Old War Stories With Uncle Jay - "Camera Displays"
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Originally recorded October 5, 2024.
The camera displays at Tiny Middle were atrocious to say the least. Oh sure they were there and the cameras were on display all right, but the implementation of the alarm was ridiculous. You must remember that at the time, this was pretty new stuff, digital cameras were just starting to catch on and then were in full swing. Same with digital video cameras, some recording on miniature DVDs, some on MiniDV tape, and then later ones that record directly to SD cards.
For the still cameras, they had this crazy system that was always on a hair-trigger. The camera alarms were CONSTANTLY going off, and oftentimes I had to excuse myself from a customer to go reset it. To make matters worse, the overbearing manager we had at the time (who later got FIRED!) wanted to purchase the extra-loud alarm from the company, but we put the kabash on that real quick. In fact, another coworker threatened to call OSHA because he claimed (which was all BS) that the alarm was damaging his hearing. So I brought in the trusty Fran-O-Meter and we set the alarm off (not hard to do), and the manager had to keep putting layers of tape over the speaker to quiet the alarm to acceptable levels.
One time, they wanted me to change out the video cameras. Well, whoever put this thing together used screws that were just barely too long, so the points of the screws just stuck through the wood to the underside. As soon as you put your hands in there, they'd get scratched up and you'd start bleeding. So I stopped work and spoke to the manager and demanded gloves since it's dangerous. They complied, they sent someone to Home Depot nearby to get gloves.
Then there was the other time when the multivoltage power adapter almost caught fire. In retrospect, it was very foolish of me to unplug that, I should have left it and let it set the building on fire. Teach them a lesson. Somehow, the adapter I suppose had a short circuit, and didn't have any sort of safety mechanism in place (or it failed) and as such, some component got hot. REAL HOT. Hot enough to melt a hole through the plastic, and there was a fine smoke coming out of it. I was too young and naive to know better than to leave it, or to save the day and then go to the president of the company with my findings. I'd be willing to bet that even if they let me speak to him, the most they would have done was bought me lunch. And I find that funny, because we had a training we were forced to do as a lot of companies have now, and in that training, it said "Employee satisfaction precedes customer satisfaction". Apparently they don't practice what they preach.
Related videos:
Old War Stories With Uncle Jay - "Hunting For Open Windows"
• Old War Stories With U...
Velleman Analog Sound (Decibel) Meter
• Velleman Analog Sound ...
Analog Vs. Digital Decibel Meters--Analog Says So Much More
• Analog Vs. Digital Dec...
Decibel Meters, Round 2 - Velleman AVM2050 Analog Vs. TopTes TS-501B Digital
• Decibel Meters, Round ...
We had those peel and stick alarm thingies at Staples and they were always going off on their own. I think they tried to reuse them without replacing the sticky part and over time they would become unstuck just enough to activate the micro switch and set the alarm off. So then a manager would have to come over with the key because the alarm box that all these things were plugged into was in a locked cabinet under the display. They'd go through all the things attached to the alarm and try to re-stick them down so they could reset the alarm. I don't know if they were just cheap or if they had simply run out of the replacement sticky things but at times one of these little square things wouldn't stick enough anymore so the manager would go through a box of them looking for one that had enough stick left to reuse. I think they had them on the display cell phones amongst other things so they were always being picked up and because the sticky stuff was mostly worn out the alarms went off all the time and if the manager on duty was with a customer it would continue to go off until they were free. I do seem to remember them having replacement sticky things at times so I assume someone would use them up and not tell anyone so they didn't get reordered and the store would run out.
We had an abundance of those sticky things. In fact I even have some I commandeered and took home. Just about certain the idea was never to reuse them. Laptops had (and I don't know if the pieces of crap they sell today still do) a Kensington Lock port. Kensington used to sell cables that would lock the computer to a desk. Laptop manufacturers got real cheap about it and if you jerked it hard enough you could break the thing right out; back in the day it actually was reinforced. They also had them for desktops that used a super-sticky adhesive that pretty much didn't come off. But getting back to laptops, I know for a while, Best Buy had these metal lock cages for laptops, it was like a metal cover that bolted to the display that the laptop was placed in. Customers could beat up the laptop all they wanted but could not remove it from the case.
The best theft deterrent cost the most money. You'd have a dummy unit on display, but an actual display unit as well. If a customer wanted to try it out, they'd see a salesman. Sure they could grab it and run but would have to make it past security, if they had that. Jewelry stores have automatic locking doors to limit access and prevent a customer from walking out, but it won't stop them from having a gun in which case it could simply be game over.
I'm going to guess, you got a nice fat raise for repairing that display case (sarcasm) ?! I bet you only got assigned even more work, though.
Of course I got a nice fat raise for repairing the display case. Nah, this is just the introduction to the opposites!
_The only reward for hard work is more hoard work._ Anytime that guy needed anything fixed, he came to me. Did I ever get any perks/benefits/preferential treatment? Nope! That's the Tiny Middle way!