[myself248]

A friend of mine had this happen with a processor card for a telephone switch. A bad software update had hosed up the primary card in such a way that it also made the standby unable to function, and they were capital-D Down for hours. The manufacturer was in Texas, the switch was in Michigan.

The soonest flight was a passenger flight, not a cargo flight, so they bought the box a ticket and sent it on its way. At the receiving airport, a logistics company picked it up and drove it straight to the office in need.

Thing is, the logistics company sent a semi. Because they hadn't been told the size of the shipment, just its declared value, and they reasoned that anything worth mid six figures must be big. So this intrepid truck driver couldn't (in a timely fashion) get close to the building, and ended up jogging across the parking lot with the card under his arm, as the tech headed down the elevator to meet him at the door.

"Sign here. What the heck is this thing, anyway?"

"Twenty thousand people's ability to call 911. Thanks, gotta go!"

[jedberg]

For most of my career, I've worked in ops for companies where every moment of downtime would mean the loss of a lot of money.

But I always tempered the anxiety by reminding myself that no matter what happens, no one's life was on the line from any downtime I might be responsible for.

[dylan604]

I love these kinds of stories. My current favorite is one I first read about here a few weeks ago where NASA needed some to replace a broken something holding up a launch. They arranged for an F-14 (or something along those lines) as a courier since normal shipping wouldn't get there in time.