As I wrote about theh Western Union patent goof every company has their moments that they regret.
During the early, early, days of the Internet, I was one of a few employees in our area of Bell Labs who downloaded and used a browser. I would click around on the hypertext links and just check out the content. At this point it was mainly research material and a few, very early, commerce and search sites. While I was having my own epiphany about the future, The frustrating part was to get interest in this game changing technology through the higher leadership of Bell Labs and AT&T. You would think this would be easy.
Here are a couple strange but true examples –
Back in 1993, I convinced a couple of “bigwigs” to come to my office. I showed them “the Internet”. Imagine a conversation – “hey we are going to Steve’s office, he has the Internet in there” We clicked around and explored the content. I explained that this would really change everything – voice, video, music, imaging, advertising, and commerce.
The Internet was a distraction, at best, to the real company real goal of hat era -To rewire America with fiber optic company. The fact that the service “raison d’etre” fo fiber investment would have to be new services other than voice was and interesting academic discussion, but not the top priority.
They left my office with the words, “I don’t get it, this will never take off, never be big”. The person who said those words has gone on to become very successful. He is a CEO of a major corporation that makes most of its revenue from – Internet technology.
A couple of years later, AT&T decided to form a task force to understand the Internet and its impact on the core AT&T business. I was one of a dozen employees tasked with charting this course. We met regularly in the big, walnut lined, boardroom at corporate headquarters.
At one fateful meeting the head of AT&T walked in theroom with his entourage. He sat in the back and listened intently to our conversations for about 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes he stood up. The collective heartbeats in the room stopped, sweat and nervousness were on every brow.
He then said something that I cab still here ringing in my mind today. “This Internet thing, I am now convinced that it is important and can be really big”
Hearts began to pump blood again. Subtle smiles were exchanged among the group. Maybe our careers would last through 5:00 pm.
He then continued “ I just have one question for you guys”
Hearts stopped again, eye contact was avoided like a New York Subway car at 3:00 am.
“Who owns the Internet and how can we buy it?”
At that point you could here pins dropping from a mile away.
The silence grew to a deafening roar. Seconds seemed like an eternity.
Someone would have to say something.
I decided to end the torture, and perhaps my career.
I said, “Sir, most Internet traffic uses AT&T facilities…and…”
I was cut off in mid-sentence. He said, good, great! , and walked out.
The task force was disbanded later that week, having seemingly fulfilled its mission.
In the 1980’s, Bell Labs had a showcase laboratory facility in the rural horse country of western New Jersey. In addition to being a working facility, it also housed the Bell Labs version of a Disney-esk “future world”. We would use this facility to provide our own version of “shock and awe” to visiting dignitaries.
Before we get to the specifics of a particularly memorable meeting, lets go on a virtual tour of this facility.
In the front lawn is the world famous “Telephone Pole Forest”. In several acres of well-manicured lawn stands several hundred telephone poles, none more than 10 feet tall. We would tell guests this is where AT&T made its poles. The sad part is that sveral people actually believed that this testing facilitywas for real telephone pole production.
This facility also had an engineered swamp built in the back. The swamp was used to measure the impact of water on cables. Only AT&T would build a swamp in New Jersey!
Other interesting aspects included a huge back end of a ship to test cable laying and my personal favorite, a lightning machine.
The interior of the building had a mix of existing and futuristic prototype equipment.
In the mid 1980’s we were entertaining a delegation from China. I was tasked to be part of engineering team that would demonstrate our latest communications gear, and of course show why Capitalism was superior to Communism. Of course AT&T was really a Monopolistic company that was practically socialistic, and therefore closer to the Chinese model, but that’s a detail for the historians to work out.
The Chinese delegation had ten men who seemingly all went to the same tailor and the same barber. They brought a woman who served as a translator.
Not that I speak Chinese- I spoke for 2 minutes and the translator only said 4 words to the delegation. I was suspicious that they might me missing some of the finer points.
Speaking of Science Fiction. The videos we used to demonstrate the on-demand fiber based video systems was the Star Wars Trilogy. The third movie had just been released and the video had great visuals and sound range. A perfect demo.
