52 KEYNOTES FEBRUARY/MARCH 2024 WWW.ALOA.ORG BACK TO BASICS A Comedy of Errors Tony Wiersielis, CPL, CFDI, discusses a few head-scratchers. A little housekeeping: In the January 2024 issue, I showed you a picture of an Ins- tagram ad. This was a carabiner with six little gizmos that you could clip your screwdriver bits into — similar to a screw gun — and hang from your tool belt/bag. I got them re- cently, and they’re great, but there’s one caveat: Don’t hold your breath. Like a lot of things on Instagram, you don’t really know where they’re coming from. Mine spent an extended time in customs in Ireland and the U.S., and it was two months until I got them. A Recent “You Can’t Make This Up” Moment A few months ago, at that nameless col- lege in Manhattan, I got a call from the life safety/fire marshal. In one of the buildings, someone had asked him to install a push-button lock to access the fifth floor from the floor above, via the fire stairwell. The existing trim was key- operated and storeroom function, and there were too many people needing ac- cess to be handing out keys to each per- son. Besides that, we knew we’d never get most of the keys back if we did so. He told me it’s stairwell “A,” and he’s near the building so he’ll check it for me. He called me to ask what I needed to know about the door. I asked which way the door swings, knowing it was an out-swinging door. He told me the door pushed out to the right. I told him to go into the stairwell, pull the door open and tell me what hand he used to open it. It was his left hand, so the door was left- hand reverse bevel, or LHRB. Based on that, I ordered a LHRB Uni- can panic bar trim, which would work with the existing Von Duprin panic de- vice. So, the whole process of getting a quote, procuring the purchase order, or- dering the trim and waiting for delivery began. I was dealing with a lot of work orders, but after a reasonable wait, I start- ed passing through the mailroom across from my shop to ask if my stuff had come in yet. No dice. To make a long story short, everybody involved was going nuts trying to figure out what happened to the package. The distributor said it was shipped in early October, but it was then late November. Finally, one of the maintenance guys in the building it was destined for found it in a mechanical room. Apparently, some clown had it shipped there instead of to me. Figures 1-3. These images show the inside and outside of the door, plus the head of the panic bar. Figure 3 Figure 2 Figure 1
