While working at a monitoring centre for a National company I was involved in the monitoring of some of the first video verification units routinely connected to an alarm. The systems worked in the usual way, signal when set and unset and when the alarm activated it sent through pictures from the nearest camera unit.

During my first 'live' night shift after training I was told to look after any video alarms that came in. My colleagues seemed to get very agitated at around 11.30 and they seemed to be paying more attention to my work station than their own.

At around 11.40 my screen flicked into life and an address of a house appeared on my screen. I was confused as it was showing nothing more than a set signal some seconds earlier. Before I had chance to query this with my supervisor my video screen flashed up an alarm image from the house. I was about to clear it down as a false image when something caught my eye!!

The house owner, who was a rather chubby pensioner, was walking towards the camera unit totally naked. Just when I thought it couldnt get any worse, he strectched his arms above his head, then relaxed and reached down for what can only be called 'a good scratch'!

I became aware of the rest of my shift laughing around me. This appeared to be some sort of initiation as everyone was in on the joke.

It turned out that this had been happening for some time as the engineer had wired the alarm triggers incorrectly but no-one had the heart to get someone back there because they had been laughing at it for months!

I am still undergoing therapy to remove the images from my mind!!!!!

Edited March 1, 200422 yr by Andyp

fantastic!