Ah, yes, lifts, stairs and the time my then-employers decided that because most of our jobs were going on a one-way vacation to Indiah, where the Tigers come from, we would cut the numbers of AlphaServers in our employ from five to one and relocate the remaining machine from a third-party site in Slough to our office next door to Southwark Cathedral. Someone measured the height of the rack the machine was housed in while cow-orker Mr Kelly measured the heights of the goods lift and the door through which the said rack would have to pass in order to access said lift. “You'll have to tilt in a bit to get it through the door” quoth he, “but it'll be fine for the lift”.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man with the lorry and the Babbage-Engine. Shortly thereafter cometh the curses on Mr Kelly, when we discovered that the rack could not physically be tilted far enough to get it through the door due to the presence of a set of sturdy wrought-iron railings about a metre from the door. We had to put the bloody thing back on the wagon and return it to Slough until they could come back with a stairwalker so we could take it through the front door and up the stairs to the third floor while fending off the literal curses of the actual practicing Scandiwegian witch employed as a receptionist by the owners of the building.
Eventually we got it into its new home, plugged everything in and switched it on. Much to our surprise it came up without a hitch rather than throwing a hissy fit and bursting into flames. “So who’s going to be the new system manager?” I asked The Boss. Turned out that as the only former BOFH on the payroll, that'd be me but at least it kept me employed for another three years rather than the three months I had been told to expect.