When a Palm Pilot

February 11, 2002 11:44 PM

When a Palm Pilot is mixed with an oven pilot light, you know it's going to be an awful mess. But if the Pizza was good, it was all worth it.
posted by h0ney (6 comments total)

no, no, it was stick your head in the oven with the pilot light off...
posted by victors at 12:57 AM on February 12, 2002

I'd guess they made up the "our stupid BOFH exec" story because it sounded cooler than "we wanted to see what would happen if you melted it."
posted by droob at 4:08 AM on February 12, 2002

This is why most IT departments have such a bad reputation as being condescending and nitpicky. The exec actually did the right thing -- you DO put stuff like that in the oven with just the pilot light on. It dries it well without harming it.

It's the exec's stupid KID (or whomever) who cooked the Pizza in the oven without seeing the Palm in there. And nobody in the forum seems to be mentioning that.

And yes, I'm in an IT department. Of course, I don't do support, because I'd never want to be associated with those weasels... :)
posted by fnirt at 7:14 AM on February 12, 2002

pleeeease..... there are people in the world that deserve my compassion -- a cretin who washes his cell phone down a drain, soaks his palm, allows it to be melted in a pizza (btw, did you buy that shit??) then tries to leech off support deserves his fare share of abuse. In fact here it comes now: Oh, those poor, poor talentless, skill-less, waste-of-space, mid-management fuck-ups, they contribute so much to our society and yet are so abused by the mean, evil IT people. are you smiling?
posted by victors at 9:35 AM on February 12, 2002

Lesson learned: when using a device for a purpose other than for what it was intended and you are going to leave it unattended: label it clearly.

For example, if food is evidence at a police station it is usually labeled "Evidence! Do not eat!" In this case, if the water didn't cause a short due to batteries/capacitors, drying it in the oven is perfect, but leaving it there with no label is dim-witted.

FYI, computer circuitry, post soldering, is run through a machine which is little more than an industrial dishwasher. Water on an unpowered circuit is no big deal if dried completely and in a reasonably short time.
posted by plinth at 11:42 AM on February 12, 2002

The Palm Graveyard has a wide variety of similar stories, most accompanied by photographs.

On a side note, my Visor Prism died last month when the connector used to Hotsync and charge it in the cradle inexplicably detached from the main circuitboard, leaving it unsyncable and unrechargable. Sad day, that.
posted by Danelope at 1:34 PM on February 12, 2002