We escorted them into a small executive theatre area with 3 large screen televisions. As they walked in we displayed their entrance on the screens. This was not much of a stretch of real Bell Labs rocket science. They stopped and stared at there images on the large screens. They waved, jumped, and did all sorts of silly things. I asked the translator if they had any questions. It seems this was the first time they had seen themselves on television. One small move for detente.
When they were seated we began the video demonstration. Their head guy was given the remote control and was instructed to “order” his on demand videos.
Again, our explanation of maybe 150 words was distilled to about 7 words in Chinese, probably something like “they want you to push the blue button.”
With the button pushed the screens filled with the final scene from the first Star Wars movie. Luke was racing towards the Death Star with Darth Vader in hot pursuit.
Another push of the button created a split screen with another epic battle from “The Empire Strikes Back”.
We all enjoyed the scenes and the 500 watts of surround sound sound that made the walls shake with each explosion.
Our guests were confused.
More button pushes revealed more classic scenes, including the Death Star unleashing it Death ray on the doomed planet of Alderaan.
We asked if they had any questions. The translator huddled with the delegation for a couple of minutes. My Bell Labs colleagues and I had no idea what was going on.
After a few more minutes the translator asked, “ What was that military film that you just showed us?”
The answer, “It was Star Wars”
Another couple of minutes of private caucusing in Chinese
Another Question, “ That was a demonstration of Star Wars?”
At that point we finally realized what had happened.
In March of that same year President Reagan had announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a system to protect the U.S. from nuclear missiles with space based weapons.
This program had been called, “Star Wars”.
Our delegation had no idea that Star Wars was a movie! They believed that we had just shown them the super secret space weapon capabilities of the United States!
While it might have been fun to let them believe that the U.S. had Death Stars, Tie fighters, light sabres and death rays, we decided that we had to draw the line at causing a major diplomatic incident. We explained to them that it was just a series of famous movies. We showed them the covers to the video discs.
All Science Fiction.
This time when we gave an explanation of about 200 words, we heard almost 200 words in Chinese. I hope she got it right.
Today, We have three more Star Wars movies, China makes most of the world’s electronic gear, and the telephone pole trees still are only 10 feet tall in a field of weeds.
(If you have not read part 1 of this epic story of Midwestern Love, click here to catch up) Matt was awoken in his room by the ringing phone at midnight. On the line was Lisa form Ruby Tuesday. She was off from work and ready for a night on the town. She wanted to go out with Matt and show him a good time. Matt declined the offer saying he was tired! She then offered to talk to him about their plans for the next day in his hotel room. Again Matt declined.
Alan and I had breakfast with Matt the next morning before we left for the airport. When Matt told us of what happened the night before we were aghast! We clued Matt in as to what he missed. It was also important for Matt to know that married men need to live vicariously through their single friends, and he was letting us down!
We coached him on his upcoming date with Lisa and left for the airport. We did not hear anything else from Matt for the next two days.
When Matt would return to work we would get the rest of the story.
Since we had a day at work before Matt returned, Alan and I had plenty of time to work on this story and it at run through the office like wild fire.
Here is what Matt told me when he got back.
It seems Lisa was not a sweet, innocent, Heidi-like figure. She took Matt on her boyfriend’s boat for a long cruise around the lake. Her boyfriend was serving 16 months in prison for dealing narcotics. Lisa was happy to get stoned on the boat, with or without Matt partaking. She stripped down to a bikini, that was also a size too small, got wasted and hung out with Matt. It seems that Lisa was a bigger BS artist than Alan and I.
A better facsmile of Lisa
The story to this point could go one of two ways.
Just like the famous “Heidi football game”, the last plays would be the most important.
Matt demanded that they take the boast back to the dock and left Lisa, her bikini and her desires behind.
When Matt told me that story I told him the following:
“I understand, but you must not tell anyone what really happened. You have to tell them that the two of hooked up on the boat, that it was great, yada, yada, yada. You have a rep to build.”
He just could not tell a story of sexual escapades, committing a felony, with a gorgeous girl on a cabin cruiser in the middle of Lake Superior. No one would believe him.
