Pat has asked me to look after the maintenance of lab tools/equipment.

So I'm asking all you techs. and EEs to help me with this. I need to 

know for starters about any and all soldering stations which are extra

or out of order so that I can fix, or throw them out and buy new ones.

If any of you engineers have stuff around your office (like soldering

irons, scopes, or meters) and you hardly ever use them, please come

forward and share them with the rest of us.  

  Drobny says we need to have a backpack that holds our scopes, meters

and... so that no one can e can count on having the equipments when we need them
                          steel our tools from our benches and we can 

count on having the right tool when we're called up to do a job.

  But carrying around all that stuff could break a techs. back. Instead

I ask all you engineers/hackers/technical know it all/others, to simply

remember that around here there are only a few technicians and we usually

do a good job of keeping our tools in order but rather than becoming 

possessive with our tools (like a previous tech) we would rather if others 

respected the following:

	1_ Tools belong to the LABS, they aren't much use to anyone


	   when stashed away where no one can find them.

	

	2_ If you want us techs to fix your stuff, don't borrow our


	   stuff without asking, or at least leave a note and remember


	   to bring the stuff back when you're done. We don't like to

	
           have to go looking for our tools.


	
  My older brother's a programmer and all my life I've had to protect
my tools from his abuse. I sure hope I won't have the same problem at
work too!

						Farrokh