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Following on from the thread about the ex-weapon found at work This one
What things have you seen in the store cupboard that made you go Hmm 🤔
I'm a science teacher. A sawfish head was a bit of a surprise but not particularly unexpected. Unsure about the age but has now been reported on to the Sharks Trust.
Now disposed of were a large number of human embryo tissue slides. Advice obtained from Human Tissue Authority led to collection and disposal.
We've disposed of a few containers of chemicals too, notably several kg of mercury.
And the roof space is out of bounds, too much asbestos. I'm pretty sure that there might well be stuff stored up there. The fire brigade have been informed.
What you got?
We had the Plague of Appreciation, which we caught from iirc a saudi university, and which you'd infect someone else with if they did anything really nice for you. Eventually it was given permanently to a colleague who then took it off to infect the university of edinburgh with Appreciation.
I have to admit that I have no idea what you are talking about.
I would imagine it's an amusing spelling mistake on a gift?
I worked in a museum for a while - during the final few months I was there we had to decant from the building for asbestos removal work. As part of that work anything that was deemed to have been contaminated during the work would be disposed of - no question, matter what it was - of so every bit of the collection and its records had to me moved out and into storage. The museum was over a century old and had been built to house several pre-existing older collections. During its early years there'd been a fire and some records were lost and some artefacts were lost and in the years since the records and actual inventory had never really been reconciled properly. So the plan was to use our time in exile to digitise the file cards and match them to what was actually in the stores.
So we open the first small unlabelled box... Mineral Asbestos. How ironic - is this going to be tested for asbestos contamination? Bit of nervous laughter.
Open the second small box.... Uranium.
Meanwhile going through ancient card indexes we learn that somewhere amongst the collection there should be 'An enormous mass of bog butter' and 'A giant hairball that killed a horse' but by the time I left we hadn't found them - not that we'd know what bog butter was if we did find it.
We’ve disposed of a few containers of chemicals too, notably several kg of mercury.
I worked onthe filming of a bunch of science demonstrations for online resources for schools and used an old private school's lab as our location. One demonstration involved a geiger counter and various radio active sources and materials that would block or let through radiation from them. This old school still had all that kit although most had disposed of them a while ago in a nation wide program - which was why we were making a video version so schools without the hardware could still cover that content in the classroom
Apparently there'd been debate about what to do with all these little radiation sources - each school only had a small amount but if you send them all to one place - via say the Royal Mail - you get increasing concentrations of material through the postals system until they all arrive in one room and create a problem that has to be dealt with. So national strategy was devised to 'just throw then in the bin'
WW2 style gas mask and a 6ft tape worm amongst other stuff
Clearing a retired colleague's office, in the back of a filing cabinet drawer, a cardboard box labelled "Plutonium. Do not open"
It was too, but not very much of it
Between my office and 'the stores' there was another warehouse of about 450 sq metres, roller shutter and its own office space. It was apparently 'given up' by the department that operated out of it and then another team took over and was quickly disbanded down to just one local engineer who used to 'squat' in there as he kept hold of a key for the last 15 years. He had a few pallets of stores in there and as it turned out, about 3 filing cabinets with his careers worth of empty Nescafe jars.
It took weeks and many many skips to clear the space out. Some of the technical equipment must have been worth thousands in its day but all obsolete, rack and racks worth went for recycling but there were a few interesting bits that we tucked away, a 1940's hardwood railway station style sack barrow (that incredibly is used by all the engineers and hasn't been stolen) lots of small stores from the 60's, pressure monitoring gauges on hardwood backers, timewarp metal toolboxes of lead plumbing tools. There was a big metal post office style cage trolley that unfortunately got fork lifted into the metal skip whilst I was away (probably worth a pretty penny). The building must have been 80's/90's so a lot of this gear would have been moved from the previous site.
It was a real surprise that large company can still have all this stuff and unused space in a busy site, taking up about a 1/4 of the space of the whole unit! We only used to get a peek in there when the boiler needed working on.
I was clearing out a retired colleague's desk and found a large scab in the pen draw. When clearing out the technicians room I found the remains of ancient sandwich making items such as cooked meat and margarine which had been rotting in the desk draw for months. When I left I made certain not to have left any organic surprises.
The building manager claimed to have found a jar of nail clippings while clearing an office.
It was revealed that Vladimir (*) keeps in his desk drawers a rubber fist at the end of a rubber forearm with a sword-handle grip.
Yes, it IS for what you think it's for
Thankfully no, it's still sealed in the packet
*Names have been replaced to protect the innocent (mostly me, so I don't get battered if his real name gets out)
We see to have an (Thankfully) unused and ‘listed’ nuclear bunker on site. The company used to store the archive in the building.
