It's impossible to find that part

Despite my protestations, people tend to come to me when they have a problem. Apparently, the Sarcastic Brit has reduced too many people to tears over being stupid. The other day, Jar Jar came to me with his world of trouble.

1) The stage controller on the microscope wasn't working right. Apparently, he noticed it two weeks earlier, but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.
2) The seal on the vacuum oven was worn out.

It seems that even with two weeks to think about it, Jar Jar couldn't come up with the idea to call the manufacturer, give them the information about the unit and ask them for an RMA. Instead, he sat on it for two weeks and then asked me to do something about it. I guess that it took him two weeks to get up the ambition to decide to be lazy. Perhaps he doesn't know how to use the telephone. Maybe he's scared of the telephone, and had some sort of horrible experience with telephones in his youth. I don't know. What I do know is that I was the person who ended up getting the RMA and telling Jar Jar how to pack the unit up for shipment back to the manufacturer. I didn't inspect the packing job or verify the address. I wonder if we will ever see our microscope again. At least I know that we got an RMA from the right company, and if they ever get it, they will know why we sent it to them.

The vacuum oven was more difficult. It came out of a catalog, which means that they must have made tens of thousands of them. How hard could it be to find a seal? I told Jar Jar to check with the catalog company and see if they had them. I also suggested that he copy down the model and serial number information off of the oven in order to have it for reference when talking to the catalog company.

Several days later Jar Jar came back to interrupt the cluttered peacefulness of my cubicle with his thick Indian accent. "You know the vacuum oven seal? It's very hard to find, you know. I checked on the catalog company's web page, you know, and they didn't have them, you know. I also found the manufacturer and they didn't have them either, you know."

Really? I guess that this was going to be difficult. I told Jar Jar that I would take care of it, and proceeded back to the lab to get the info off of the equipment myself. On the side of the oven, I found a plate that had the model, serial number, catalog company name, manufacturer's name, and a number to call for warranty or service. Strange, I must be imagining things. I copied down the info and started back to my desk. On the way, I ran into Jar Jar. It couldn't hurt to ask, so I asked him if he had talked to anybody on the phone. "You know, I just checked the web page, you know. I didn't know who to call, you know."

I asked him, "Did you call the number printed on the side of the oven, beneath the model and serial number?" He had not, but at least he had the grace to offer to. I told him not to bother.

Within five minutes, I had called the manufacturer, gotten the part number, and had been informed that we would save 10% if we ordered off of their web page. Cool. But I thought that the manufacturer's web page didn't have anything. This was an impossible part to find.

It just goes to show that you can screw up even the most simple tasks if you try hard enough: At least if you are Jar Jar.