Share your random work memories

[Buckaroo65]

Back in the 80’s I was working at a company waterproofing decks and balconies. Small company, one boss guy, one serious carpenter, and a bunch of us knuckleheads… so the serious carpenter guy says that every Tuesday morning we’re going to come in a half hour early for a safety meeting. He’d tell a story about how someone got hurt on a job, and we were supposed to draw conclusions and say what we’d learned.
One day he tells us about the guy who checked the depth of the blade of a circular saw by holding his fingers behind the board while cutting, with the expected result.
When he asked me what we could learn from this, my reply was “you used to work with some friggen idiots”.
He was not amused.

 

[Engine Swap]

Back in college, I worked as a shift manager at a Kinkos (now FedEx Office). On a slow rainy Monday night, the crew decided to have a massive paper airplane fight.

Everyone made 20-30 planes and then we went at it, running all over the store. We had a blast and cleaned everything up before the overnight shift came in.

The next night, the store manager called me into the office. He told me that they found paper airplanes everywhere - WTF? - so he looked at the security video from the previous night…

 

[1955]

For a lot of the time, not always, I busted my butt and nobody cared.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

Probably a TLDR post, but here goes.

In my little insignificant world I always did well in my position, from a parts room rat to a field tech to a long term acting field manager. There was exactly one time when I "cheated" and probably could have gotten fired if I was caught. I falsified some customer satisfaction surveys. Not for me but one of the guys on my team.

You see, I had become aware of trends, one being that every field tech I ever knew who went on any length of short term disability was next up for the inevitable manpower reduction. One of my guys was off because he had a heart attack and returned to work with like 30% heart function. I tried talking him into seeing if he could qualify for long term disability, but he just wouldn't pursue it. I had to prep all my rep's performance stats, and Chris didn’t hit target on customer satisfaction surveys. Now it wasn't because on a scale of 1 to 5 he was below a 3. I think he was somewhere around 3.7. But in order to hit "target", everyone had to have like 4.7. All techs were instructed "educate the customer" on the nature of the survey at call completion. In other words, beg for a 5. Despite 5 options of numbers, it truly was a pass or fail proposition. Chris wasn't particularly eloquent, definitely an introvert. I had bailed him out once before after a reorg layoff. When business picked up and we were hiring again, I tracked him down and found him living with his mother on Detroit's east side, still unemployed. But he was always a fair tech and could get the job done. We got him back on board.

So now faced with a missed target of the almighty satisfaction survey, I falsified his stat in a desperate attempt to not get axed in an upcoming reduction in force. It didn’t work, they canned him anyways. I kept in touch with him afterward but then one day his cell number was disconnected. After I left the job and moved to early retirement in Florida, I Googled him. I found his obituary and calculated he died just months after the layoff. He was 50.

 

[rarebreed]

I'm a retired autoworker. There are two Ford assembly plants here in the Louisville, KY area and I spent 32 years in one of them. Worked in every department in the plant at one time or another except clean-up and maintenance. I could go one for days about random memories of my time there so I'll just say that the memories I have the most are of co-workers. Made a lot of friends working there, many have passed on to better things. There were times we were working so many long overtime hours that I spent more waking hours with my co-workers than my wife and kids at home. Lastly I'll say this, while I don't miss the place, I do miss seeing a lot of good friends.

 

[Mechanic]

I worked in a transit machine shop rebuilding diesel components and electrical starters and alternators and other components. We had radio wars as to who was the loudest and with different genres of music and talk programming. I usually in the morning would listen to an alternative music and talk show. They basically played Talking Heads, Blondie, Clash and spoke about past and up coming local shows. In the afternoon was a crap shoot as to what got played. One time might be Alan Jackson, Dwight Yoakum. Next might be Beatles and Stones, fallowed by who knows what. I’d put Rush Linbau on in the afternoon. Quite a bit of the time I got compliments on what I played but then Brooks and Dunn Boot scootin Boogie (I liked it) got whined about by everyone. I just turned it up until my boss came out of his office to tell me to turn it down or off. I played it again just a little louder before clocking out on Friday. Came back Monday to find the cord to the amp cut next to the back and the cord no where to be found. I just pointed it out to my boss and took my time on the clock to repair it.
Brooks and Dunn was the first thing played on Monday.
Radio wars never happened again.

 

[Engine Swap]

During college, I was working Sunday brunch as a server at some s*box restaurant and we were slammed!

A brassy gal I worked with had just cleared off an 8-top and was heading back to the kitchen fully loaded when a customer called out: “Yoohoo - Miss!”