During a business trip to Minnesota myself and two colleagues decided to dine at the “Mall of America”. Attending this meal was my VP of Business Development, “Alan” and a computer systems engineer, “Matt”. The engineer could best be described as “the last living 30 year old virgin in Manhattan”. His efforts to find a woman, any woman, included Match.com, JDate, eHarmony and any other site he could find on the Internet. It seems actually talking to a woman was not high on his list of strategies. We decided to eat at one of the Ruby Tuesday within this vast monument to materialism. We sat down and started to discuss Matt’s dating woes. A very nice, very blonde, very cute, and perhaps very available waitress greeted us. She had the Heidi Minnesota look with two long pigtails and a waitress uniform that was just a size or two too small. After she took our drink orders, Alan and I shared a knowing glance that silently said, “Let’s make this happen for Matt”.
Facsmile of "Lisa"
When she returned we discovered that Heidi’s real name was Lisa. Alan and I started to adlib a line of coordinated BS that was at least creative. We told Lisa that the three of us were producers for a new MTV reality show (apologies to my colleagues who actually work at MTV for this one!) We told her that we were scouting talent for a series that will be based in, Minneapolis, and that she had the look we were looking for. (In Matt’s case, she was breathing…) We listened intently to her dreams of being an actress and a singer. How she was working her way through college, etc, etc. blah, blah, blah. We continued this line of discussion through the appetizers and main course. She would stop and talk to us for several minutes each time. The line had been cast and she was about to be brought aboard. All three of us were booked to fly back to New York the next morning. With the optimism that our ruse was going to pay off, I stepped away from the table and changed Matt’s travel arrangements. He would stay an extra day to work on some “Java architecture work”. When I got back to the table, Matt was making excuses that he would never be able to really see her since he was leaving early the next morning. With a big smile I told him he “had” to stay an extra day….the client insists.” (A quick note: I am not proud of this episode or my collusion in this obvious deception. It just seemed like we were helping out a buddy in need) And now the dessert course…
Scene of the Crime
We told Lisa that Alan and I had to leave the next morning. Since she is so familiar with the local area, maybe she could show our associate producer, Matt, around town and help him scout out locations. She eagerly agreed. Phone numbers, and Matt’s hotel room number were exchanged and a very generous tip was left. We had also determined that she got off from work at 11:30 pm and that she would call in sick tomorrow. On the short ride back to out hotel we gave Matt the following advise. When you get together with Lisa, say very little. Do not talk about Java programming and Computer Server architecture. If you fake laryngitis, all the better. If you say nothing, there is a very good chance that your Long wait will be over. With those words, Alan and I felt our humanitarian work was complete. We retired to our hotel rooms for the evening.
Next Week : Volume 6: The Chronicles of Heidi …at the Mall of America – Part 2 – The Conclusion
South Korea is an interesting place to try to do business. While I could easily fill 50 volumes with just the antics of a handful of trips to land of Yin and Yang, five particular hours I spent in Seoul are representative enough.
The corporate office had told me that “Mr. Kim” would meet me as I left customs at the airport in Korea. The chaos in the airport, with the shouting, yelling, shoving and confusion was right out of a movie scene. I walked, blurry eyed after my 12 hour flight, through the customs door into this incredible din. I then made the mistake a yelling out “Mr Kim?”
The noise seemed to diminish to a whisper for a few seconds. What had happened?
It seems that our vigilant corporate travel office neglected to point out that 25% of Koreans have the family name “Kim”. After everyone in the arrival lounge seemed to turn towards me, the volume picked up again, as did my travel headache.
After about 10 minutes I found a sign that said “Stvn Censer”. I figured that was a close approximation to my name and went with that “Mr Kim”.
Seoul Hilton
I was booked into the Seoul Hilton. This is a world class hotel, with many restaurants and five star rooms. At this point all I really wanted was about 8 hours of sleep, with some hope of starting my business meeting the next day in a semi-conscious state.
My room was on the 15th floor and so I went to the bank of elevators. The elevator had some version of classic rock playing. I pushed the “15” button and up I went. The elevator went past the 15th floor and stopped at 18, were a couple entered and pushed “L”. I then double pushed 15. The elevators next stop was the Lobby.
I then pushed “15” again and up I went. This time the elevator stopped on the 10th floor. The doors opened but no one was there! This was strange. The light was still lit on the “15”. The doors closed and the elevator headed back to the lobby. Sigh!
I went to another elevator and pushed all the number from 9 through 18. I stopped on 6, 8, 11, 12 and 15. Success!
