'Acts of war in a combat zone are not covered by your laptop warranty' ON-CALL Welcome again to On-Call, our end-of-week waltz through readers' memories of odd jobs they've been asked to do. This week, reader “Jackson” shared the story of his time working for a very large and old three-letter-company, where he was part of a ““IT service consolidation” project that meant his client's employees …
Actually, they have. I was personally present for one such call from a joint EOD (explosive Ordinance Disposal) team member who was having computer problems while attempting to disarm an IED.
As the IASO for their network, I helped out with part of his issue, as I had blocked that terminal, as it was infected with malware and shooting data to China as quickly as it was shooting data to the DoD.
I unblocked it, killed the malware, reinitialized all network services and he was back in business - while he was under fire.
We also decided that we needed to fine tune procedures for infected computers that were downrange, on the other end of a satellite fly away kit.
Brought back some memories though, I have hearing loss from an IED explosion, so taking care of those guys had a special priority to me.
As a former serving infantry grunt (first gulf & bosnia only, QRL recce 102striker commander) I can assure you that gunfire and large calibre guns going off is fairly normal and the sound does carry over flat areas. You get immune to noises quite quickly as you realise that life goes on, you are no longer on duty and you need to deal with your normal every day things. Unless you are under contact (in which case the only people you are talking/listening to is your platoon net on your left ear and company net on your right ear) then believe you me you start to do things people wouldn't believe - because you only have 4 hours off and need sleep too.
Ive seen church masses taking place in the open whilst arty is firing away in the background, people playing basketball whilst mortars land 1km away, ive slept in countless places with allsorts happening (I did call home once to assure the girlfriend I wasn't dead but it only made things worse as SHE thought the "normal" noise in the background was worse than it was). So whilst the geezer on the line might not have ACTUALLY been under contact, it isn't surprising that to an average joe listening to the sounds of an active zone might think they were.
Taking tongue briefly out of cheek, I'd say Dell, Panasonic and Getac would ... they make the super heavy duty laptops for military and far off the beaten track use.
You'd probably still need to spring for the very special extended warranty though, I'd expect the extra price you pay would cover the costs of a complete replacement of the laptop in 1-2 years.
... all those who work under more difficult conditions than me...
I have no long term job prospect, actually must leave my current workplace after 4 years max due to labour laws, live in a different country than my wife and kid, but at least nobody is blowing up my computers or tools or shooting at me.
Heh, after retiring from the US Army, I took a contracting job with the US DoD in Qatar.
A place where pretty much nothing happens. One day, while waiting my turn in the line to security vehicle search, I heard a dozen shots ring out and a very familiar whizzing sound of a tumbling round, which passed between my chest and steering wheel, to impact the passenger side floor.
Apparently, someone had recently purchased a handgun at the new gun shop in the mall, which had opened earlier that month and decided to fire at the desert from the industrial area.
Needless to say, I rapidly exited my vehicle, placed one of the concrete barriers between me and the incoming random fire and waited for him to run out of ammunition, which was rather quickly, reported the incident to security, who notified host nation, who then sent some agents to have a little chat with the gentleman. He was quite taken aback, as he didn't realize that he was firing in the direction of a military installation and that anyone was around where the rounds were landing.
No damage was done, it was at maximum range for a handgun and the worst that I've had gotten had the round hit me was a minor bruise.
And here, I thought I was done taking incoming rounds after I had retired.
Oh well, now I'm back to a much more dangerous place, the US, where the chances of getting shot are much, much higher.
I once had a job interview at a satellite systems company in London. The interviewer explained I wasn't getting the job due to being married and having children. Something to do with the high probability of having to catch the last flight out of a country under gunfire (this had happened to the guy interviewing me, where they'd had to crash through the fence of the airport to get to the plane that was about to take off while being shot at by a rebel army).
The job was installing satellite communications into war zones for news teams.
"The interviewer explained I wasn't getting the job due to being married and having children."
I'm surprised you even reached the interview stage. Is marital status and maybe mention of having children (hobbies, interests, other stuff about you) not a standard part of a CV these days?
