My current favorite tech support call

So sorry it has been ages since I posted last. December madness hit but is now over.

Today was my first day back at work since heading to VT on the 20th. I walked in to our big drug storage carousel [a huge ferris wheel looking like thing that houses all of our drugs] missing its front panels. Apparently it had stopped working shortly before I arrived.

The pharmacist on duty had already done the troubleshooting list, placed a call into the tech support guys and had moved onto figuring out how to manually move the shelves. He was kneeling on the floor, drill in hand wondering what to do. I had never done it but had looked through the downtime binder before 'just in case.' I knew there was pictures of what it should look like. I found that page and started explaining to the other pharmacist what needed to be done. Finally had to resort to "Put down the drill! Stop being a boy and listen to directions!" Geesh.

Anyway, it didn't work. The drill wouldn't advance the crank. So we tried the hand crank and while it moves a tiny bit that wasn't practical.

Finally the tech guy called back. He walked the other pharmacist through a bunch of troubleshooting [mostly crap we had already done per our manual from the company] and then all of a sudden the guy says 'Can you find a blue box on the front electronics panel? Yes? Great. Hit it.'

Um, hit it?????

Yup. Wack it with the base of the drill a few times.

Voila. A working machine.

Apparently, there is something mechanical inside this mystery blue box that 'gets stuck sometimes.' And by playing wack-a-mole with a hugely expensive machine we knocked it loose. There was an upgrade to a new blue box but we seemed to have "fallen through the crack" and we will be put on the list for a new one.

Isn't that lovely?

PS: Last week the union and Kaleida agreed to a contract. It still needs to be ratified but is likely to pass.