In my last posting, I mentioned a manager who blamed an employee because his new embedded computer malfunctioned and died. She was quick to blame the employee, on the grounds that the computer was new and he was the only one using it.

I'm just flabbergasted that any manager would think that new computers don't fail unless the user messes them up. Heck, any technician can tell you that if a computer's going to fail, it will typically do so within its first few days of use! That's when the computer gets put through its paces, thus allow it to be tested under a variety of conditions. Factory testing is very limited in what it can do, and it's simply no substitute for on-site use.

This is the kind of story that one expects to read about in the comic strips, rather than hear about them in real life.