" the guy was sitting next to a TV playing a war film"
Would that really work though given that the address to send the replacement laptop would completely give away the game...? Unless you're sitting next to a TV playing a war film IN a war zone, in which case I'd say you've earned it anyway...
Never had my stuff blown up by an insurgency, either. Even the most mind-blowing exception to my daily routine pales in comparison, so absolutely raising a glass to my brethren in these hell-holes: you are far better men than I.
Now, someone out there has this recording. I suspect this someone reads The Reg. I suspect even further this someone can accidentally leak this recording... for the benefit of the entire IT world.
Lastly, if anyone will double-check their accidental damage coverage and other property insurance I am certain you will find these all exclude damages and losses caused by civil uprising. While not a war zone, anyone caught up in riots or protests-run-amok will find anything damaged or destroyed is going to be out-of-pocket.
"While not a war zone, anyone caught up in riots or protests-run-amok will find anything damaged or destroyed is going to be out-of-pocket."
Yup, riots, etc, are generally excluded from insurance policies. In the UK, the police have a duty to prevent riots, and thus the damage to buildings & contents are treated as a claim against them under the the Riot (Damages) Act 1886.
A number of things that would be considered wars have been classified otherwise for insurance purposes. The Malayan Emergency was called such, rather than the war which it actually was, because of the large number of British civilan interests which were damaged. Lloyds of London won't pay out if your farm is destroyed by war, but it will if it is damaged by an emergency.
I suspect that this is why the Falklands "conflict" was monickered the way that it was in the early stages, while the initial local damage was being inflicted on the civilian population.
Not quite true. The French sold 5 Exocet missiles to Argentine BEFORE the conflict started. France cooperated with Great Britain after the conflict started to prevent Argentine acquiring more Exocets on the international arms markets and providing info on arms sold to Argentine. On the negative side a French technical team in Argentine debugged faulty Exocet launchers.
For more info see http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17256975
BTW the last sentence, in the above mentioned piece, coming from an Englishman, is rather ironical.
Kettle and pot come to mind.
theres a bit more than that........besides the handful of air-launched Exoceta, the Argies also had a number of ship-launched ones. After the Belgrano sinking, the Argentine Navy more or less refused to play, so some of their Exocets were flown to Stanley, where the French team mounted them on the backs of trucks. At least one attacked and hit a British vessel off Port Stanley, though with limited damage
As I've told my guys, back when I was wearing that military uniform, "Don't worry, our mutual rich and retarded Uncle has plenty more, warehouses full", when equipment was destroyed by enemy action.
Sure enough, a replacement showed up quite quickly and the asset written off as a constructive loss.
I dunno, support people I'd call first would have been a different type of support role.... like being airborne for example..
I'd at least wait until I wasn't being shot at before settling down to sort the warranty.
Must have really, really needed to make a new powerpoint presentation. </sarcasm>
I've done ITIL. Whatever we call it, users call it "Help Desk" and are irritated by other names.
Who thinks "HR" is better than Personnel used to be?
Nobody rings 666, or whatever, to be serviced. They want help. As for what help the caller wanted, I suspect it was somewhere between the entire Brigade of Ghurkas and perhaps 100 Tornados.
I've done ITIL. Whatever we call it, users call it "Help Desk" and are irritated by other names.
Call it Service Desk, call it Advisory, slap a fancy title on it, it's still the Help Desk to the end user, because they want "Help", not "Service".
I once got my wrists slapped for asking if that was "service" in the way that bulls "service" cows.
Maybe they took exception because someone posted a picture of bovine-on-bovine action into the e-mail thread, I don't know...
Many moons ago, we took out the optional "Accidental Damage Protection" for HP laptops. I am not entirely sure it this scenario would be covered, but I did get a replacement once for someone who actually drove over his own laptop. The cost for 3 years coverage was about 25% to 30% of the cost of the laptop. The second case where I needed it was less spectacular (user spilled water on laptop keyboard and decided to apply a hair dryer in close proximity to said plastic keyboard).
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