I was on the team at the Fire Department when we moved to a new station, and we had these big Unix workstations for 911 on the 3rd floor. The UPS systems hated the generators , and everyone pointed fingers. The power output was unstable enough that the UPS system would ignore the input, and we spent about 400k just getting all that stuff sorted out. I lost a lot of hair. I was the 'compliance officer', to make sure we met all codes, like 3 locked doors between outside and the 911 dispatch centre, and ergonomics, locations of the facility, etc.

I did lose one HUGE battle. Every Fire and Building Code mandated the entire structure have sprinklers, the Chief gave into the all female 911 staff including the divisional Chief Communications Officer, because the sprinklers would electrocute them all. Despite demonstrations that say only 1 head goes off at a time, the spray is fine, you will be ok, and if there is a fire you all move to locations 2 and 3 as backups, they never put the sprinklers in that area. They threatened I had to sign off, I refused, and put notes in the files at City Hall. Stubborn SOB that I am.

Of course my lawyer has a file cabinet of stuff I got overruled on, no one is going to sue my pale butt over stuff the mayor or Fire Chief tried to make me agree to.

John Conley
Musica est vita