That one sound you never want to hear...

[PCGameGuy]

Heh. This from my fellow employees

'When working in the switch (cellular switching office), the one sound you never want to hear is PCGameGuy saying 'shit' very quietly'

We have had a few major system issues in the dozen years I've been here, and my response to any emergency is to lose all semblance of humanity and go into troubleshooting mode. My co-workers find this scary and amusing. Scary at the time, and incredibly funny later after the fire is out.

[cinema guy]

When you're running a theatre projection booth, the one sound you never want to hear is "beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep"

That was exactly what I was going to say. Fortunately, I'm still training and haven't had to run projection on my own.

[Acolyte]

Worst thing you ever want to hear working as a computer tech:
'Shit, what does that screen mean?'

Worst thing you ever want to hear working in a gaming store:
'No, the (Box containing highly-anticipated game) got bumped.'

[MystyGlyttyr]

When working at a newspaper office, the one sound you don't want to hear is an obviously intoxicated person saying "I's gots a shtory." Because it's pretty much a guarantee that the next half hour of your life is going to be a waste.

(This one happens here, heh.) When working ANYWHERE, the one sound you don't want to hear is your technical support guy, back in his office, swearing at the top of his lungs and breaking things. That's a bad sign.

And one from last night...when in the bathroom of a Wal-Mart, the one sound you don't want to hear is a person in the next stall going "Ewwww. Squishy."

[draftermatt]

'When working in the office of a concrete plant, the one sound you never want to hear is "BOOM" followed by running and office doors flying open.

This means a piece of concrete (weighing in around 2 tons) has been dropped, and someone was hurt.

[Dark-Star]

That kid deserves a spanking, not repayment for his **** Heelies! Parents these days...

Ok. My own entry. Granted it's my dad that did this but I was quite close enough to hear the results.
---
When working in construction, the sound you never want to hear is KARSH-SSS-SSZZZ-SSS-SZZZZ!

This means that after rewiring all the lights in a circuit but one, you turn on the power so your family can use them. Forgetting that the last one had bare wires hanging in it. And when the hot and neutral ones touched....!

Circuit breaker tripped, no fire, no permanent damage. But lesson well learned!

[NotSoInnocent]

When "working" at home in the capacity of "Omnipotent and omnipresent demi-Diety" (AKA "Mother") the one sound you do not want to hear (especially if you've just started to wash your hair for the first time in a week) is "GIVE THAT BACK!!!" followed by arguing.

Or, if working at a doctor's office as the on-call nurse, the one sound you do not want to hear is an experienced, usually calm mother saying "OH MY GOD, THE OLDEST TWO JUST FED THE FOUR MONTH OLD HALF OF AN ECONOMY SIZED JAR OF PEANUT BUTTER!!!!" while , in the background, you can hear the oldest kid saying "But she was hungry! We wanted to help!"

It's funny, now... but, seriously? They thought it was a good idea to feed the baby peanut butter??? *sighs* My kids, sometimes...

Good news... Nothing serious happened. The little one just had a serious case of constipation for a while. She's now a healthy 2-year old.

[gunsage]

I thought the one sound (well, two) you never wanted to hear at work was the sound of a bathroom door slamming open and a woman shouting at the top of her lungs "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE OUT OF TAMPONS!!!"

[Princess-Snake]

While working in the grocery store, the sound you do not want to hear is CRASH tinkle tinkle sploosh Clean up in Aisle 6. Nor do you want a customer coming up to you and say, "Ummm... I think there's something wrong with your toilet. It's overflowing and the water won't go down."

While waiting in the ER while you're waiting for a room, the sound you do not want to hear is your roomate's heart moniter going Beep Beep Beep BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. This will cause an announcement to go Code Red in Room 13. Over again for five minutes straight while the room is swamped with nurses. Another one is this conversation between doctor and nurse:
Doctor: Did you give Patient A in room 3 her medication?
Nurse: Wait, Patient A is in room 3? I thought she was in room 8.
Doctor: No. That's Patient B.
Nurse: ....
Doctor: ....
Both run off to I assume Patient B.

