I received an email mid January from a young woman at an insurance company based in Birmingham city centre. She was looking for a price quote to test around 150 items and my availability to carry it out.
I gave her a quote and also told her my availability, informing her that I am able to work outside office hours if necessary so as to cause less disruption to the office and their work.
It was agreed that I would attend site outside of office hours at 4PM.
It was the day before I was due to attend site, I was going through my normal pre-job routine checking the internet for any possible product recalls, going through my tool box to ensure everything was in place for the job the next day. Things like have I got enough pass labels, pens, adaptors. Is my PAT testing machine fully charged. Then I noticed my machine a Memory PAT Blu had a fault. Disaster!
The Bluetooth on the machine had malfunctioned and was permanently on. I rang Pass Ltd where I had bought the machine from. They told me it needed to come in for a repair. I was panicking as I had the job to do the next day but no machine. Pass Ltd very kindly offered me a replacement PAT testing machine free of charge, delivered it at 13:00 the next day via courier. This gave me a couple of hours to test the machine and work out how to use the software it came with etc.
It all worked fine so I checked the traffic status on Google Maps and set off for the job. The office had very kindly reserved me a parking space at the site so I parked there, but I was still too early so I decided to have a quick cuppa at Coffee#1 nearby which is situated just a stone throw away from the BT Tower on Lionel Street.
On arrival, I signed the visitor book and was shown around the office. Whilst walking around I am looking for a number of things such as what electrical equipment there is, how easy is it to access, are the wires tangled up like a snakes wedding. As a fully qualified health and safety expert I am also checking how safe the environment is, the condition of the equipment and the manner in which it is used. Are there lots of overloaded extension sockets etc.
I then asked about their workload and if there is a particular area they would like me to start first or leave until last. There wasn’t and so I had free reign to start where I liked. I decided to start in the conference room and work my way around the site in a clockwise fashion.
I tested over three hundred items, this took me about 5 hours to do. This is slower than it usually takes me to do that amount of items, but there was over 100 computers each had at least two monitors and I like to leave the customers desk how I find it as well as make all cables and leads nice and tidy.
The next day I sent the customer the invoice. Once payment was received I then sent the equipment register, test results and PAT test certificate along with advice on what to do with failed equipment and anything else I may have noticed such as overloaded sockets or extensions feeding other extensions.
PAT Testing does take me to some weird and wonderful places, and no job is the same. This is why I love my job so much.
Does the electrical appliances at your business need PAT testing? Give Redlander PAT Testing Ltd a call on 07711037245 or visit the website www.redlanderpattesting.co.uk for a free consultation and quote.