For safety, as it had a low ceiling and the floor had multiple steps - you had to fetch records from the archive in pairs.
My friend and I went in to fetch the records of a site survey and query - used to work for a company called Transco in Shirley. We found the decommissioned decontamination showers and an audiovisual mixing desk. I can’t recall if we found the archived site survey!
10 years later the office closed and the ‘listed’ nuclear bunker was demolished to make way for a housing development.
About £120 million worth of obsolete stock and WIP.
Spare parts for projects that had been out of service longer than i'd been alive.
Boxes of HR/salary records from employees who had retired 50 years ago. I was working with the retirees grandchildren.
Pallets and pallets of raw materials that had been bought when prices were low and then misplaced.
Probably enough assorted material that if we'd stuck them back on the open market, there would have been a noticeable drop in values due to oversupply.
Boxes of bought in components that people had forgotten to cancel repeat orders for when projects went out of production. Buying extra for spares and repair is one thing, but this was ridiculous, literally enough spares to keep going until about 2050.
Parts that were illegal due to what they contained or were plated with "they might change the law again, so we should keep them".
Boxes of stuff that had been bought to meet minimum order quantities (1000+ components) when we needed a couple of hundred. Or to meet discounts "if we buy 50 we get an extra 10% off", "but we only need 8 or 10"...
I don't miss that job.
4 sets of 4 folding cinema seats.
I help a company move into a building over a weekend, and the place they were going to hadn't been used in months. along with the spider webs and assorted creepy crawlies and mouse droppings; a stuffed badger in a display case...
There was a Secret Santa at somewhere I worked. It was pretty good as the maximum price seemed to be an aim - rather than a limit.
Unfortunately, we had a member of staff who despite his lack of success - thought he was both romantic and a ladies man. He was disciplined several times and over many years later would have been dismissed. This didn’t happen and he was made redundant a few years after.
As a result of having to deal with the aftereffects of his escapades - some of the staff bought him a ‘Fleshlight’ to manage his urges…
As one of the senior managers at the time, I found this was planned and had to put a stop to it. The Fleshlight went into the desk drawers of one of the staff who procured it and apparently was never seen again - but I have my suspicions!
We see to have an (Thankfully) unused and ‘listed’ nuclear bunker on site. The company used to store the archive in the building.
My current work place, the entire ground floor/basement of one large building is decommissioned bomb shelters, mostly used for storing furniture and files these days.
I help a company move into a building over a weekend, and the place they were going to hadn’t been used in months. along with the spider webs and assorted creepy crawlies and mouse droppings; a stuffed badger in a display case…
Despite having moved offices several times - I have never found a stuffed badger. Not sure who is more lucky - the badger or I!
I found an archive of company photo albums in a cupboard in an office I moved into. Amongst all the pictures of new offices and visiting dignitaries there were photos from past Christmas parties.
It appears back in the day it was perfectly acceptable to have strippers at the work Xmas do. I offloaded the whole company photo archive on my boss.
Related to the original thread about weaponry, a colleague when I worked at Manchester Velodrome had several starter pistols in his desk drawer.
Bright orange and they only fired a specific type of blank.
There had been issues with these things getting lost or being "borrowed" so in the end the track manager kept them in the locked bottom drawer of his desk for safekeeping. They were very expensive to buy and also very complicated to take anywhere requiring locked cases and permits.
Or a race Commissaire could sign it out and walk across the concourse carrying a bright orange revolver... 😳
In various store cupboards around the velodrome were all manner of now-defunct trophies (some with very prestigious names on them), strange off cuts of carbon or titanium from long-ago bike tests, memorabilia and publicity material from previous racing events held there, autographed publicity photos...
Also two massive timing clocks which we eventually dumped as they took up far too much space and were basically obsolete.
I work in Aerospace, the old factory was used during WW2. Basically every project in that building that requires digging the floor up finds ammunition, ammo boxes, tools scrap parts etc that were just buried.
The best recently was the full set of original mosquito drawings that were left in a cupboard 😂.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-40873628.amp
The best recently was the full set of original mosquito drawings that were left in a cupboard
The De Havilland staff managed to keep the original mosquito prototype tucked away for years rather than destroying it per orders.
Hence it was available to form the centrepiece of the De Havilland museum.
Does a film of human ears from cadavers being hit by a blast wave sound weird.
One day we found a Russian navy issue, Submarine Escape suit, in our lab. I was nominated to try it on for size and comfort.
It was only after the last zip was zipped and it very quickly started getting very stuffy, that we realised what the hose was for that comes out the back!
