@marcan I love hardware war stories :-)
I was on course once and I said to a guy how I was never on course with anyone from my area. The guy from sperry said they do it on purpose, because it spreads all our war stories in the bar after the day. I don't think that's true, but I do know I often learned more talking to other techs in the bar than in the course.
Software bugs are a dime a dozen - I can fat finger any language into breaking before first coffee, but there's something enormously satisfying about tracking down a pesky, intermittent hardware bug! :-)