[Lingering Grin]

When working as a game tester late in the project, just as the game is about to be sent out the door for good... the one sound you don't want to here is

"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hh"

That's the sounds a playstation 2 makes when it crashes, and when you're that late in a project, that sound means you're 8 hour shift just turned into a 24 hour shift.

If you're dealing with newer consoles (which don't make that sound), the one thing you don't want to her is a co-worker yelling "SON OF A BITCH!!!". Because it means the same thing lol.

[bean]

Tell me mother dearest got to speak with management.. and loss prevention.

I hate those damn heelys more than anything else right now, I'm amazed nobody has been hurt in my store from them.

But the sound we hate hearing in my store is...

*vroom* (sound of propane powered floor buffer) followed by CRASH SPLASH SPLASH tinkle tinkle and a lot of cussing in Spanish.

Yes, the janitor just ran the buffer into a huge display.. full of Crazy Water (no I didn't design the site) in glass bottles (don't ask me what's so special about it, but it's $4 per bottle if you get the glass bottles). We never did figure out exactly how many bottles got broken, but over 200 were on the display and something like half actually survived.

For some strange reason, we no longer set up expensive free standing displays.

Though the look on his face when I poked my head around the corner was priceless - imagine a 5 year old that's just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and combine that with someone that's positive he's just lost his job. For the record, he still has his job, and we figured the embarrassment of every employee in the store running to see what broke was punishment enough. Our profit margin on that stuff is actually pretty low too.

[saint]

When working in a kitchen the last sound you want to hear is *thunk**snap**glug**" AW FUCK" *
That would be the sound of a 10gallon bucket of pancake mix falling off the shelf, the lid coming off, and contents all over the floor. Mingled with the cooks cursing.
That stuff got EVERYWHERE.

[Naaman]

When working in a kitchen the last sound you want to hear is *thunk**snap**glug**" AW FUCK" *
That would be the sound of a 10gallon bucket of pancake mix falling off the shelf, the lid coming off, and contents all over the floor. Mingled with the cooks cursing.
That stuff got EVERYWHERE.

For me it was always the '*glug* *glug* *splash*....KITTY LITTER!!' of "I've just cleaned the fryer and am pouring the filtered oil back in but have forgotten to close the draining tap....

[Gurndigarn]

Fill in the blanks:


When working in ____________________ the one sound you never want to hear is: __________________.

When working with coin-operated amusement devices, there are too damn many sounds that you don't want to hear to name them all. "Bzzzzzzzzzz..." is a particularly nasty one. So is "tikka tikka tikka". And "Wwwwrrrrrbbbbbb..."

Particularly annoying, though, is "hey, I've got a problem with this game..."

The good sound, though, is the high-pinched tink of silver.

[Reyneth]

When working in a __photo lab__ the one sound you don't want to hear is __click click click__

Thats the sound of the negative processing machine jamming up. Paper jams were easy to deal with, clear the jam and reprint the pictures. When the negative machine jams up, however, you can pretty much kiss the customers precious photos buh-bye. (unless you have a lot of luck and mad ninja skills)

Oh God, I still hear that in my nightmares. Luckily, it was rare - but the one time was when *MY* negs were in there. It wasn't jammed yet, but there was something wrong, and I knew it - but my assmunch manager ignored my intuition and put another two rolls in. So instead of losing 2 rolls of photos I couldn't re-create, I lost 4! Or maybe it was even 6, I don't remember.


I don't really know about sounds in my job. I hate the "outgoing phone call connected" beep but since we hear that 35-125 times/day, it's not really an error. I just hate it.

The joke for me is that I'm the "canary in the mine shaft" when it comes to computer and program issues. I'm always the first to develop/notice the glitches. And I've had 3 - count 'em 3! - towers in the 9 months I've been there. Our one desktop support guy and I have a joke that if the problem's coming from my department, he's surprised when it's not my name on the ticket!