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Probably not to the cadavers as they'll be dead, so won't hear anything...
We rented a building called The Old Toffee Factory to set up as a design studio.
The MD said it was perfect but needed some clearing so rented a skip we turned up and found lietrally hundreds of wooden hands. Creepy, but we found it had also been a glove factory in its past.
I kept about 20 but the rest did indeed get skipped.
Back in the late 1980's I was an Apprentice Engineer at a factory in the Midlands. One Winter someone decided it would be a good idea to review the inventory of the "Die Yard" I was one half of a two man team that checked all the reference numbers, on the die blocks, against the last order we had received.
The "Die Yard" was approx' 10 Acres of outdoor space where hundreds of old Forging Dies, some upto 3 metres by 2 metres by 2 metres of solid Steel, were stored once the component had ended production on the factory floor. The working face of the die is covered in grease, the pair of dies are pushed together (the working faces) and then they're stacked outside for years on end.
We spent three months outside during November, December and the following January. During our review we found original dies (from the 1930's) for crankshafts and pistons for a range of Rolls Royce aero-engines including the Merlin! They didn't get scrapped despite the fact we hadn't had an order for a while :o)
It was only after the last zip was zipped and it very quickly started getting very stuffy, that we realised what the hose was for that comes out the back!
*parp*
I'm detecting a trend with aerospace companies and holding on to stuff they really shouldn't be...
A rumour, much maligned, turned out to be true where I worked years back.
A stack of porn mags hidden in the false ceiling above a gents cubicle in the toilets.
They were all brought in by the manager. How do we know? They had his address on them in pencil. He actually had them delivered by his local news agent to his house.
At an old office there was a wall-mounted safe but it was locked and there was no key for it. One day whilst digging around in the kitchen I found the key so excitedly went over to the safe and unlocked it, however it was jammed shut. The next day I brought in tools and WD40 so I could try to open it. After a while I managed to prise it open and what was inside... Nothing apart from another key.
And nope – I never found out what that key opened.
A cupboard full of Fluotec 7s that had been recently serviced, something like ten years after we stopped being able to get halothane, and twenty after anyone in the UK actually used it.
WW2 style gas mask and a 6ft tape worm amongst other stuff
WW2 gas mask filters being another place you'll find asbestos... I wouldn't recommend trying it on
We have loads of unused panels and consoles for obsolete equipment and abandoned projects in our heavy goods stores, probably cost several million but now worth scrap value. One manager did get challenged by the company inspector about a(n enriched uranium) fuel pin he had in his office, always assumed to be a dummy. Luckily it was. Probably came from the old visitor centre for school kids to play with.
A donkey graveyard…
Planting trees in a garden I trained in; turns out that corner had been used to bury the cart-pulling donkeys in pre-tractor days. Quite bizarre to pull out skulls and leg bones whilst the public look on.
An impressive glass but-plug mounted on a nice piece of oak with a small plaque stating “with thanks from all the team”
Two litres of free base amphetamine, 500 g of amphetamine sulfate, plus a few grams of strychnine and a lump of uranium, amongst other things whilst clearing out a lab in France. There was also a book by Le Chatelier (a renowned chemist) signed by the author.
I used to rent a unit in an old victorian warehouse in the east of Glasgow. I had to move some heavy equipment in but there was no lift access to the part of the building I was in, so cut a deal with the security guard to get up by lift to the floor above and bump stuff down one flight of stairs rather than drag it up three.
Turned out a tenant had the whole floor above me - about the size of a football pitch - and it looked a bit like that scene at the end of raiders of the lost ark - full of pallet upon pallet of........... novelty and celebrity calendars all from 1986 - Miami Sound Machine calendars, Raggy Dolls Calendars, Ian McShane Calendars. I presumed a business had gone bust and the stock had been abandoned there, but apparently the tenant had only moved the stuff in there relatively recently - in readiness for what? For 1986 to come round again? The guard left me in there for a while to go and get other keys he needed so I had plenty of time to mooch about, basically to see if there was anything else, like a calendar not from 1986. No
Most of my dreams in the months that followed all seemed to take place in there. In one I discovered a calendar from 1992.
Not in my workplace exactly, but I used to a little work researching the history of land boundaries in Tasmania to assist in the environmental and cultural impacts of road developments.
I had access to the state archives ... and the locked room with all the states plans. Basically a load of filing cabinets full of 19th Century hand drawn and annotated surveyors plans, typically glued to ply or cardboard. I could spend hours in there.
One day I found at the bottom of the bottom draw of a cabinet what I think must have been the first ever plan of Hobart and the surrounds. It was completely misfiled in a cabinet that was meant for a completely different part of the state.
