When I get called out to look at a machine usually the first thing out of my mouth to them is "operator error", whether it is or not just to mess with them. So, I had a pct that turned equipment tech and while she was training, she was trying to calibrate an acid pump on an H machine that needed to be replaced because it wasn't pulling properly. She came to my office mad as a hornet telling me that I programmed that machine to tell her "operator error"..she told me she had tried to calibrate that pump like 5 times and it kept telling her "operator error"...lol...she swore for a year that I set her up..I'll never forget the look on her face when she came in my office...lol

now that is a good one!!!!!

My favorite is when they tell me the machine failed the 24 volt battery test or negative stabilizer

I once went to a home patient's home in a very rural area to do maintanance on his hemo machine. Upon inspection of the machine I found laying on an inside ledge a small bag of marijuana. I showed this to the patient and asked if he knew about this.
He claimed it as his and said it is the only place he can hide it so his wife does not find it. I scolded him about opening up the machine and told him to find another hiding place.

how about helping out to other clinic's supply and be written up
smile or LOL?

How about "Machine pulled. IDK why?" from a problem repair log. I think I'm going to answer it "Machine tested, IDK why"

Okay...this is by far may favorite thread here, ever.

Walked into a clinic one day to find the staff pulling the 4th machine that morning, same station, same problem, low bicarb conductivity. They were quite irritated that I would ask irrelevant questions...like "did you try a new jug of bicarb?

Yup, bicarb jug with no bicarb in it. Just treated water.

All of this reminds me of a quote:
"It's not my place to run the train. The whistle I can't blow. It's not my place to say how far the train's allowed to go. It's not my place to shoot off steam nor even clang the bell. BUT let the damn thing jump the track...and see who catches hell!"

Clinic calls with 21 machines having a "condo problem". I ask, "Are they in low conductivity?, Did you try different bicarb?". They respond they have tried different bicarb but it did not help. No, machines weren't alarming but the handheld conductivity meter was reading around 12 on all machines including the back-ups they had pulled. At this point, I asked if anyone hand calibrated the hand held meter today. 23 machines with the same failure, or one meter? Which do you think?

A nurse came up to me and said that she couldn't get the bleach rinsed out of a machine. I asked her if she checked the spike handle and she said yes three times but she still tested pos for chlorine. I walk into the unit to find the machine hooked up to the bathroom sink.

We used to have a patient who would come and complain to me every Fri(he was a M,W,F patient)that the machine did not take off the prescribed volume of fluid(he would never meet his goal). Always a different machine and nurse but only on Fridays. So we would pull the machine and test the UF circuit and never could we find something wrong. This went on for about a month and was becoming quite annoying. So I went to the Nephrologist and mentioned this to him. Turns out the patient was a chronic alcoholic who would lie about his weight on Fri in hopes of getting extra fluid off so he could really hit the bottle on the weekend. Maybe not so funny as he was really putting himself at risk, but it never seases to amaze me what some people will do for a drink. The Doc read him the riot act and low and behold no more complaints but he did not like me after that because I squeeled on him.

This goes waaaay back(25+ yrs) to when i was a probie(less than 1 year on the job). So i show up at work and a PCT is mopping up a "spill" on the treatment floor. So I ask what happened and she replied "the bicarb jug blew up...again" My curiosity is peaked now. After a few questions, she agrees to show me what happened if I will clean it up. Of course I agree because I want a good laugh at her expense. She goes and gets another package of bicarb and a jug of water(they would hand mix on the floor sometimes). She puts down the jug and as she begins to pour in the bicarb I move back several steps. I'm allready grinning ear to ear. In goes the bicarb into the jug of ACID and voila, volcano city. I'm busting up because this will be the third time she did that that day. So after cleaning it up, I showed her where to get water out of the RO holding tank which she had confused with the ACID holding tank. I still chuckle at that to this day

I was informed that a fellow technician was battling issues in a clinic with a machine not pulling off enough weight from the patients. The technician did the obvious checks like calibrate the UF and verify the measurements were accurate. Again the machine ran another day and weight issues were apparent. The tech took the machine and went through extensive tests in the back room. This was time consuming so patients were running on another machine. As luck would have it, once again the weight issue was still there. The claim was that patients were not taking off enough weight for the amount of time they were on the machine. The manager was relating the issue to me and sharing the burdens the technician was going through. I asked him if anyone checked the scale for accuracy? Lo and behold, within a couple of days, the problem was solved.

Heres one for ya. Just happened 5 minutes ago. Nurse informed me that the microwave was smoking because she put a patients pair of slippers in to warm them up. The slippers did not catch fire but were smoking. I was informed that it was unplugged now and could you check it out to make sure it was ok. As I was wheeling the microwave out of the treatment area one patient said to me, "so, need the microwave for your lunch huh"? I said ya, and here it comes, " I'am having sole food today".

orc - you are a real "heel" for saying that!