Who ever thought that....

such trivial action would have such dire consequences.

Today, just like any other day, I was at work trying to do my job, when a customer who needed a VFD Customer Display phoned and asked whether we had one of those or not. And I said yes we do....

We usually have a few Serial (RS232) units, but the only problem is that they are very picky as to what PC hardware or machine they attach to... 

First of all you will need a PC with a serial port, and some might need a 5V, a 12V or even a 24V output from the RS232 port on the motherboard, which not many PC's have.  So it's always a case of trial & error, looking at the PC or motherboard manual and determine whether the thing is gonna work or not, eventually, and with the right PC or motherboard combo  it does work..

Now, back to our story.. We tested one of those on one of our machines and it seemed to work fine... So we readied the unit for the customer, not knowing whether it would work with their hardware or not...

The, FIT, young, and yes I would, office manageress objected to selling the unit on the grounds that it might not work at their place, so the person who was sent to pick it would endure the boss's wrath and anger. And then he would come back to our place unhappy, or ring us and spend hours on the phone trying to sort it out...  (BULLSHIT ALERT!) - I thought this might be a problem, especially when I received a message from 200 years into the future (that's another story) as to the consequences of my actions on that day, and what they will lead to...

Apparently the story panned out like that:
Sell VFD Customer Display,
Customer Sends Driver to collect,
Unit not compatible with Customer's hardware,
Unit does not work,
Customer unhappy,
Customer vents his frustration on Driver,
Driver unhappy,
Driver vents his frustration on his pregnant wife,
Wife gets so upset, that she leaves home and moves into a battered wives refuge,
I missed the bit about the wife's sadness, loneliness and despair, and her feelings of unbelonging, and her brief stint of lesbianism.
Wife starts drinking,
Wife starts taking drugs,
Refuge Doctor puts wife on Methadone,
Methadone dependent baby is born,
Lure of drug is too great for wife,
She goes back to strong drugs (Cocaine),
Not enough money,
Prostitution is the only way left to feed the habit,
Baby is taken into care,
Baby grows unloved and uncared for,
Child is very angry with the world,

I missed the bit about abuse he suffered in the care home, and how it shaped his anger, emotional fragility and outlook on life.

Youth is still very angry with the world,
Youth is a loner, 
Youth becomes a young thug, 
Young man strays of the path of Righteousness,
Young man does drugs and petty crime,
Young man graduates into serious crime,
His mother, on her death bed tells him the story of the faulty VFD Customer Display,
I missed the bit about trying to find out about his birth mother, killing his father, the long search, travelling around the globe and finally seeing the light and getting advice from an angel (with wings), who told him to go forward and to start his own rival ePOS software company...

He swears revenge, and tries to start his own company, 
A company that does not supply faulty goods,
He needs a lot of cash and fast,
He thought that one BIG job would do that,
He decides to rob a Bank,
Angry Young man walks into the Bank with an arsenal of weapons,
Things don't go according to plan,
Young man shoots 12 people dead during a failed bank robbery,
Young angry man is dead:(

If we only knew, we would have supplied a working or a USB Customer Display...

R.I.P. Angry young man, you've never had a chance. We hope that you are in a far better place...

There are a lot of missing details from the story, bits about voodoo, cannibalism, terrorism, anarchism, etc, etc.. but you get the gist...

BTW. There are USB VFD Customer Display Poles and those are a lot easier to set-up and configure, sadly we did not have any of those on that fateful day...