Stories from work: part 2

So here I am telling stories about inappropriate behaviors and people, or is it inappropriate stories about other people? Whatever. These are just some of the stories of workplace mishaps; some of them events, and some of them personalities that I’ve run into. The names remained mostly the same to impugn the guilty.

So there I was, consulting in Aerospace; about my 5th year in (meaning I was 21 years old), and had worked for a few different companies. My Mom was a placement agent for a competing consulting agency that I’d been working for, and she said, “It’s an embarrassment that you don’t work for us, so you’re going to work for us now on”. It wasn’t worth the fight, so I changed firms, as I was changing jobs. I went to working for Rockwell, to working for Rockwell. Well, they were different divisions, in totally different cities, on different projects. I started programming the Milstar Satellite (what our military uses for communications).

Because I was working for my Mom, I start getting a lot of reverse nepotism; like my Interview was one of the most difficult I’d had, because the bosses-boss was sure I was just a charity case by my Mom. They had multiple engineers hitting me with all sorts of technical questions, but I’d been programming in assembler and machine code for nearly 7 years (off and on), so I passed and they put me on a team that I later took-over. But I learned not to advertise the relationship, and few knew. Still, the personalities I worked with in Southern California Aerospace were like nothing I’ve ever met anywhere else; including Dog and Pony Show patrons in Tijuana. This is going to get racy fast, so if you’re easily offended, you might want to go read something else.

I’d been working at Rockwell for like 6 months, and people knew me as the quiet little genius kid, pounding out machine code in the corner. I wrote the bootstrap, the initialization and built-in test code, the communication code that talked between two processors. I was working with a switch-panel and it was low level stuff, even compared to the other assembly programmers. And I was young and didn’t know how to motivate people, so when the put me on a team, I tended to just do everyone on that teams job; which many seemed fine with. I could tell you more what I did, but then I’d have to kill you, so we’ll stop there. But I was the quiet, super-nerd kid, with a pretty impressive reputation in the company.

Well, we all go out for holiday after work dinner/celebration with my Mom’s company. Everyone is there, and many people brought friends to help recruiting efforts, and so on. We’re sitting around drinking and socializing, and I had come out of my shell and was telling some jokes, and letting some people get to know the other side of me. There was a lot of people laughing at my little stand-up routine, and I think a lot of people were surprised that I had that much personality.

This one girl across the table from me took a liking, and decided to tell a joke in her outside voice. The jokes had gotten a little racy, but she says to me as a joke (for all to hear), “So do you know what the difference between eating a burger and eating a pussy is?” It was a festive atmosphere, but still that was a tad racier than most I’d been telling, so the table quieted down to listen. And I replied, “no, what is the difference”. And she says in her outside voice, “Wanna come over to my place for a burger?” The work crowd lost it laughing, I blushed a little, which they enjoyed even more.

Then I said, “Maybe later.” And I reached over and shook her hand, and in my smarmy voice I said, “Hi, I’m Dave. Have you met my Mother?”, and I point to my right. And my Mom smiled and waggled her fingers. “Or my Father”, and I point to him, on my other side (he mentioned that it was very nice to meet her). The crowd lost it, and fell off chairs they were laughing so hard. She turned a color that could best be described as “eggplant”, and literally ran from the table. I guess she realized that she had blown her chance to make a first impression with either a potential boyfriends parents as well as a perspective future boss (my Mom). I got up to follow her and try to assuage her embarrassment, but I distinctly heard my Dad mutter to me, “Don’t let that one go, I bet she could suck-start a Harley”.

Lesson #9, even when partying after-hours, don’t forget who else might be there.

One “character” at Collins (an ex Viet Nam vet named Dave), had a side business flying Japanese tourists to Washington, Wyoming or Canada to hunt big game like bears. At least he did this until he crashed two planes in one summer; and something about the second one stalling and falling on Lear-Jet, resulting in him being “f’ing uninsurable!” putting him out of business. But this was before the close of that venture.

He brought things back for us all to eat. So one day he setup a hibachi in the parking lot, and had invited people to have bear burgers (BBQ style). Dave said if I wanted one, I’d have to go into the cooler to get it, so I looked in there, and moved this bear sausage to get the burgers, which were next to a pelt. Only the sausage was about 3’ long, and wasn’t twisted at various points like most are. And it had a glans (head). Oh crap, that was a big penis. About this time in my realization, they were falling over laughing, as I guess they’d all had this joke played on them. I brought over my burger, and returned the penis where it had been, so he could play the joke on the next person (men and women alike).

