:: Jules' Blog ::

:: Sunday, June 22, 2003 ::

"I didn't do it nobody saw me do it you can't prove anything!" (Bart Simpson)

Except in this case, I really didn't do it! Trundled to work this morning, as sprightly as you'd expect me to be at 8:30am on a Sunday, and waited outside until someone else turned up to let me in. I'd been left loads of films to do from yesterday, which I didn't mind too much. Switched on all the machines and settled in for a quiet day of film processing. Ha! All was going well until about midday when I noticed that some photos were coming up rather blue on the screen. "Ah well" thought I, and whacked up the red to compensate. Most were fine, I'd just get the odd one that would be weird colours.

Then I started getting a message telling me "Splicing tape incompatible, replace tape". Er - but I never leave any splicing tape on the negatives - you're talking bollocks, Mr. Computer! (And it blatently is a Mr. computer - a woman would never give me quite so much grief as this one does). The only way, it seemed, that I could get around this message was to take the film out, turn it round and put it in the other way. A few blue-tinted films later I decided to plot the graphs which should be done every day to make sure the machines are working correctly. The processor was off the scale! "Oops" thought I, and switched off the hour service. I guessed that something must be wrong with the chemicals in the machine, and I've never been trained to drain those, so I went off to lunch.

When I came back I found Security Guard Steve poking around the machine. "Ooh - I don't think it's meant to be that colour" said he. And he was right. You can see how full/empty the chemicals are because there are clear bars on the side of the machine. The one which has the developer (N2R) in it and should be green - was bright orange! "Someone's put the wrong chemicals in haven't they" I concluded. Steve confirmed that they were very busy last night and that both the N2R and N3R levels were very low last time he'd looked. I'd filled up N3R that morning, so we guessed that whoever had filled up the N2R tank, had used N3R chemicals, hence the orangy contamination and resulting blueness of photos. The culprit (who shall remain nameless - mainly 'cos none of you know who s/he is) won't be in again until next Saturday and will no doubt have conveniently forgotton whether the tank was filled up yesterday evening. Anyway - a quick call to Danny (who was still in bed at 3pm dammit!) gave us instructions on how to drain and decontaminate the tank. Which we did. By then it was time to close down anyway.

Why does everything seem to go wrong whenever I step foot in that place? It's not that I break it, it's just that it happens to break when I'm there! (honest guv!). so far, the air conditioning unit's exploded, the processing lamp's broken (which I had to fix without knowing how), last time I was there the APS unit just stopped working altogether as soon as I got my grubby little hands on it, this week the chemicals have been contaminated...I'm sure there are more. I reckon it's got something to do with static. Everything I touch seems to give me a static shock - and I'm sure that can't do electical things very much good. God forbid they ever let me near a £40,000 camera at the Beeb!

Speaking of the Beeb...I've got a new job - woo! I start there tomorrow - yeah! I'm getting paid loads - yippee! I'm gonna meet S Club 8 - er!...you get the idea...

:: Jules 5:10 PM [+] ::
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