Without missing a beat, she replied: “I’ll be with Yoohoo in a minute” and disappeared into the kitchen.

 

[Flyboy]

Here's a weird one, also from my time (77-85) at Berkman's.
A lawyer came in wanting an answering machine, and I dutifully showed him the lines we carried, Sanyo and Code-A-Phone.
While doing so, the lawyer (who reminded me at least twice just how high powered he was) decided on the most expensive Code-A-Phone.
I went to the stock room, and looked for one new, in a box.
All we had was the display, I explained this to him, and offered him a 20% discount.
He asked to see the manager.
I explained that was me.
He proceeded to berate me for not having a new one.
In his defense, I should have perhaps ordered more.
We sold, and rented lots of them.
They arrived almost weekly.
Anyway, he turned on his heels, and called me a dumb SOB.
Though I pride myself on being cool, collected and professional, I did a foolish thing.
As he walked past me, I grabbed his collar with my left hand, and his belt and pants in my right, and frog-marched him out the front door.
In my defense, I opened the door with my left shoulder, instead of opening the door with him.
He left without further incident.
Very, very foolish of me.
For months, I sweated whether he would sue, getting me fired, and my company financially ruined.
I was about 27 at the time.
I guess he picked the wrong time and thing to say to me.
Nothing came of it.
Whew!

I did that once: frogmarched a known thief out of the shop.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

I got a summer placement from university in the structural engineering department of my local government development corporation in'86.
My first job was to make a model of a footbridge they were designing (it ended up being built at the top of the street I grew up in).

Anyways, I done a pretty good job and was getting the plaudits from the other guys in the drawing office, when the chief engineer walks up and says:

"I see you're pretty good with a scalpel lad"

I nodded.

"OK, you can cut the dates off the bottom of these"

He then hands me a pile of construction industry calendars. This was the 1980s and these calendars would make the 1980s Pirelli calendars look like something from a church fete.
They wanted the topless (and bottomless) pictures for the office wall.

Later I learned that this office had a VHS porno lending library. £1 for a 2-night rental, £1 fine if you didn't rewind the tape.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

I hired into my job Jan 9th, 1979, having turned 19 the previous October. It was a "just a job", something to do while I went about chasing the dream of fame and fortune in music. I recall one of the old timers asking "how old are you kid? Nineteen? Well, you were just a twinkle in your daddy's eye when I was already working here."

I found that notion offensive. No way I was going to be one of these old coots. Fast forward one year and 11 months, a dreary December day. I had turned 21 the prior October and my "dream" was nowhere closer to being realized. The band I had lingered in since childhood was pretty much over as people were starting to have real life get in the way. My childhood hero had been inconceivably murdered the night before in New York. I had turned 21 on the same day he turned 40. I told my boss I wasn't feeling well and left work. Took a drive to a local park and plod my way through the snow, at a loss in finding answers to elusive questions.

Fast forward several decades and there I was, training a new hire who was still the twinkle in his daddy's eye when I was already working there.

It's funny how we fold the corners of pages and bookmark some chapters in our life's story.

 

[brookdalebill]

I’ll briefly list a few gigging highlights.

My friends and I backed Wanda Jackson at a high school gym in British Columbia, twenty five-ish years ago.
She was truly charming.
I opened for Exile (I Want To Kiss You All Over, and dozens of Country hits) in 1987.
Lee Roy Parnell was the other (better) guitarist.
Exile were super cool and nice.
I opened for the Kentucky Headhunters twice, also princely guys.
I did 3 gigs in San Antonio with country artist Rick Trevino.
Great singer, great pianist!, nice guy.
I did a gig with the late, wonderful Jimmy LaFave, great singer/writer, nice guy, riveting performer.
I opened for Steve Wariner thrice (another princely guy), Gene Watson twice, Sammy Kershaw, NRPS (nice guys), Charlie McClaine, Mickey Gilley, Johnny Lee, Johnny Bush, T.G. Sheppard, Moe Bandy, Asleep At The Wheel, the Stampeders, Alabama, Tanya Tucker, Mark Chesnut, and a few others.

 

[Old Deaf Roadie]

Once had a band pick up a full 3-way PA. Speakers, mixer, wedges, cables, the works. Then, proceeded to stuff all 2000 lbs. of it into a Ford E-150 to haul it from Davenport, IA to a college gig in Grinnell, IA. As I understand it, they crossed an overpass on I-80 somewhere near Iowa City and the axle bumpers hit the frame so hard they lost control of the van and rolled it into the median. Luckily, those 2 guys walked away with only loaded drawers and a couple of scrapes. The van and our gear did not survive. This is why you pay for insurance...and rent a truck if yours is not up to the task.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

I’ll briefly list a few gigging highlights.

