My father used to say (and we're from a family of several generations of professional engineers and analysts) the most dangerous person in the world is... an engineer with a screwdriver. Eventually I learned the truth of that.
At The Boeing Co., on a Monday morning after a major, weekend new system install. New building, new cubicles, new computer stations: a 400+ node UNIX Token Ring system. All the engineers come in to their new desks and a brand new, perfectly connected token ring computer system. Ten minutes later, ring goes down shut down all terminals. As Lead System Admin at the time, I and my cohorts (all three of us) start a frantic search of each and every terminal for a bad connection which is usually the cause of such system failures. Time is money, planes could be dropping out of the sky (not really, but this was Field Service Engineering, who help the airlines with downed aircraft repair and investigations around the world). Imperative the system gets back up and running quickly. Three of us to check input and output connections on over 400 terminals. Ya, that will happen quickly.
Finally, towards the end of our search (of course) we came upon one of the FSE engineers at a desk with a screwdriver in his hand quietly trying to re-connect his terminal ON A DIFFERENT DESK from the one he was assigned to! He didn't ask if he could or even should move it. He didn't like where he was assigned and since he HAD a screwdriver, so 'nuff said. He caused the whole token ring system to go down! He had already been re-configuring his cubicle walls with that screwdriver as well... FACILITIES!) Forgive me Dad, but engineers truly are a pain in the butt. (only one of many amusing anecdotes with engineers at Boeing)
