It’s back 40 years ago, and this pilot fish is working in the repair department of a company that manufactures microwave transmitting equipment for the telecom industry. (But it’s 40 years ago, so you all should know who uses this stuff.)

One bright morning, fish has a transmitter board in a jig so he can test it, and no matter what he does, the readings aren’t coming out right. Fish opens the jig to see if there’s a problem, and finds that one of the wires going to the power supply is just barely hanging on by a thread. He sees evidence of arcing that would explain why the readings are messed up.

Confident that the tech assisting him has thrown the circuit breaker, fish reaches in to tighten the connection.

Bad assumption. The jig goes POW! Fish gets a shock. But the guy at the station behind him yelps like he’s mortally wounded.

The board that guy is working on puts out about 30,000 volts. Made him a bit jumpy, apparently, because when he heard that pow, he thought he was a dead man.

Sharky’s a bit jumpy himself. You can help calm me down with your true tales of IT life. Send them to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter.