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The sales guy set up the entire rig on his own? And no other engineers in the lab stopped to ask what he was doing? I know some places have poor safety culture

The sales guy set up the entire rig on his own? And no other engineers in the lab stopped to ask what he was doing? I know some places have poor safety culture, but this is a “laser company”. Basic laser safety should be drilled into them from day 1 and every day after. When I worked in an optics lab, we had interlocks on the doors that switched on with the power supply running the experiment and a sign outside indicating which wavelengths were operating.

mike50 2y ago
The structure of the industry is many small companies that make one specific laser based on the owner's PhD research. These companies cannot have the perfect safety culture simply due to staffing numbers.
ben_w 2y ago
Mm. Should be, isn't. I've heard of one place that had a class IV laser mounted on a robot arm in a public area, which turned itself off when the arm happened to flail in exactly the right way to hit its own emergency stop button.
ta988 2y ago
I have seen a drunk employee wrestling with a moving industrial robotic arm trying to "fix it" after having disabled the numerous safeties with screwdrivers. This was at a major car manufacturer plant. Do not underestimate the horrible situations people can put themselves in.
- p_l 2y ago
  Sometimes you fight and curse the volkswagen-special VKRC safety circuits. And sometimes you think what kind of shenanigans might happen and why it might be better to have complex safety interlocks that mate with entire automation cell controls...
- hotsauceror 2y ago
  A relative of mine works with assembly-line robots at heavy equipment manufacturers. He told me that while they were calibrating a new robot that was used to move axles for industrial mining dump trucks, a miscalculation caused the robot to fling a 800 lb axle through the air like a marching band baton.
  - aftbit 2y ago
    Now that I'd pay to see. If that happened where I worked, I would be so tempted to run the program again with my phone camera out. After telling everyone down-range to get lost of course. Now would I do it? No... definitely not, as long as the demon on my right shoulder was being quiet that day.
rkachowski 2y ago
It's pretty crazy that the sales guy was able to connect the water cooling and power with enough hosing and cables to bring it outside, as well as know how to operate the device enough to activate it - but couldn't correctly point it _at the ground_ and burn the paint off of the street without melting through a car. But forgetting that, what are the core safety issues described? I get the direct exposure to unprotected eyes damage, but there's discussion of infra red reflections endangering nearby children + aircraft + casus belli with the US army.
- mike50 2y ago
  These types of lasers are integrated into end customer systems by techs at a factory. They are very simple to setup from the black box level of understanding. All you do is plug in water (blue hose in and red hose for out) since the electrical system is typical a box that simply plugs into the laser head and the wall outlet. The only factor that could affect the output power that's not on the controls would be the water temperature.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  The story says he did point it at the ground, but a) it was reflecting off the reflective paint they were aiming at and b) towards the end the laser was badly misaligned.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  “Sales engineer” sounds like one of those positions that would be regularly setting up demos for customers and have access to the equipment and basic operating procedures. “Could we use this to burn paint off the road” sounds exactly like the sort of question a person doing a demo might say “I don’t see why not, let’s try it” to. While with deliberate thought about it, the fact that road markings are retro-reflective is obvious, but it’s not something you would necessarily consider immediately, since it’s called “paint” and almost all paint you encounter in the world is not retro-reflective. For the rest of it, my reading of the story is multiple things happened here: 1) They initially aimed the IR laser at the paint on the ground. The paint being retro-reflective the laser damaged itself in about an half hour and stopped producing consistent results, just occasional spots of results. 2) The sales person rather than halting the demo to get someone else to take a look at what was malfunctioning continued to fire the laser after making various adjustments not realizing that because the laser had been damaged it was firing not at the ground anymore, but at the car a few spaces away. 3) They’d been messing with the laser after malfunctioning since before the VP parked their car, so there’s possibility they were sending lasers in the direction of the other building, so that’s one issue which would have been bad enough on its own but… 4) At some point the VP parked their car in the path between the laser and the building. As they continued to mess with the malfunctioning laser, they burned through the paint on the side of the car, exposing the bare metal underneath. 5) The bare metal is also highly reflective, but because it’s not retro-reflective the problem is now you had completely uncontrolled reflections. The ones that went backwards had nothing to stop them since there was only a fence and field between the lot and the school. And the ones that went up obviously also had nothing to stop them since they were outside. 6) Because of the unknown detections and quantity of reflection, in addition to getting all the potentially exposed employees and customers checked out, the company would also have to make advisory calls (at a minimum) to the school and the local airports and military installations. Whether those schools and planes were actually in danger or not could not be said with certainty, but the point was less “oh know we’re terrorists now” and more “this was a huge screw up, and I need to impress on you why it was bigger than just breaking company property or not wearing your safety gear”
unkeptbarista 2y ago
I find this basics of this story believable. I worked at a place that manufactured IR lasers, and where the owner (the "Doctor" as we called him) set up similiar impromptu demonstrations that went awry. Thankfully no one was injured, but some random piece of equipment was damaged by the reflected beam.
protocolture 2y ago
Sales Engineer = Knows enough to be dangerous. Sometimes a good sales engineer can tell you all about then undocumented feature you need to get something delivered.
somat 2y ago
The guy was listed as a "sales engineer" which on first glance is the worst sort of oxymoron, everybody knows engineers make terrible salesmen[1]. But perhaps it could work, just take your sleaziest engineer, put them through an intensive indoctrination in chicanery and lies and you get a salesman who almost knows what he is talking about. 1. How do you know if the guy trying to sell you something is the engineer. They will tell you in excruciating detail every flaw and design mistake in the thing and how they should have designed it better. Savor this moment, look past the terrible sales pitch and buy from them, for you have been gifted that elusive thing, the engineer.
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  In software we may call them euphemisms like "solutions architects" or "devrel engineers", but sales engineers have always existed. They aren't necessarily the frontline of the sales department, but someone has to go onto the customer site and explain to the customer's engineers exactly how their shiny new purchase is going to integrate into their existing systems and workflows...
- neilv 2y ago
  My dad was such an engineer doing sales, of industrial components. Grew up on a farm, engineering degree, very honest type churchgoer and family man, and in his spare time DIY projects like a classic engineer type. I'm sure he'd know when something would or wouldn't work, and would candidly tell the customer about any problems or risks. (In this case, maybe honest as much as an engineer personally bothered by design flaws.) I've also seen a different kind of engineer in sales, where they're paired long-term with salespeople. They sit in on sales meetings as a technical expert, and also do things like customizations and integrations. I suppose the presence of the salesperson helps suppress the engineer's inclination to start riffing on every flaw, but the pairing retains the engineer ability to help the customer be successful with the product.
  - somat 2y ago
    Yeah, I am a bit rough on sales, but it is critical to doing business. And a good saleman is a wonderful find, talking with someone who is knowledgeable and honest about the product is great.
elzbardico 2y ago
With highly technical products usually you have at least two guys working on a account: The salesman, who deals with the business guys on the other side, the folks who will actually sign the check. The sales engineer, that deal with the guys who will actually use the product, is able to understand their requirements and come up with ways the product can fullfil those, provide Proofs of Concept, demos and initial training for those guys on the other side that will give the final ok to the business people: 'this will work for us, you can sign the check if you want"

mike50 2y ago

The structure of the industry is many small companies that make one specific laser based on the owner's PhD research. These companies cannot have the perfect safety culture simply due to staffing numbers.

ben_w 2y ago

Mm. Should be, isn't. I've heard of one place that had a class IV laser mounted on a robot arm in a public area, which turned itself off when the arm happened to flail in exactly the right way to hit its own emergency stop button.

ta988 2y ago

I have seen a drunk employee wrestling with a moving industrial robotic arm trying to "fix it" after having disabled the numerous safeties with screwdrivers. This was at a major car manufacturer plant. Do not underestimate the horrible situations people can put themselves in.

p_l 2y ago
Sometimes you fight and curse the volkswagen-special VKRC safety circuits. And sometimes you think what kind of shenanigans might happen and why it might be better to have complex safety interlocks that mate with entire automation cell controls...
hotsauceror 2y ago
A relative of mine works with assembly-line robots at heavy equipment manufacturers. He told me that while they were calibrating a new robot that was used to move axles for industrial mining dump trucks, a miscalculation caused the robot to fling a 800 lb axle through the air like a marching band baton.
- aftbit 2y ago
  Now that I'd pay to see. If that happened where I worked, I would be so tempted to run the program again with my phone camera out. After telling everyone down-range to get lost of course. Now would I do it? No... definitely not, as long as the demon on my right shoulder was being quiet that day.

rkachowski 2y ago

It's pretty crazy that the sales guy was able to connect the water cooling and power with enough hosing and cables to bring it outside, as well as know how to operate the device enough to activate it - but couldn't correctly point it _at the ground_ and burn the paint off of the street without melting through a car. But forgetting that, what are the core safety issues described? I get the direct exposure to unprotected eyes damage, but there's discussion of infra red reflections endangering nearby children + aircraft + casus belli with the US army.

