"I was working for the European branch of a large US-based engineering company, mainly providing development consultancy, though we had a few products we sold on the side," Finn told On Call.

I guess Finn was in Scandinavia

Just for your edification, Finland is not part of Scandinavia. Nordic, yes. Scandinavian, not so much.

Ta

That is a bold statement ;-)

No doubt, Norway and Sweden are part of it, and so is Denmark. If you consider the Scandinavian Peninsula, parts of Finland belongs to that as well; Denmark doesn't. And sometimes Iceland and, I believe, Faroe Islands are also considered Scandinavian... So, let's fight over what is Scandinavian and what isn't!

Mind you, I do not disagree with your statement.

I heard FInland's navy all have barcodes on them.

That's how it Scandinavian...

Sigh.

Funnily enough; the name "Finn" is a more common in Denmark, Norway and Sweden than it is in Finland.

I used to work for a large south korean company.

My boss had to visit hq. He took his company supplied laptop. He was not allowed to take it onsite. A package designer knew of there habit and took his presentation on paper/acetate.

The security was airport style.

As lax as that?

I remember the days when I worked at a major airport hub. We used to drive across (well, more under) the airport using the multiple rabbit-warrens that existed. Until security go SO BAD that it was easier to drive around the airport perimeter than it was to drive in a straight(ish) line across the airport.

"While you're here ... "

"No."

I don't even let them finish the thought. I'm there for what's on the contract. Nothing else. I'm far too old to be playing that kind of no-win game.

For me it depends on the request and the time available. But it always involves more money.

A bit of adaptability helps keep the client happy, which keeps the work flowing in.

Of course if they're an arsehole of a client, I'll have somewhere else I need to be so "sorry, I haven't got the time right now. Book it in and we'll do it another time"

Went to one place where you were allowed to keep your phone, but it had to be put in a sealed bag that blocked the cameras but otherwise allowed it to be used.

Trouble was, there was only one bag size and most phones were small enough that they moved about inside so that the shield (aka, bit with a black band on it) didn't block anything.

Still, security were happy, people were sensible, and work got done.

I do see an effective side of this security theater: those ineffective camera-blocking bags make sure to keep you aware that you're not supposed to take pictures. Unless they strip you naked and search for any hidden cameras, it wouldn't prevent stealing information with malicious intent anyway.

I've worked on *secure* sites, not quite so secure sites and sites where they'd heard of security but didn't think it was something they'd like.

One of the worst would lock out a PC if you plugged in as much as a USB keyboard that wasn't in the security whitelist, that caused merry havoc when the keyboard vendor revised firmware because the new versions were indistinguishable from the old ones and had to be torn apart by a security team, assessed and approved before we could use them.

(No, I don't know what software they were using to implement that level of security, yes it was always amusing to have to phone the security team to have a PC unlocked because someone on the cleaning staff had plugged in their phone to charge, no idea why they were allowed phones on site)

The security restriction was to stop you exfiltrating any information either by photograph, or by USB flash (or similar device).

Fairly basic level security - I've experienced much stricter.

Many (very many!) moons ago, I flew from the UK to the US (Texas, specifically) to babysit a machine that kept suffering an intermittent fault once in a blue moon. Towards the end of my couple of weeks there, my boss called to ask if I could call in to another customer site on the way back. In Korea.

No, that’s not some randomly named town somewhere in the US, but the actual country.

I was fairly recently married at the time and seem to recall my answer being something like “I said I wanted a career, not to go to Korea!”

He was a decent guy so understood and one of my colleagues ended up effectively doing a round-the-world trip on the company (UK - Korea - US - UK). A very small part of me almost wishes I’d said yes, if only for the air miles…

Big trouble on an important site..... Customer very angry, demanding action: Sort it in the next week or else it will become very expensive.

As the senior engineer, and most able to withstand a bullying customer, I was tasked to investigate and do whatever was necessary to get things operational again.

I need to buy a specialist analyser to view this problem: expensive and I only knew of two likely suppliers. This was on a Wednesday, so I phoned the vendors and outlined the problem and instrument I needed and most importantly, the urgency. Both were very enthusiastic. One supplier was a couple of hours away, the other a lot further and travel would involve a flight.

Vendor 1 said they would get back to me.

Vendor 2 'had someone in the area' which turned out to be several hours away but nevertheless he arrived late on Wednesday afternoon and demonstrated the kit. Recognising our situation, he said that if we placed the order with him, he would set up his demo-device there and then, we could use it on site until the new instrument arrived. A few hours later we were in possession of a device I needed to get to grips with the problem and I travelled to site Thursday to get started. Our customer was impressed (but that was easily done), tempers eased as the system came back to 'normal' operation. It was several weeks before the plant could be handed over and we needed to re-visit once or twice weekly to run our surveys and report.

Vendor 1 called me on the Friday afternoon to say they had someone available 'in the area, next week' to discuss our requirements. They were shocked to find that we had ordered and installed the instrument before they even had time to make an offer.

"in the same region"

As in the same DVD region?

I had a similar story. A project doing IT refresh across a local council's IT estate. "Top Level" had mandated all USB ports be disabled at the system level. When we got to the vehicle testing centre, with all their test equipment connected via USB, on track to completely destroy their entire operating processes, they weren't pleased.