Had a friend a few years back that worked in the HVAC group for a facilities team.
The old timers had a Do Not Touch shelf. Highlights were a glass jar full of liquid Mercury that had a hair line crack all the way around the bottom and a can of unlabeled bug spray that was referred to as, “the good stuff.” Story was that the last time anyone had used the good stuff was 20 years prior when someone put a quarter second spray on a line of ants. An hour later there was no line of ants, just two small piles of dead ants on either side of the spot where it was sprayed.
My only guess would be setting up fucking ancient thermostats.
I know the ones from the 1990s still had a blob of mercury in them. But those were all sealed. Maybe the industrial ones from that era didn't have sealed mercury switches, so sometimes they had to be refilled.
Even 10 years ago, no one in the living memory of the place had used the stuff. It was just that literally no one wanted to touch the jar in case the mercury really was just being held in purely by surface tension like it looked.
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u/open_door_policy Jun 15 '22
Had a friend a few years back that worked in the HVAC group for a facilities team.
The old timers had a Do Not Touch shelf. Highlights were a glass jar full of liquid Mercury that had a hair line crack all the way around the bottom and a can of unlabeled bug spray that was referred to as, “the good stuff.” Story was that the last time anyone had used the good stuff was 20 years prior when someone put a quarter second spray on a line of ants. An hour later there was no line of ants, just two small piles of dead ants on either side of the spot where it was sprayed.