Junior Engineer
My first proper job, junior manufacturing engineer in a local factory making bits and pieces for jet engines.

Now, cos what we made was so specialised, you can't really buy the equipment we need to make our bits. So we had to make our own.

We had a factory within a factory custom making all our machinery and fixtures and stuff with some very skilled old-school manual machinists, some of whom don't have a lot of patience with a young engineer without a lot of experience.

'Look, I've fooking told you I'm not wearing my fooking safety specs, fook off...'

Ahem.

They were very skilled men, and could do incredible work and knew all the old school tricks of the trade to make the job easier.

Which stopped the day some bright spark couldn't fit the small chuck he needed onto his lathe, as the lathe he preferred was a big model and it wouldn't fit. So, old school style, he put a big chuck on, held the small chuck in the big chuck, and then held the work he was machining in the small chuck.

This is insanely dangerous, as he discovered when he spun his machine up to 2000RPM and the small chuck flew out of the big chuck and caught him under the chin, decapitating him.

There was a lot of blood splashed, and a lot of people being sick.

Sometimes you make a mistake you don't get to learn from yourself.
(inflateable, Thu 25 Oct 2007, 23:15, 4 replies)

Fucking hell.
I'm off food for the night now, after that.

Stupidity sometimes carries a death sentence...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 25 Oct 2007, 23:40, closed)

My Great Uncle
Was a toolmaker in some factory too, he made a similar mistake (though not with a lathe, this was with a cutting tool) He used to like this particular machine and used ti for any job, big or small.
One day he tried it with some really small cutting job...and lost 3 of the fingers on his right hand. Ouch!
Still, at least he lived to realise his mistake..
(Asharin Stabby stab stab, Thu 25 Oct 2007, 23:43, closed)

Decapitated?
Bloody hell... that's the ultimate price for a mistake! That or being bum-raped to death.
( chart cat has an itch, Fri 26 Oct 2007, 7:37, closed)

Re That or being bum-raped to death.
Well you never know, he may have also been bum raped afterwards!!
(Miggyman, Sat 27 Oct 2007, 13:43, closed)