What I learned through my week long stay at this hotel was that pushing a button on the elevator served merely as a suggestion, rather than a command to the elevator as to which floor it might actually stop.
Following my elevator ups and downs, I found my room. The room was an executive business suite with all the bells and whistles. After I got settled and unpacked, I was seriously ready from some shuteye. The room had a master control pad next to the bed. This touch screen device controlled the lights, the TV, the radio, a wake-up alarm, room service requests, turn down service, privacy lights and a few things that I still have no idea what they were.
After about 20 clicks, I managed to get everything turned off and was in a deep sleep in about 10 minutes.
I was awaken with a big startle when all the lights in the room started to flash, the TV turned on and the radio blared some Korean news station.
As I peeled myself off the ceiling of the hotel room, I began to regain my senses and started to evaluate what the heck was going on. After 20 more clicks and the room was quiet and dark once again. I figured I must have set some crazy wake-up alarm by mistake. I went back to sleep.
One hour later, I was again on the ceiling of my room with the lights flashing, TV blinking and the radio at its highest level.
This was really not going to be a restful night. After I settled the room back into its own “sleep” state, I had too much adrenaline running through my veins to fall back to sleep. Instead of sleeping, I stayed awake for the next hour. If the room was going to attack me once more in poltergeist style, I wanted to be awake and prepared.
An hour later the big, full size refrigerator (LG Brand, Of course) turned on. I heard the compressor motor start. A couple of seconds later my room came to life in all its noisy glory!
A’ ha! In a real “Dilbert” moment my engineering background kicked in. As the compressor on the frig turned on caused a voltage spike on the electrical line, which caused a glitch in the “room commander” system, which caused my heart to stop and me to leap to the ceiling.
Perfect Cause and Effect.
I unplugged the refrigerator and went to sleep.
Two hours later there was loud knocking at my door. My room service had arrived.
The room service that was in essence ordered by my room frig!
I tipped the waiter, took the platter and put it in the frig.
I did not have any issues with the room, or the frig, the rest of the week.
About 20 years ago , I was working at Bell Labs on a new technology known as fiber to the home. The child of this technology is now known as Verizon Fios service. The business rationale at the time was simple. The telephone market had grown from one line per house, to two lines per house with the penetration of fax machines and dial-up Internet. The question was how to get more growth. The idea was to have the whole country dig up their copper wires and replace them with fiber optics.
It was not a bad idea, just 20 years ahead of its time. I remember that we estimated that it would take about 100,000 loads from cement trucks to fill in the roads that would get dug up just in California.
It was my department’s responsibility to create the “pitch” package that our Business Unit President would use with the executives of Pacific Bell. We finished the package the day before the meetings and briefed the execs.
When it was time for them to leave, my boss stopped by my office and asked me to join her on the jet to re-brief all the execs on the “finer” points. The Jet was scheduled to leave in 20 minutes.
My initial annoyance at the last minute request was countered by the “ubber- cool” factor of flying on the corporate jet. I called home and said . “Dear, I won’t be home for dinner, I’m talking the Gulf Stream to San Jose.”
Does it get any better than that?
I took my laptop (a 1980’s vintage 286 Compaq) and headed to the Morristown airport. The other passengers on the plane were three other Business Unit Presidents and a couple of Corporate biggies from the AT&T side of the business. This was the “A list” entourage and I was included. I thought I would have the opportunity to give them my views on company strategy, acquisitions, maybe even be promoted by the time we landed.
The possibilities seemed endless!
We took off and about an hour later. Sixty minutes into the flight the glamour ended and the work began as I started my re-brief of the sales presentation material. They had the inevitable changes and tweaks they wanted to almost every slide. I was to make the changes in-flight and then work with a secretary in California for production into the bound binders for tomorrow’s big meeting.
If anyone reading this remembers what laptops were like in the 1980‘s, you know that they were big,heavy and had a battery life measured in minutes, not hours. The changes that the exec’s requested would take hours, not minutes.
In this era, Gulf Stream corporate jets were not equipped with many business amenities, most importantly electrical outlets for my laptop charger.
There was only on suitable outlet on the plane.
Wanna guess where it was?
The toilet!
