Oh deary, deary me

For this to really work, I'll need to give you some background information on my workplace:

Contrary to popular belief, movie tickets do not just magically appear. Nor do they appear from magical, shiny computers made within the last decade. Where their conception actually takes place is under a bench* from three pieces of technology, all from different eras, but all with a general "oldness" about them. There's the screen, the hard drive** and the printer.

The hard drive is not in its prime. If it had a personality it would be a bald man whose comb-over doesn't quite reach the other side and who wears brown, polyester blend cardigans.*** Nonetheless, it's an important bit of equipment. It is, in fact, the most important bit of equipment we have (besides the projectors) and so you would think we'd take good care of it.

We do not.

But I hadn't realised the extent of our neglect until today. I needed to move the hard drive forward bit to fix up the cords at the back. But it seemed to be stuck... how odd. I got one of the guys to help me because they are both naturally strong and good with computers****. But he couldn't movie it either.

Finally we dislodged poor Mr Hard-drive and found out what the problem was... coke syrup.

The most important (albeit personality deprived) piece of equipment there had been fused to its shelf with coke syrup! And this was old syrup too, I could tell by the smell.

Is there something in the Oc Health Safety guidelines about mixing computers with liquid? Especially sticky liquid.

* Which is held together by blue-tack and sheer will power from Head Office because they're too cheap to give us a new bench.
** I'm fairly sure it's a hard drive. But we tend to refer to it as "the computery thing".
*** So, ironically enough, if it had a personality it would also have no personality.
**** Not as much of a stereotype as you might think because that statement is pretty much true for all the male employees I work with. I wonder if it's been planned that way...