Hardware Hack
We needed a locker at Co-Up co-working space. Alex and Aleks said there was a locker with a lost key that nobody was using anymore and joked that if we broke the padlock, the locker could be ours. Although they were only joking, we liked the sound of that challenge. Who doesn’t like destroying padlocks??
Then, as if planets were mysteriously aligning, coach Matt turned up and mentioned that he had a junior hacksaw at home. We cycled to his home, fetched the hacksaw, and wasted no time in using it:
Three minutes later, the door to the locker was open. Our first hardware hack!
Later that day we were having lunch together at a local restaurant. By chance we ended up sharing a table with Cristina. Cristina is an organiser of Rails Girls and helps coworking managers use Co-Up’s coworking tool, @cobot_me. It was the first time we had met her.
She asked about our day and we proudly told her we’d performed our very first hardware hack. We described breaking into locker number 7 and discovering its strange contents (a HUGE 5kg laptop charger from approx the year 1990). She looked confused.
“Locker number 7?” She asked, “A Hewlett Packard charger?”
“Um… yes,” we replied, our own confusion forming.
Yes. It was Christina’s locker. Sure, she hadn’t used it in a while, but no(!) she had not lost the key.
We immediately apologised, and, lucky for us, Cristina was totally cool. “It’s fine,” she said, “seriously. No Problem.”
We were relieved.
“But please,” she added, as we continued eating, “stay away from my home.”
We are happy to comply.
