Junior disobeyed orders and tried untested feature during a live robot demo
- Reference: 1774251012
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/23/who_me/
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This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Lydia" who told us she works on a team that not long ago had the chance to demonstrate a semi-autonomous humanoid device she can't describe in any more detail, because the customer was a defense agency.
"It's one of those things that looks more brittle than it is, but can still be broken," she told The Register . The device was also so new that the team was still writing documentation on the day of the demo, the audience for which was a group of investors.
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Moments before the demo, Lydia noticed the machine's battery was running low.
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"I told two other team members and the more senior went to fetch the backup battery," she explained. The team prepared to power down the machine before plugging in the replacement power source, a procedure that took perhaps five minutes.
The junior team member had a different idea: remove the depleted battery, then quickly insert the replacement. The youngster figured this would be faster, and therefore more impressive for the investors.
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Lydia issued firm instructions not to adopt that plan.
"We had never done this before, and I felt it could cause a malfunction," she said, then acknowledged this was a good idea and told the junior to test it another day.
"Do a write-up, and take the credit for testing a potentially new feature – LATER," she counselled.
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As that conversation ended, the senior team member approached with the backup battery.
The junior then ran to the older man, grabbed the battery from his hands, sprinted to the machine, and performed a hot swap.
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"The unit fell like a rock," Lydia wrote. "It face-planted off the podium. And the junior looked back at us like he was SHOCKED that things played out that way."
Getting the machine back on its feet took 15 minutes – three times longer than an orderly battery swap.
The investors laughed it off and suggested Lydia and her colleagues reschedule the demo for another day. The team accepted that suggestion.
The junior kept his job.
"I am all for pushing boundaries," she said. "But he sure as hell isn't allowed to touch the expensive stuff anymore."
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Re: Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out
Indeed. And you clearly are not a junior team member either.
Re: Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out
"swapping them one at a time could be safe"
IF it is designed with that kind of redundancy/resiliency in mind.
Re: Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out
Exactly, hence the "could", rather than "would"
Re: Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out
He was even luckier that, after blatantly ignoring a direct order, he was allowed to keep his job.
I'm sorry, I'm all for giving a second chance if you have an idea and foul up on your own, but if I tell you NOT to do something and you go ahead and do it and foul things up just like I feared, you are off the team at the very least. With luck, you'll be holding the broom for the janitor. Failing that, you'll be looking for another job.
Might I add that it is a disservice to let the kid keep his job after such behavior. The lessons you don't forget are the ones that cost you the most, and this, apparently, didn't cost him much.
Ergo, there's a risk that he does it again.
I would not be willing to risk that.
The junior kept his job.
Probably shouldn't have. Not so much for a foolish action but the outright disobedience of a clear instruction.
Where there is no discipline there is ultimately no responsibility.
I know there is the forgiveness v. permission thing. Yes son, I forgive you but you might want the blindfold.
Re: The junior kept his job.
At the very least, the situation requires the deployment of the JART.
Junior Attitude Readjustment Tool
Re: The junior kept his job.
> Probably shouldn't have. Not so much for a foolish action but the outright disobedience of a clear instruction.
Yeah, the manager did well to keep a Lydia on it
...then acknowledged this was a good idea...
That's all the junior understood. I have a non-junior colleague who has the same hearing issue.
I know the feeling, I've got kids as well.
Makes sense
Everybody knows you just have to be fast enough to stop the electrons from falling out and you're golden! Maybe bend a wire so it points upwards.
Or was that water hoses?
Re: Makes sense
Everybody knows that bending the wire upwards is not enough, you need to tie a granny knot at the very least!
Re: Makes sense
As any fule no, a simple overhand knot would work, if you pull it very, very tight.
Re: Makes sense
well, both water and wires can have current
Re: Makes sense
Amps can be imps and if they have high potential, shocking.
Sorry. I should not have taken this line of least resistance.
Junior was more than lucky to survive.
Everywhere I've worked the result would have been instant dismissal.
Re: Junior was more than lucky to survive.
Yes. Rule number one of a live demo is don't fuck it up in front of the customer.
That kid would have been out the door before the customer.
Documentation
re: "The device was also so new that the team was still writing documentation on the day of the demo,"
There is no correlation at all between the newness of a product and actually having finished documentation.
Re: Documentation
I've come to the conclusion there's no such thing as " finished " documentation.
Re: Documentation
Docu-what?!
Was it a BOFHBot?
On second thoughts, no.
The BOFHBot will have a redundant backup power supply anyway. And dare you tamper with its preciouses batteries, it will dismember you without warning.
Hmm....
I need two BOFHBots for personal protection here in South Africa...
The I-know-best junior seems well suited for a life as a "tester" at Microsoft
Am I the only one who...
... Thinks that as the big investor meeting was happening they would have had it plugged in the whole time to keep batteries charges?
The battery only has to last for the meeting, so who cares as you've got spares
Re: Am I the only one who...
We did get caught out at a live meeting a while back when we discovered that the GoPro, provided by the coloured pencil department, which we'd planned to use wouldn't run with a flat battery even if plugged in - we'd had little time for prep and hadn't realised the only battery was flattened by some testing the day before. In hindsight I should have made sure it went on charge overnight but we were late leaving for our hotel and back in at 07:00 the next day so we just left everything set up.
Fortunately being a seasoned IT pro I had a standby option of a video camera and USB interface so nobody knew about the problem and if the situation ever arises again I'll be extra careful.
Well armed robot
AC for a reason
Back in the mid 00's I used work for a company that bought security tech from Samsung Electronics, and also Samsung Techwin, the defence wing of Samsung.
One time we were invited out to Korea to view the latest Samsung Electronics CCTV kit for a possible project to deploy long range cameras and thermal imaging in the Channel to catch drug runners.
The thermal camera my customer was interested in was made by Samsung Techwin, so we were invited to their office, where a Techwin employee, who was clearly confused about the nature of our project, showed us a semi-humanoid looking robot armed with a .50 calibre machine gun, the kind of thing the Korean army intended to deploy along the border with North Korea.
We gladly watched the demonstration, regretted the offer of borrowing ear defenders, and went away without buying several million pounds worth of lethal robot...
They could break down battery into 2 modules
Just like my Thinkpad T480 and makita lawnmower.
Short cuts make long delays, but at least nothing shorted out
I would guess the power draw of even a modest robot would require some sizeable capacitors to store sufficient charge and keep everything running during such a hot swap of batteries. Personally, I would only hot-swap batteries if the robot had two. In that case, swapping them one at a time could be safe. The junior member was very lucky nothing got damaged and that the investors were generous enough to give the team a second chance.