Leisher 
Top 3%, yo.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 26651
Joined: May 2004
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Posted on: Nov. 04 2011,12:23 |
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I have no idea why I typed up the stuff below. Something Thib posted this morning sparked my memories of working for HP and I guess I wanted to share. These are not all hilarious stories, just things that I found funny or thought was interesting for the year that I worked there. (For Gordo and Cake, this is the job before OAPI.)
This was 1995.
#1:
A funny story about the history major I used to work at HP with, whose name I cannot remember. I do remember he was on the large side, was balding, and had a skin condition.
Anyway, we had this boss, Bob Johnson (that's really his name), and he was one of these chickenshit men who find themselves in a middle management job at some big firm and just hide there. Anyway, Bob had a tick where his eye would twitch and he would snap his head down in the direction of that eye, and his shoulder on that side would lift up. This really got going during periods of stress.
Side note: Just typing this up, nobody is going to believe me, but I swear it's true.
Anyway, I don't know why or how this happened, but the history guy did his imitation of Bob during a staff meeting. Bob looked confused and asked why he moved his head like that. History guy said, "Because of your twitch." Bob responded back, while twitching, "What twitch?" You should have seen his face. Either he's the greatest actor on Earth or nobody had told that poor bastard about his tick.
#2:
My department boss whose job melted into mine and the history guy within 6 months, was named Robert Schneider...or Schroeder...anyway, he was short, had greased back hair, and was kind of a good hearted douche bag. Picture a short Pat Riley, but lazy. Oh, and he had IBS.
Anyway, we had a massive IBM Mainframe that we took care of, and Robert, at the time, had control of the admin account. IBM sent over this tech named Cindy (Cake and Gordo might remember her as "Man Hands"...) and she needed access to that admin account, so she asked him for his password.
Robert was a bit of a pig, and now was in a bind due to his password, so he tried spelling it out, "H O T T W A T".
She figured it out...
#3:
The office here in Toledo had 20-30 people working there. Most were programmers, so as you can imagine there were tons of chicks and the atmosphere was a wild party every day. (Reality: One chick and you'll hear more laughter at funeral homes.)
The office had one black guy. I believe the character of Stanley on The Office was based on him, so we'll call him Stanley.
Stanley was notoriously lazy. If you had to work with him on anything, you could expect him to never walk into the server room, always ask you to come to him, and whatever you needed would take forever. Oh, and if it was after hours, it'd be blown off unless the place was on fire.
This was back in the days of pagers, and while walking through the office I heard Stanley and his manager arguing. It turns out Stanley was taking a dump and dropped his pager into the toilet.
I don't remember why this was so controversial at the time, but Stanley was taking heat for not retrieving the pager, and instead just flushing and leaving it there.
#4:
When the verdict for the OJ trial came down, the whole office was watching one TV. When he was announced not guilty Stanley shouted "Yes" and did a fist pump in the air.
All the white people in the office were dead silent and just looking at him.
I remember how hilarious, yet oddly educational that moment was for me.
#5:
That one chick? A hottie from Czechoslovakia. We fooled around in the mainframe room. Giggity.
#6:
I used to work thirds at HP a lot. Sometimes it was cool to work alone (The 4th of July was the best. I had a front row 5th floor seat to the fireworks.), other times not so cool. Working with me in the building was a security guard down on the 1st floor. We had two regulars, Colonel Klink (who looked just like him, and was kind of a dick), and Norm (who looked similar and was a nice guy). So one Saturday night I went down into the basement for a smoke, and apparently there was some sort of big treasure hunt going on downtown. I had no clue about it as such things meant nothing to me. Anyway, I get on the elevator to go back up and this guy and a blonde girl get on with me. The guy is holding the elevator for someone else who is coming, and the blonde gets right in my face. At the time she is very cute. She's short, has a nice body, and is crazy aggressive.
She starts asking me questions, like who I am, why am I here, what's up on the fifth floor, etc. She's doing this while my back is against the elevator wall, and she's literally pressing her body into mine. At one point, she kind of stopped with the third degree and got this dirty little smile on her face. She said, "You don't know who I am do you?". I replied, "Nope. Should I?"
Their third is finally approaching the elevator and this chick is asking if she can come up to the 5th floor with me. Just me and her. She's still pressed against me, and not paying any attention to the other folks in the elevator. The one guy says, "Chrys, we're doing this hunt." She, without looking back, says, "I don't care. I want to go up with this guy."
The elevator was now moving, and I told her she could come up with me, but before I could think it through the doors opened to the first floor. Colonel Klink was starring at all of us in the elevator. Her crew began exiting, and she said she was staying on. The Colonel immediately spoke up saying it wasn't allowed, and she needed to get off.
She grabbed my shirt, and shot back at him that she was going upstairs with me. They actually argued for a second before she stormed out at and then past him and screaming "Fuck you asshole".
I just stood there wondering what the fuck just happened.
Colonel Klink turns back to me and says, "Do you know who that was?" ME: "Nope"
"That was the anchor for WTOL." (Our local CBS affiliate.)
This is her 16 years later. She got ugly, but she was pretty good looking when it would have counted for me.
I have since heard from folks in that industry (If you remember, I worked in it too.) that back in those days, she was wild. Which is pretty standard for local news employees (It's like a massive orgy.).
Fucking Colonel Klink. Norm would've let her up.
#7:
There was a homeless lady who walked around Toledo with a large staff and dressed in purple robes. The staff was taller than her and had a hook at the top, while her robes fully covered her and even had a hood.
When I worked thirds I usually left when the sun was coming up.
One morning, I was getting ready to leave and I went down to chat with Norm. I was groggy from working a double, and was just waiting for history guy to come relieve me. While chatting with Norm I had my back to this huge wall of windows. It was an entrance way where the doors and walls around it was all glass.
I should note that the way I was standing was shielding Norm from the windows too.
Anyway, I chatted with Norm about sports for a good 15 minutes, and I heard something at the glass doors behind me, so I turned around thinking it was history guy. Although I don't know why I thought that since he had to come up from the elevators.
When I turned I was immediately blinded by the sun coming through the windows. It was striking them in such a way that they all seemed to be on fire. It wasn't a direct blast of light into my eyes, but rather the windows glowed with an orange and yellow light. And right in the middle of all this flame like light was a large shadowy, hooded figure with a huge staff. It seriously looked like Armageddon had arrived.
It scared the living shit out of me.
Related note: She has since passed away.
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