not have any threads.

[MechAg94]

That is one thing I had to learn with guns.  You only need so much torque to call it tight.  You can put too much by hand.  I think I broke the bolt on an M14 scope mount from Fulton.  And of course the instructions warned you and suggested a torque wrench (which I have now).

[MechAg94]

We had a problem last week on the 26th.  One of the screens went dark at work.  The process kept running, but the operator couldn't see it.  That screen goes through a KVM extender (across fiber).  I spent too much time troubleshooting that.  Finally realized the Display port to DVI adapter on the computer side had chewed wires.  Spent the rest of the day finding who had that adapter locally.  Had to drive into Houston to find it (Microcenter since Fry's is no longer around). 

I put out mouse traps also. 

[WLJ]

We had a problem last week on the 26th.  One of the screens went dark at work.  The process kept running, but the operator couldn't see it.  That screen goes through a KVM extender (across fiber).  I spent too much time troubleshooting that.  Finally realized the Display port to DVI adapter on the computer side had chewed wires.  Spent the rest of the day finding who had that adapter locally.  Had to drive into Houston to find it (Microcenter since Fry's is no longer around). 

I put out mouse traps also.

Would have help desk calls all the time for a bad monitor many of which were magically fixed by pressing the power button on the monitor and/or the computer.
Some were fixed by plugging them back in because the user had unplugged one or both so that they could plug in their heater, curling iron, or something similar

[Brad Johnson]

Some were fixed by plugging them back in because the user had unplugged one or both so that they could plug in their heater, curling iron, or something similar

My life during winter months is recurring circuit breaker resets and "educational opportunities" for students who are dumfounded you can't plug your coffee pot, microwave, computer, laser printer, and space heater into the same power strip.

Brad

[WLJ]

My life during winter months is recurring circuit breaker resets and "educational opportunities" for students who are dumfounded you can't plug your coffee pot, microwave, computer, laser printer, and space heater into the same power strip.

Brad

That too 

[lee n. field]

My life during winter months is recurring circuit breaker resets and "educational opportunities" for students who are dumfounded you can't plug your coffee pot, microwave, computer, laser printer, and space heater into the same power strip.

Brad

Here at work it's the wimmins up front, with their heaters.  I know because the breaker box is behind me in my shop.  Always the same one that pops.

[MechAg94]

It is always nice to know which electrical outlets are on which circuit. 
We had to move our operators into a temporary trailer some years back.  We were forced to run extension cords to the other side of the trailer to bring over power from a different circuit.  We thankfully had enough to run all the monitors and such.

[Declaration Day]

My life during winter months is recurring circuit breaker resets and "educational opportunities" for students who are dumfounded you can't plug your coffee pot, microwave, computer, laser printer, and space heater into the same power strip.

Brad

I don't expect everybody to be a master electrician, but it's dumbfounding how so many people have virtually no understanding of current draw.

I've been an auto mechanic on the side for 30 years, and have lost count of the number of times I've had someone contact me to tell me their car won't start and, when I ask if their battery is low / dead, they say "no, my dash lights come on."  Sigh... that deer in the headlights look I get when I explain that it takes a LOT more current to crank an engine over than it does to illuminate tiny light bulbs...

[MechAg94]

I was thinking it might be that so many people pay others to any sort of repair.  However, I am also just thinking this is the online generation who have had phone/computer screens in front of them since they were babies.  How many of them ever had any quiet time to think and become curious about things around them....  Or just had someone in their life who was around to teach them how normal every day stuff worked. 

[Brad Johnson]

...it's dumbfounding how so many people have virtually no understanding of current draw.

Oh, there are more stories. Many, many more. Don't even get me started on heater/stirrers...

Brad

[HankB]

Oh, there are more stories. Many, many more. Don't even get me started on heater/stirrers...

Brad

I like the people who think getting more outlets to plug stuff into is as simple as plugging power strips into other power strips.

[Perd Hapley]

My wife had this bread-maker that she liked to leave running while she would leave the house to go do something else. It would sit silently most of the time, but occasionally "knead" the dough. There were a couple of times I went all over the house trying to figure out what the noise was.