I have a ton of fond gigging memories, but only 1 associated with anyone famous. 1994, opening for Huey Lewis and the News at a radio station sponsored "For Women Only" cruise. It was a riot. They were doing their a capella thing at the time, but commandeered our stuff for a closing set. Those guys were pros.

 

[brookdalebill]

I have a ton of fond gigging memories, but only 1 associated with anyone famous. 1994, opening for Huey Lewis and the News at a radio station sponsored "For Women Only" cruise. It was a riot. They were doing their a capella thing at the time, but commandeered our stuff for a closing set. Those guys were pros.

Amen!

 

[unixfish]

We had a customer about four jobs ago that had issues with their cash registers at a fast food joint. Every day around 02:00, the cash registers would crash and not reboot for a few hours. this happened 5 nights a week. Sometimes it was right at two, sometimes a bit before, sometimes a bit after. We could not figure out why this was happening - they would all just crash. The company I was working for sent someone to babysit the registers overnight to figure out what was happening.

At right around two, the night guard, so also help to clean the floors and counters, said hi to the person watching, then turned on a hose to rinse off the counter, and hosed off the cash registers. Down they went...

 

[unixfish]

Same job. A client was having trouble booting their cash register via a floppy. We tried to debug without luck, so we asked them to send a copy of the diskette.

Yep. You guessed it. We got a Xerox copy of the diskette in the mail.

 

[unixfish]

I used to work for an insurance company back in the late 80s. We had satellite offices that accessed our systems via a VT terminal and a modem. One of the offices called, saying they needed more than one person accessing the system at a time, so they wanted to know if they could have one person connect via the modem they had, then disconnect the modem and have the second person connect with it, then disconnect them and have a third person connect so all three could access at once.

Sure. Uh-huh. Go ahead and try. Let me know how that works for ya.

This was long before most people understood technology. I give them credit for trying to find a solution to an access issue.

 

[wrathfuldeity]

This was in 2002 after 911, got called in on a case, where the hospital ER was shut down because of this guy... presumably made a creditable bomb threat... federal case. The detectives after telling me the WILD story of the events said he's yours and were walking. "Oh hell no! You got to write up your report, I'm not touching the case until I have your signed reports." The two detective reluctantly wrote a detailed report of the events, recognizing that if they did not... I could have easily cut the guy loose. Anyway the guy was harmless... but the system's response was f'ing insane.

Crisis MH evaluator and consultant, with involuntary commitment duties. Tons of crazy stories during my 25 years.

 

[brookdalebill]

Once had a band pick up a full 3-way PA. Speakers, mixer, wedges, cables, the works. Then, proceeded to stuff all 2000 lbs. of it into a Ford E-150 to haul it from Davenport, IA to a college gig in Grinnell, IA. As I understand it, they crossed an overpass on I-80 somewhere near Iowa City and the axle bumpers hit the frame so hard they lost control of the van and rolled it into the median. Luckily, those 2 guys walked away with only loaded drawers and a couple of scrapes. The van and our gear did not survive. This is why you pay for insurance...and rent a truck if yours is not up to the task.

I wrecked the band bus while touring western Canada in the bar show band, The Outriders, in October 1992.
It was during a sudden, freak ice storm early in the season, on the infamous Isogun (ice-again?) Hill in north central Alberta.
Roughly a dozen vehicles (semis, our bus and trailer, pickup trucks and cars) littered the valley.
I hit the windshield, putting a tooth through my lip, and getting a chunk removed from my right cheek (the one that doesn’t show).
The Bluebird converted band bus, 16 ft. dual axle Wells Cargo trailer, and it’s contents were totaled.
Scary.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

The pinnacle of my field service work was when fax machines became a big thing. Not complex machinery, but often complex customer relation issues. I remember early on talking to a former coworker who had become a sales manager down in Kentucky. She had one particular customer going ballistic that her newly installed unit wasn't working right. She demanded that the sales manager visit their office, quite a distance away.

When she arrived, the indignant customer demonstrated the malfunction. She put a document in to the scanner, then said "Look! There! It just keeps popping out the back!"



She apparently thought the original document would magically disappear into some digital vapor, and appear at the other end. Maybe like a Star Trek transporter. Still dubious, she was encouraged to call the receiver to confirm its receipt.

Uhhh, yeah. Like a dozen times.