mike50 2y ago
These types of lasers are integrated into end customer systems by techs at a factory. They are very simple to setup from the black box level of understanding. All you do is plug in water (blue hose in and red hose for out) since the electrical system is typical a box that simply plugs into the laser head and the wall outlet. The only factor that could affect the output power that's not on the controls would be the water temperature.
teractiveodular 2y ago
The story says he did point it at the ground, but a) it was reflecting off the reflective paint they were aiming at and b) towards the end the laser was badly misaligned.
tpmoney 2y ago
“Sales engineer” sounds like one of those positions that would be regularly setting up demos for customers and have access to the equipment and basic operating procedures. “Could we use this to burn paint off the road” sounds exactly like the sort of question a person doing a demo might say “I don’t see why not, let’s try it” to. While with deliberate thought about it, the fact that road markings are retro-reflective is obvious, but it’s not something you would necessarily consider immediately, since it’s called “paint” and almost all paint you encounter in the world is not retro-reflective. For the rest of it, my reading of the story is multiple things happened here: 1) They initially aimed the IR laser at the paint on the ground. The paint being retro-reflective the laser damaged itself in about an half hour and stopped producing consistent results, just occasional spots of results. 2) The sales person rather than halting the demo to get someone else to take a look at what was malfunctioning continued to fire the laser after making various adjustments not realizing that because the laser had been damaged it was firing not at the ground anymore, but at the car a few spaces away. 3) They’d been messing with the laser after malfunctioning since before the VP parked their car, so there’s possibility they were sending lasers in the direction of the other building, so that’s one issue which would have been bad enough on its own but… 4) At some point the VP parked their car in the path between the laser and the building. As they continued to mess with the malfunctioning laser, they burned through the paint on the side of the car, exposing the bare metal underneath. 5) The bare metal is also highly reflective, but because it’s not retro-reflective the problem is now you had completely uncontrolled reflections. The ones that went backwards had nothing to stop them since there was only a fence and field between the lot and the school. And the ones that went up obviously also had nothing to stop them since they were outside. 6) Because of the unknown detections and quantity of reflection, in addition to getting all the potentially exposed employees and customers checked out, the company would also have to make advisory calls (at a minimum) to the school and the local airports and military installations. Whether those schools and planes were actually in danger or not could not be said with certainty, but the point was less “oh know we’re terrorists now” and more “this was a huge screw up, and I need to impress on you why it was bigger than just breaking company property or not wearing your safety gear”

unkeptbarista 2y ago

I find this basics of this story believable. I worked at a place that manufactured IR lasers, and where the owner (the "Doctor" as we called him) set up similiar impromptu demonstrations that went awry. Thankfully no one was injured, but some random piece of equipment was damaged by the reflected beam.

protocolture 2y ago

Sales Engineer = Knows enough to be dangerous. Sometimes a good sales engineer can tell you all about then undocumented feature you need to get something delivered.

somat 2y ago

The guy was listed as a "sales engineer" which on first glance is the worst sort of oxymoron, everybody knows engineers make terrible salesmen[1]. But perhaps it could work, just take your sleaziest engineer, put them through an intensive indoctrination in chicanery and lies and you get a salesman who almost knows what he is talking about. 1. How do you know if the guy trying to sell you something is the engineer. They will tell you in excruciating detail every flaw and design mistake in the thing and how they should have designed it better. Savor this moment, look past the terrible sales pitch and buy from them, for you have been gifted that elusive thing, the engineer.

swiftcoder 2y ago
In software we may call them euphemisms like "solutions architects" or "devrel engineers", but sales engineers have always existed. They aren't necessarily the frontline of the sales department, but someone has to go onto the customer site and explain to the customer's engineers exactly how their shiny new purchase is going to integrate into their existing systems and workflows...
neilv 2y ago
My dad was such an engineer doing sales, of industrial components. Grew up on a farm, engineering degree, very honest type churchgoer and family man, and in his spare time DIY projects like a classic engineer type. I'm sure he'd know when something would or wouldn't work, and would candidly tell the customer about any problems or risks. (In this case, maybe honest as much as an engineer personally bothered by design flaws.) I've also seen a different kind of engineer in sales, where they're paired long-term with salespeople. They sit in on sales meetings as a technical expert, and also do things like customizations and integrations. I suppose the presence of the salesperson helps suppress the engineer's inclination to start riffing on every flaw, but the pairing retains the engineer ability to help the customer be successful with the product.
- somat 2y ago
  Yeah, I am a bit rough on sales, but it is critical to doing business. And a good saleman is a wonderful find, talking with someone who is knowledgeable and honest about the product is great.

elzbardico 2y ago

With highly technical products usually you have at least two guys working on a account: The salesman, who deals with the business guys on the other side, the folks who will actually sign the check. The sales engineer, that deal with the guys who will actually use the product, is able to understand their requirements and come up with ways the product can fullfil those, provide Proofs of Concept, demos and initial training for those guys on the other side that will give the final ok to the business people: 'this will work for us, you can sign the check if you want"