Dave then relayed the story about how he almost gotten arrested by zipping it in his pants so it was hanging out of his trousers to his knees, and would approach people in the bar making various lewd comments (swinging it around, or resting it on his shoulder, etc.). A fight almost broke out, but the sheriff was there, and thought it was too damn funny to arrest him. With Dave, this wasn’t much of a surprise, as he’d do some stuff like bring in show and tell pictured to work from his tours in Vietnam, complete with them standing on the bodies of those they’d taken out, and so on. Or pictures from when he was riding with the Hells Angels, doing various inappropriate things. Dave intimidated some people, but not me…. now his wife, she intimidated me.

And by the way, saying that bear tastes a little “gamey” is like saying that week-old hot-sun desert road-kill might taste a little dark. I’ve eaten venison, goose, duck, snake, snails, and so on; but bear was strong! It was like fear-factor before reality TV. I advanced to the next round; while most of the work people couldn’t stomach it. The expressions were often, “oh-my-gawd, this tastes like old-athletic-socks”. I didn’t ask how they knew the taste; best not to pry too deep into other people’s private lives I’ve learned.

Lesson #10, exposed penis’s aren’t work appropriate.

Dave was a tame one at Rockwell. We had Roger, the ex-Vietnam green-beret. He and I got along well; he liked my scrappy martial arts attitude. He was late one day because he killed an intruder and had to stay home for questioning. (The police didn’t appreciate the body it seems).

A group of us would go out for Sushi. And bunch of the women went, some were single. One in particular got named “Voom-voom Veronica”. I’ll leave it to the imagination why. But we’re all at the Sushi bar, having Saki and trying different things out. Voom-vomm says she doesn’t want any saki because last time she had Saki she got home so drunk that she let her boyfriend have anal-sex with her, and she was sore for days after that. I nearly choked on my beer, and thought, “this is a work story?”.

So we’re all trying different things, and I am peaceful having raw squid (which is more crunchy than when it is cooked). But I pop a piece in my mouth, and Voom-voom says to the other girl,”I can’t stand squid”. The other girl asks, “why not?” To which the reply was, “because it tastes just like cum”. Ptooy, ack, pthth. Out came the squid that I was eating into my napkin, and I pushed the other piece aside. Suddenly, my serving was far less appetizing. While I’m doing that, the other girl says to the first, “Oh, so that’s what Squid tastes like”. The rest of the group that was in shock over the first statement, completely lost it at the second one’s innocent, or not-so-innocent, response; as well as my little choking and spitting fit. Someone cracked wise that I was a spitter, and they laughed to tears; though I didn’t find it nearly as funny (at the time) as they did.

Lesson #11, don’t make fun of another persons food.

There are 100 more stories like these. Not all of them funny, but lots of them eccentric. The 6 cousins that tried to run the family business based on old rivalry’s and who they could screw over. Stories about a couple bosses that were absolute screamers that berated workers for their own poor decisions, and how that came back to haunt them later. There’s a story about a guy that found an Excel spreadsheet for the entire companies payrates + bonus schedules on an open server, so he emailed it to the entire company. (That wasn’t me). One company I was in, the entire engineering team used to go target shooting at the local pistol-range during lunch; management’s reaction to that was priceless. Or at one company I was at, I helped an executive that needed help with his machine; the problem was he’d gotten a virus from one of the gay-porn sites he visited regularly (and filled a lot of his disk with). Which begs the question of whether his wife knew or not – but again, not my problem.

There has been a lot of characters I’ve worked with, around or for; years of consulting leads to seeing lots of colorful things. So when I tell stories about my humorous or dysfunctional family, and people act shocked – I keep wondering how all these characters I’ve met in life, either didn’t have families, or that their families don’t know the true them (or are just in denial). Maybe it’s just the granola bar of California (fruits, nuts and flakes). But then again, I’ve met the same in Ohio, Illinois, Texas and New York. I think people are just people; quirky, crazy, eccentric kids – many playing “pretend” to be adult, but too often letting glimpses of the inner-child get out. But then again, that’s what make’s life fun and interesting. I enjoy the loons and weirdoes, and totally offensive and inappropriate stuff now and again… as long as I’m not the subject of some future stories. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I have been and will be.