The laptop charger had to be plugged into the shaver outlet. Even with it plugged in, the battery would run out in 45 minutes. Once the battery died, I would leave it plugged in for an hour and then get another 15 minutes of use on my computer. This cycle continued for about 4 hours.
My first experience on a corporate jet and I spend most of the time in a small smelly lav!
After I finished, I rejoined the “team”. They had managed to polish off the shrimp and crab legs, and had made a sizable dent in the beverage bar. They briefly looked through the changes , grunted approval and went back to their eating and drinking. I was offered from pretzels.
It was clear I was now a “third wheel” in this party.
I was clearly not part of this club, but just the lackey with the PC. It was humbling to feel as though your status was significant, until you hang out with the Gods. I realized I would not have to make that call to order my new Porsche when we landed.
So, I decided to sit up front in the jump seat of the cockpit and talk to the pilots for awhile.
When I tried to joke with the pilot that the shrimp and crab was all gone, they asked if we should put down in Denver and get some more? I thought they were joking, but they were not! They said it would not have been the first time they had stopped en route to refuel the passengers with food.
When we finally landed we were met by two stretch limos and one 1975 Ford Pinto.
The execs were not taking the Pinto.
Ford Pinto slightly better than this!
The secretary who would work with me on the presentation production drove the Pinto. We drove to a local AT&T office, for what we hoped would be a couple of minutes.
Naturally, the print drivers on my laptop did not work with any of the printers that were in the office. All of the office computers were securely locked. I finally found a printer that did work, but it had a less than blazing print speed of about 1 page every 5 minutes. The forty page presentation was going to take the rest of the night to print.
Everything was finally finished around 5:00 am (California time). I went to the hotel where the exec’s were slumbering. My instructions had been to slip the binders under the door of my President’s room.
However, the hotel doors had metal plates that prevented anything bigger than a single piece of paper to fit under the door.
Having been up for over 24 hours, spending 5 hours sitting on a airplane toilet, battling the printers and copiers, I looked and felt my best at this point.
I knocked on the door and it was opened right away. He was in his tailored Brooks Brother suit, shaved, and not a hair out of place. The only thing that was missing was a photographer from GQ magazine.
He looked at me and said “you look awful, were you up all night?” Many quick replies came to my mind at that point, fortunately my judgment was not impaired.
I asked he if he had slept? He said , “of course, fully rested and ready to go!”
“And you?”
I told him the whole story. He then informed me that the rest of the exec entourage where going to fly to San Diego to play golf.
He said thanks and closed the door. I sighed
The secretary drove me back to the airport.
I flew back on a commercial flight. Middle Seat. Smoking Section.
I hate cigarette smoke.
They told me later that the meetings were a fabulous success.
The technology was promptly deployed 20 years later.
P.S. I told everyone back at work how great is was to ride on the corporate jet.
Over the years everyone has seen their share of office flings and true romances. Many have happy endings with the couple getting married and living happily ever after, while some have other memorable moments.
According to a recent study that was detailed in the Telegraph, over 40% of office workers have had intimate relations with a co-worker. The issue for productivity is that sometimes they take a long time to initiate “contact”. An office worker will spent an estimated 600 hours gazing at their crush at work. That is almost 4 months wasted in an average corporation (or one month of time in an average start-up)!
Here are the top office romance “moments” I have witnessed. I have changed the names to protect the partying parties.
6. Rock and Roll in the parking lot
When I worked at a company that had a large parking lot, the expanse of lined pavement became a lunch time “play” ground. At our company it was fairly well known that certain vans would have parties during lunch hours. It was not unusual to walk to a local deli though our parking lot and see several vehicles having their suspensions tested. If the van was a rockin, we didn’t come a knocking.
5. Flash Technology
One company I worked for had a front desk receptionist who was well endowed, blonde and bubbly. I am sure she could also type and answer the phone, although that was just a rumor. She was a true company asset.
She greeted guests with a big smile and they immediately felt good about our products and services. It did not take long for many of the red blooded single guys to compete for her attentions. She would repay their attentions by flashing them – Mardi Gras – style, as they walked into the office.
Evidently this flashing practice went on for quite some time.
Being an uninterested, happily married guy, I was not treated to the show.
(That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)
One day she flashed one of her admirer’s just as the CEO walked in the door.
Two minutes later, she and her assets walked out the door for the last time.
