Today, I’m sitting on a stool inside an electrical cabinet troubleshooting/installing an Ethernet IP interface, and out of the corner of my eye I see something that Should Not Be.

lemme backup. I’m in an electrical cabinet- those who have met me can imagine the sheer size of this cabinet, based on my size- and it’s in a large manufacturing facility. So it’s loud. I can’t hear very much because I’m wearing earplugs and earmuffs against the noise.

So, where was I? Oh, yes, I’m in the cabinet. And out of the corner of my eye, I see some of the things in the cabinet move. THings that should not move. 200 amp circuit breakers the size of microwave ovens. Three phase drives larger than kitchen cabinets. All coming inexorably- and not so damned slowly, either, towards me, in a sort of dali-esque twist of the laws of space-time. I’ve seen enough science fiction movies that the walls collapsing on me was not something entirely new, but the idea that it should happen here and now is still a startling thing. A few seconds before I am caught I hop backwards, knees complaining as I do, and I see my stool get squished between a rack drive and a power supply, and think, damned good thing the power isn’t on- but the mains are, and in seconds I’m rewarded with a brilliant flash and a pop, as the transformer pumps it’s energy momentarily into the steel cabinet.

it’s as if the machine tried to bite me, sensing my presence, and I suddenly knew how a fly feels in the grasp of Dionaea muscipula.

Backing away from the carnage, I can see that a dimwit in a 60,000 lb forklift has backed right through the electrical cabinet of the machine I’m working in, folding the cabinet (9′ tall and 18′ wide) into the shape of a huge taco, ripping the 200 amp mains out of the concrete.

it’s the flash and pop that’s stopped him, not because it’s scared him but because the juice knocked out the controls of his lift. I’m standing looking at the ruins of the equipment I’m trying to get working, he’s looking at the (now dark) controls of his machine wondering what happened, and the sounds of sirens are headed our way.

I’m examined to see if I’m harmed (which I’m not, though heavily startled) and the lift driver is taken off to the hospital (he’s been mildly shocked) and the equipment is ruined.

If this were anyone else’s life it might be rather amusing.

Freaking wierdness.