arduino420 I agree also.  My story was while learning about magnetic amplifiers.  I was doing a lesson and clearly did something wrong, so I turned the box over - because it was open on the bottom and I knew that I could access the components inside.  Without thinking, I stuck my face close to the box and gave a big sniff.  A wise man would have noted that the box was completely full of thick, white magic smoke.  I was not that man.  I got a nose full of fried resistor - so much so that everything smelled and tasted like burned resistor for about three days.

I learned a lot that day...

derkpeter
Derk, Hey I still use my Tektronix 747A, it's a bit slow only 250Mhz but for the embedded stuff it's still fast enough for me! (I have not set my scope up since my move so this one of the webs will have to do.  But if I need to see something much faster I will have to dig out its big brother. It is a Tektronix 7905 which has a 500Mhz Bandwith (non-storage). Currently, I'm not sure where it is Garage or Warehouse and it is a pain in the ass to move. It's about 30lbs without the plug-ins. (on the right)  This was my favorite scope when I used to work at Hughes in California, I also had a 7D01 16 chan logic analyzer with 7DF1 formatter and a 7D10.(on the left) I'm not sure where those 3 plugins are greed got the better of me and I sold them for a good chunk of change. (on the left)

(pictures from the TekWiki)

I AM A TEACHER AND GIVE LESSONS IN TECHNOLOGY, PHYSICS, REALLY EVERYTHING BETA. WITH KID BUT ALSO GYMNASIUM students. This is my oscilloscope. fished out of the garbage. it's a phillips from my birthyear (1967). I have repaired it several times now. the tubes  takes ages for it to warm up and to show something on the screen and you also have to mess around with the contacts to make it work.  I actually love this retro, antiek and think its made my look like a crazy professor. But my students look at me like I can't get anything better.

I had a ex coworker who was working on his vehicle. instead of getting a socket set for his battery connector he grabbed his needle nose pliers which werent insulated. well he dropped it and it bridged the battery terminals. not much left of the pliers at all. i have personally made the mistake of not shutting power down and rewiring a power supply using a way too big of a screwdriver for what I actually needed.  bridged it out but at least it was just fused and blew the fuse out

The worst tool for testicular electronics is a pager set to vibrate. Always got husband when he was in the middle of testing. Would call the pager and it would go off with perfect timing. Still don’t know how I timed it right not being there and in a totally different town. The pager would vibrate just as his hands were in the circuit and he thought he was being shocked some how cause he was so into what he was doing. I said after the third time take the pager off when working around electronics and especially with any type of electrical circuit. Even when powers off the mind still senses the vibration as a shock even though it isn’t. So I say a pager.

Sgts Mess, Falkland Islands, breakfast . . . .

The amount of times I saw a squaddie shove a metal breadknife into the conveyor belt toaster to unjam a bit of stuck bread . . . . .they NEVER turned it off!

The worst tool to use for electronics - your nose!

Thankfully I'm not speaking from experience, but a co-worker of mine decided that the best way to tell if an iron was heating up was to smell it. One day he got a little too close and sure enough, he burned the bottom part of his nose. Talk about the smell of burning skin... To this day, we remind him when he pulls his iron out to NOT smell it.

The absolute worst tools to use are a butter knife to stabilize something and a soldering iron....just say    Lesson learned

vickydugal Guruvinder Pliers, I must have more than a dozen or so all for electronics, not including cutters. What do you do to bend wire?? Rocks??

Pliers are the worst tools used in electronics.