Told to equate achievement with pain.

You have a stack of tapes this high to be loaded. You have three tape drives. You put a tape into one drive. You take it out because it won't read. You put another tape in after it and the drive jams.

You put the initial tape that won't read into another drive and it won't read there either. You take it out and put it in a third drive with the same result. Subsequent tapes in each of these drives (it must be the drives) jam as well. You call helpdesk complaining about our crappy support.

After much back and forth, it emerges that you ignored the lack of a green light and forced the dud tape — a DLT that had dropped its leader — from each of the three drives in turn. Thus breaking them. And meaning you have no more tape drives for the stack of tapes this high you have to load. WELL DONE!

They're lucky we had a spare drive to hand. "Please don't break this one." I really hope the vendor invalidates the warranty on grounds of equipment abuse and they get the bill.