4. Hello Boss, got a minute?
One day I walked into my boss’ office (after knocking, of course). He had a large executive office with nice furniture.
My happily married boss was sitting at his desk with a bemused expression on his face.
We had about a 5 minute conversation on an important project. He was unusually agreeable to every one of my suggestions and did not engage in his normal point-by-point debate. I was feeling good and thought my superior powers of persuasion were at work.
As I left the office, I saw two nylon clad legs belonging to our shared secretary, sticking out from under the desk. I assumed that it was not her new dictation technique.
This little episode was never spoken about and it was just like it never happened, except it did.
3. Stirring the Paint
We had just leased a new office and we decided it needed a new fresh of paint before we moved in. Being frugal, we hired a low bid painting company.
The painting seemed to be taking a long time so I decided to visit the new office and check up on the painters.
As I rode up to our office in the elevator, the smell of paint got heavier, a good sign.
Ding! The elevator doors opened and there were our two painters!
The husband and wife team were having their own version of a break on two desks in the new Marketing area.
This image will haunt me forever.
I made sure that all meetings with Marketing took place in another area of the office.
2. Memories, Nothing but Memories…
Back when digital cameras still cost a lot, our company bought one that was used for marketing events. It was not unusual for employees to borrow our camera over a weekend for a party or other uses.
(Can you see where this is leading?)
So, when “Bob” asked our marketing associate to borrow the camera for a weekend, there was no problem. On Monday morning he returned it to the marketing associate who signed it back into her department.
Being a good , conscientious employee, she noticed that he had not erased the entire memory card. The camera was needed that afternoon for a shoot and she was rightfully concerned that “Bob’s” pictures would be overwritten and lost.
Rather than just erase the memory, she decided to upload the files to a shared company server. She never looked at the pictures, why should she?
I am sure you can use your imagination on this one….
The uploaded pictures were, of course, of “Bob” and another very “close” friend who also worked in our office. For some reason, our IT department had a technical glitch and it took them over an hour to remove them from the server once the true nature of the photos was revealed.
And now the top story, drum roll please!
The previous stories did not produce a lasting relationship worthy of Valentine’s Day.
My top pick for office Cupid has the necessary happy ending.
1. We need to talk, like right now!
One morning as I walked into our office, my HR manager, we can call her “Lynn”, came running into my office with a very serious expression and said she needed to meet with me, in private, now!
For those of you who have never managed a company, when your HR manager does this, it is never a good thing.
My thoughts raced between:
“Who is quitting?”,
“Who is threatening to quit?”,
“Who is not getting along with their peers?”,
“Was there a physical or verbal assault?”,
“Did someone harass someone?”,
“Are we being sued?”,
“Does someone have a drug issue?”,
“Did someone steal from the company?” ,
“Did someone die?”,
“Did the Rangers win last night?”
I am figuring that my best possible outcome from this meeting would be to directly manage a lengthly, awkward and painful intervention on any one of the above situations or some other equally “enjoyable” event.
As we walked towards a conference room, one of my software engineers (lets call him “Dave”, got up and followed us. Two employees, one an HR manager, urgently needing to see me as soon as I walked into the office spelled trouble, big time.
We got into the the room, closed the door and sat and stared at each other for a moment. “Lynn” started by clearing her throat and said, “We are getting married”
Relief was quickly followed by utter confusion. “Who is getting married?”
Lynn answered, “We are”. “Who?”, “Us”, “Us who?”, “We who!” , “huh?,You who?”, “Yes Absolutely!”, “Absolutely?”, “Yes!”, “Absolutely? Yes we who married you two who?”, “Yes Absolutely!”
Abbot and Costello would be proud. The “us” of the “who” were Lynn and Dave.
I then said, “What?, no… you’re not, what’s really going on?, am I on a camera?, Is this that punked TV show?”
They told me that that had been dating for many months and had decided to get married. They wanted to tell me in case it caused an issue with company policy, because Lynn managed HR. I had no idea that they were dating, why should I? They were really engaged and had also decided to have a little fun at my expense. I am a good sport about such things.
If this story had just ended here it would have made the list. What happens next makes this a clear number winner.
