August 10, 2022

Survival Tips

A couple of weeks ago I was watching a horror movie (and may I digress for just a moment to say that horror movies don't impress me much anymore? One has to be pretty darn good to be ‘scary.'), and I thought about some of the lessons or truisms to be learned from these movies.

I know, if you search, this is not a new topic, but always a fun one to bring up from time to time.

So, in no particular order:

1. When on an outing with friends either camping in the woods or at a remote cabin, never go off with your significant other for a little late-night fun. You probably won't return.

2. Never send one person outside to investigate the 'strange' noise heard or to check on the backup generator or the basement fuse box. You'll be seeing that person's head on the rail post or body hanging from a tree later.

3. Never read in bed alone. (This one from my dad.) There are always noises from under the bed, from the closet, out in the hall, or a shadowy form seen passing the doorway.

4. Never open the medicine cabinet door or the refrigerator. There will always be something/someone next to you or behind you when you close the door.

5. In the bathroom, never bend over to spit toothpaste or wash your face because there will be a scary thing's reflection in the mirror when you come back up. (Or, actually from the mirror itself.)

6. When trying to escape from the psycho killer by car, you will never hit the ignition hole on the first try.

7. When you finally get the key inserted, the engine will never start on the first three or four attempts. This also holds true if you are trying to escape on a motorcycle.

8. Never swerve or stop when the big bad is standing in the road while driving away.

9. Bullets never kill any big bad. Knives and axes won't either. The only thing to truly work is beheading. (Although Halloween: Resurrection proved that even then, you may have killed the wrong baddie.)

10. Children and dolls in horror movies: always scary bad.

11. Never look under the bed. Nothing is ever there. It's when you look back up, that you'll see it.

12. Make sure you have fresh batteries in the flashlight.

13. Never investigate the secret room discovered. Nothing ever good results.

14. Never run upstairs away from the big baddie. Two outcomes: You'll wind up dead or have to jump out the window.

15. Seldom since Psycho is taking a shower a bad thing. The problems occur when you leave the shower to: investigate the strange noise, prepare for bed, etc. (See how some of these overlap?)

16. Usually, the weapon you carry when trying to protect yourself will be used against you.

17. Sometimes, not all who you thought killed actually were killed. In other words, are you sure about the friends around you?

18. Cops always die. (Unless they're the killers.)

19. Never run into a cornfield or the woods to avoid the killer. There is no escape.

20. When running from the killer, never trust the next house you come to. The person/people inside are associated with/are the killer, have already been killed, or soon will die trying to help.

So, I was thinking about these pieces of advice and thought I'd ask some coworkers about the 'don'ts' in relation to a computerized maintenance management system. (CMMS.) They came back with several answers. (Let me tell you, I could tell from their responses how scared they really were for the people ignoring these. I'm talking shortness of breath, quivering jaws, dilated eyes, and labored gasps. These guys were really scared.)

1. Don't name your inventory parts the same number as the vendor's part number.

2. Don't use the internal messaging feature as a private messaging service…it's not e-mail, others will see.

3. Don't set up preventive maintenance jobs (PMs) so all of them generate on the same day or even week. Spread them out a bit.

4. Don't generate PMs a year in advance.

5. Don't set the foreground color to the same as the background color.

6. Don't print attachments that are 350+ page documents.

7. Don't use Emergency as one of your work request options.

8. Don't expect the work orders to close themselves.

9. Don't set security so high you end up blocking yourself.

10. Don't try to type with gloves on.

So, now you have tips to survive if you find yourself in the middle of a horror movie and when you find yourself in deep with using a CMMS.

Mapcon / 800-922-4336