Should have been labelled...

The aftermath of the recent IT fiasco at British Airways reminds me of a funny story which should be filed under the "should have labelled it" category.

In my early 20's I took a trip to Edinburgh and stayed in a cheap guesthouse. I also took my "games console" (a Philips CDi, if anyone remembers those!).

The room was a bit sparse on sockets, especially near the TV, but there was one with a 12 volt adaptor already in it... I looked to see where is was going and what it was powering, but it didn't seem to be anything in the room. So, i turned it off, and nothing seemed to change, so I unplugged it, plugged in my CDi, fired up the TV and thought nothing more of it.

Next morning, I was rudely awakened by a knock on the door and a TV engineer asking if my TV was working. I'd played my video games with no problem, so "yes" was the answer. There was some confusion, as every other guest in the guesthouse had reported their TV not working.

It transpires they meant there was no signal - and the TV company had been out since dawn clambering all over the roof to trace the fault, starting from the aerial backwards.

Well, you know where this is heading.

It turns out that adaptor powered the TV booster box in some cupboard somewhere - so I had killed everyone's terrestrial signal by unplugging it. 

The proprietor was fuming and wanted to charge me the whole call out fee. Despite being a nervous 20-something-year-old, I refused. He said we were not entitled to use the electricity in the room. I said there was a TV, kettle in the room, so he was talking nonsense. And if he had critical infrastructure powered from a guest room, it should be labelled.

(In the end I gave him everything I had in my wallet as a gesture of goodwill, which was about 28 quid; I think the call out fee was 60 something)

So - a 10p label would have saved a £60 cost to the business...

BA, take note....