At the time of Lynn and Dave’s engagement we were a subsidiary of a larger European company. My experience with American based companies would have suggested that one of the lovebirds would have to organizational separate themselves from the other. Since we had a small company, this separation was virtually impossible and would eventually lead to one of them leaving the company. This was the outcome that the happy couple expected.
I spoke to the HR guy at our home European office and explained my morning meeting.
In Europe things are different. To be fair, I would call their policy “laissez-faire”
His reaction was for me to congratulate them, wish them the best, and remind them not to talk confidential business at home. Starting a marriage by keeping secrets from each other, what a great idea!
He told me that this sort of thing happens all the time in Europe and we Americans should not be so repressed and hung up on such affairs of the heart.
Now it was my turn to have a little fun with a meeting.
Later that same day I called Lynn and Dave back into the conference room. I had my best poker face going. We stared, the silence grew, I sighed.
“Well, I had a long talk with Corporate HR on your engagement….”
more silence, more sighs.
“They have a definite point of view on this sort of thing”
Tension building
“While it is not quite in their vocabulary, with all the language and cultural differences… what they told me to tell you was, however, completely unambiguous…..”
more silence, serious eye contact…..
“The way I would interpret their message is like this…”
“The word I’m looking for is…..”
“Mazel-Tov!”
They did get married and at last report are on a happily ever after road.
Happy Valentines Day!
Authors Note:
Next week’s DotMania will be about a trip on a corporate jet. Not as glamorous as you might expect!
Welcome to the first edition of the “DotMania”. While my other blog is normally a slice of live with a social networking and mobile angle, this weekly series will be first hand accounts of “Dilbert” meets “The Office”. No deep significance here, just some comic relief from the stressful workplace. I encourage all of you to send me your experiences for inclusion in future articles.
In the early Internet days, I was once called at 2:00 am by my head of development. The message was that there was a power outage in our office. Since our service was partially dependent on servers in our office, as well as our data service, we had a big problem.
The company syndicated content and the daily “dump” from some of our largest suppliers would be arriving at 5:00 am. These were the days of less than robust content delivery, so if you miss it, you were stuck.
Our office was in a large converted warehouse on the west side of Manhattan. It was somehow determined that there was power on other floors, just not our section. What we needed was a really long extension cord at 2:00 a.m.
Fortunately , my quick thinking wife (now awake and slightly annoyed at the call) said “take the extension cords for the hedge clippers…”, right before she fell back to sleep she also said , “Hon, take the cords, leave the clippers”
I grabbed two extension cords from the garage, jumped in the car , and raced to Manhattan. The normal 1-2 hour commute took about 27 minutes. Traffic is surprisingly light at 2:30 am.
Easy Pass?
I got to the office with 200 feet of bright orange cables. We then snaked the cords down a shaft to an outlet in a hallway on another floor. The number of OSHA, city electrical code, and fire ordinances we violated that morning can be found on page 601 of the Guinness Book of World Records!
I recall my hedge clipper cables running our data collection servers for about a day or so.
We were able to get enough juice to run a couple of the servers and we survived to live another day.
The joys of Internet start-ups!
Don't do this!
Authors note:
Since next Friday is almost Valentines Day, for the Young, or Young at heart, the subject for Volume 2 will be office romances.
Back in 1993, I convinced a couple of “bigwigs” to come to my office. I showed them “the Internet”. Imagine a conversation – “hey we are going to Steve’s office, he has the Internet in there” We clicked around and explored the content. I explained that this would really change everything – voice, video, music, imaging, advertising, and commerce.
about 5 minutes.
to the lobby. Sigh!
This was really not going to be a restful night. After I settled the room back into its own “sleep” state, I had too much adrenaline running through my veins to fall back to sleep. Instead of sleeping, I stayed awake for the next hour. If the room was going to attack me once more in poltergeist style, I wanted to be awake and prepared.
When it was time for them to leave, my boss stopped by my office and asked me to join her on the jet to re-brief all the execs on the “finer” points. The Jet was scheduled to leave in 20 minutes.
heavy and had a battery life measured in minutes, not hours. The changes that the exec’s requested would take hours, not minutes.
One day I walked into my boss’ office (after knocking, of course). He had a large executive office with nice furniture.
We had just leased a new office and we decided it needed a new fresh of paint before we moved in. Being frugal, we hired a low bid painting company.