Drawn in pencil and with the original name of Hobart Town, and Mount Wellington called Table Top Mountain. There were no roads included, but little foot marks to indicate 'native tracks.' It was fantastic - I know it doesn't seem especially old by European standards. I stood up on a chair and took a photo of it (no idea what happened to that). Then I put it back exactly where I found it.
Recently found a crate of Oktoberfest beer from 2017 at the back of the workshop.... It was off.
Is it a Luger and does she dress like Helga? That would be okay...
At the back of a bacon factory deep freezer(huge walk in affair) i once worked at, we found a back of bacon for a company which had been out of business for over 10 years.
Sliced it down anyway and sold it.
Apparently there’d been debate about what to do with all these little radiation sources – each school only had a small amount but if you send them all to one place – via say the Royal Mail – you get increasing concentrations of material through the postals system until they all arrive in one room and create a problem that has to be dealt with. So national strategy was devised to ‘just throw then in the bin’
Reminded me of this chap...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn#Larceny_of_smoke_detectors
Chap attempted to build a breeder reactor at home..
An ex colleague worked at a Smedley's factory in the 70s. Clearing out a basement they found some boxes of "civil defence" rations from the 50s- tins of fruit & veg that were sent to the various command & control bunkers/observation corps posts ready for use if the cold war heated up.
The food technologist said that in theory if the can was airtight they should be ok (no BBE date back then), so they opened a few & tried them and couldn't tell any difference to recently tinned items.
Hmmm have found various pieces of preserved human bits (mostly tumours but a few organs) in the back of the cabinet of an old professor who was booted out, they were NOT Human Tissue Act compliant so the director got me to dispose of them on the quiet as, post-alderhay scandal, the penalties are quite tough for that
Just this week a lab was emptying out and has left us with one of those big crank handled mincemeat makers, wouldnt like to think whats been ground up in that thing as its definitely older than me.
Lots of drugs hidden in take away deliveries.......clever, very clever.
Several drones used to smuggle drugs in, some expensive ones too.
Loads of stuff from the old asylum that was demolished some years ago.
Most recent is a buried steam locomotive. Hopefully it'll be resored and preserved.
Ppffft... a box of six mills bombs (WW2 vintage) and a Webley service revolver with a box of cartridges...in my mates grandads shed (he had passed away)
1975 no one batted an eyelid, local copper dropped them off at Catterick.
we once had a forearm and hand with a couple of missing finger delivered by mistake. they'd been ripped off in a cement mixer apparently. A sheepish looking person from the mortuary came and picked it up
There was a big metal post office style cage trolley that unfortunately got fork lifted into the metal skip whilst I was away (probably worth a pretty penny).
Why would that be skipped? They’re still used, to carry the plastic tubs that mail arrives in, but can be used for moving around other heavy stuff. Or, just a thought, returned to Royal Mail…
During our review we found original dies (from the 1930’s) for crankshafts and pistons for a range of Rolls Royce aero-engines including the Merlin! They didn’t get scrapped despite the fact we hadn’t had an order for a while :o)
There are still a shit-ton of Merlin engines in regular use all over the world, as well as other RR engines. I’m sure there’s a fair few businesses who might like to be reminded those dies are still available.
Why would that be skipped? They’re still used, to carry the plastic tubs that mail arrives in, but can be used for moving around other heavy stuff
Exactly. But we split from the Royal Mail over 40 years ago so I doubt this old thing would be desirable to them at all as it would have been for mail sacks and brown paper parcels in string, I thought it was doing a great job of holding all the packaging for recycling but apparently the space was wanted for more overstock to be stacked! (I don't think it was ever owned by the mail)
And also it would be too big to fit in most of the vans...and that should be theft, anyway!
Moving into my new to me office I had inherited from a colleague who was the longest serving member of staff, the 'Father of the House' as it were. A thoroughly delightful man who was respected by everyone. He was however a bit untidy so it was no surprise to find out that the desk was chock full of clutter, mostly stationary and old notes. A small package caught my eye as I tipped everything into the bin. A bunch of love letters.
Not my workplace, but an aviation company in Staverton Glos. was shutting down and an old filing cabinet contained some blueprints of propellers. They turned out to be the blueprints for spitfire propellers. Ironically, at the time if you wanted a propeller for a spitfire the only place to get one made was Germany. The plans were handed over to Hercules propellers in Stroud, Glos. who now manufacturer them by CNC in laminated wood.
Found a fair bit of wild type polio virus in a freezer.
No smallpox though, yes i did do a full inventory and there was an interesting range in there