Another most embarrassing moment or two:
When I was working for EDS/Ross Perot in Chicago from 1975
to 1980 we had a contract with Central National Bank which was just west of
Northern Trust in downtown Chicago.
Northern Trust was on the northeast corner and we were on the northwest
corner and the L-train was between us.
In fact, my office was at eye level with the train which I remember
being on the 3rd floor of the CNB building and very noisy. Conveniently enough there was a Burger King
on the bottom floor, so I ate there often.
We were about one block east of First National Bank of Chicago and a
couple of blocks from Continental Bank which failed due to Penn Square Bank in
Oklahoma in 1982 (July 5th as I recall). We were in the shadow of the Sears Building a
few blocks south and one west and I walked by it every day from the train
station. We originally lived in Palatine
in the suburbs and later Elk Grove Village.
OK, you get the idea.
There were four of us who moved from Dallas to be on this
team: Janet Green who was from back east
and Eileen Kanoff from New York City, David Goldenberg from New York and of
course myself. The two girls ASSUMED
that since I was from the Oklahoma I must be a chauvinist and a bigot which
could be no further from the truth. In
fact they thought we still had wild Indians and virtually no roads and were
basically like the Beverly Hillbillies.
Well, I could not resist the opportunity to fulfill their assumptions! Every time they would walk by my cubical and
I was talking to Shouna on the phone I would say something like this, “Now
Shouna, I want those floors cleaned before I get home.” They would through stuff at me and literally
think it was true. Shouna was on the
other end laughing and saying I bet Janet or Eileen was walking by. Once Janet got mad at me for opening the door
for her. I expressed to her that I would
stand there all day if necessary and she finally gave in but of course she had
to give me a lesson on how she could open her own doors. After some period of time they finally
figured out I was not what they thought although they did call me cowboy and
ornery rather than Gary. They were
entertainment for me and visa versa.
Now to the embarrassing part: Janet just went crazy laughing as I came out
of the restroom with toilet paper hanging out the back of my slacks. What she never knew was that I was playing
her once again.
Now my next embarrassing moment and it was for real: Bob and Nancy Scott invited Shouna and I over
for dinner. They were pretty uptown folks
and Bob was my boss, kind of, on the team that developed the demand deposit
system for CNB and in fact for all of EDS at the time. We had banking customers all over the US and
in fact Iran as well. I worked on the
Iran deal while in Dallas and of course you can read the book on that
event. “On Wings of Eagles” by Ken
Follett. While eating with Bob and Nancy
we were having our salad and it included some of those little round red
tomatoes. Now I don’t know about you but
when I was a kid we never had those kind of tomatoes. I was trying to figure out how I was going to
eat it and finally I figured I would just put in my mouth and bite it. WRONG!!
It did not work! That thing
exploded and went everywhere. Whew! You get the picture, don’t you?
One story about Bob or two.
While he was in Dallas one time and I was still in Chicago the banking
system crashed in the middle of the night.
Actually, that part happened often but this time Bob had me drive downtown
in the middle of the night to fix the problem.
Basically, we had a Canadian check come through the system and it
crashed the system. We had a utility
called IAMASUPERZAP (I am a super zap) that we were told if we ever got caught
using it, I would be fired. Bob told me
to use it. Now Bob was much older and
probably one of the smartest system engineers in the US. I told him NO. He yelled and cursed me until I
relented. I fixed the problem and the
banking system worked like a charm. I
was sure I would be fired but instead I think I became famous because folks
from all over the US would call me to fix certain types of problems using
IAMASUPERZAP. I got so good at it that I
could solve problems in my sleep. Just
ask Shouna. Fun times.
Next time I will tell you about WAAPDASUT (waap da sut).
So what do you learn in the Osage?
- · Slice your cherry tomatoes before you put it in your mouth
- · The most fun you can have is: at someone else’s expense (don’t try it)
- · When you get cussed out, it is time to re-evaluate what you are doing.
- Thanks for listening,
Gary
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