IBM Stories

News Page

Looking for something? Check the Site Map

Stories from my years at IBM

I'm working on writing up all the funny or surprising things that have happened to me or that I've heard about during my career. After 29 years at IBM, I have experienced and heard lots of funny stories. Twice I lost my job.

At the plant

Working in Jet Pilot Engineering - 1977-1979

Day One

On the afternoon of the first day I worked for IBM, several departments (including the one I was assigned to) were called together for a meeting. The "Functional" manager (our third level manager) told us how our departments were being reorganized and showed us some organizational charts. On the way out the door after the meeting, Lee Kerr says, "You can write that all down boys and through it away 'cause it'll all be changed in a month." Lee knew the IBM culture well!

The guy who moved himself to another department.

Not too long after I went to work for IBM, I decided that I did not like the work I was doing, and I wanted to transfer to Facilities Engineering. As I talked about with Lee Kerr (a colleague with lots of stories) he told me about a guy he knew who was not getting along with his boss. He had worked for another manager and they had gotten along well together so he wanted to be transferred back to the other manager's department. His current boss wouldn't have it. So, one day he got some moving tickets and had himself moved to his former bosses department (at that time in the plant, you put these pink "IBM" cards on your desk, file cabinets, etc. that were to be moved, and the movers, who were working constantly in the plant, would move your stuff). So, this guy doesn't show for work for a couple of days, or so his boss thought. So he calls the guy's home, his wife answers and tells the boss that the guy is at work. The boss says no he's not. The wife says yes he is, I just talked with him a few minutes ago. So the boss says, "Well if he calls again, you tell him to call me." So the guy eventually calls his former boss and the boss says, "Where are you?" The guy says, "In my office." The boss says, "No you aren't, I was just there." The guy says, "Yes I am." Anyway it finally got communicated what was going on, and the manager's got the guy officially moved. In those days, you just about couldn't get fired from IBM. The old saying was that the only way to get fired was to have sex with the plant manager's secretary on the front lawn, and even that might not do it. I'm sure the manager's knew it was much easier to just transfer the guy rather than fight the situation.

Choking Bill D. with cigars.

Bill Dahlstrom loved to get a bargain. He also hated cigar smoke, in fact it made him sick. I decided one day to have some fun with Bill. I told Lee Kerr Bill's peculiarities and that I knew Bill to be looking for a pickup truck. I suggested that Lee tell Bill that he knew of a really good deal on a pickup truck when Bill came into Lee's office and started asking all kinds of questions about this pick up truck, we'd each light up cigars and get some smoke rolling in the office. Bill would be so engrossed in the possibility of getting a good deal on a pickup truck that he'd miss the fact that we were lighting up cigars that were going to make him sick. Sure enough, it worked just like I predicted. Soon enough, Bill was fussing at us because he was getting sick from the cigars. This was a pretty dirty trick that my conscious wouldn't let me do today, but it did prove how engrossed Bill would get when he thought he might get a good deal.

Getting chewed out by Ginger for smoking a cigar.

When I started with IBM in 1977, smoking inside at work wasn't any big deal. There really weren't a lot of people who smoked, but the ones who did, were free to do it most anywhere.
Most smoking was cigarettes but once in a while a guy would light up a cigar. I smoked cigars once in a while though almost never at work. For some reason one day I decided to light one up in my office. There wall between my office and the adjacent one didn't go all the way to the ceiling, so the smoke went over to Ginger's office. Pretty soon she was standing at my door, telling me (not asking me) to put it out. I did put it out as I knew cigars could be offensive, but Ginger didn't improve her reputation any by her actions.

Bill D's getting me out of hosting hiring candidates.

When I went to work for IBM, I was driving a 1963 Ford Falcon (it was 1977 so the car was 13 years old - in those days cars didn't last as long, and a 13 year old car, was an old car). It really didn't look that bad. It had a little bit of rust on it, but not too bad. One of the things they had "new hires" do was to host candidate employees - meet them for breakfast, drive them around to their various interviews, and generally make sure they were where they needed to be, when they needed to be. When Bill Dahlstrom heard that I was doing that, and that I was driving my Falcon, he threw a fit. I didn't see what the big deal was. After that, I never got another hosting assignment, and I believe that Dahlstrom did something (either called HR, or talked with my manager or something) so that I never got anymore of those assignments. I didn't really care, because I didn't really like doing them anyway, but I'm still surprised how worked up Dahlstrom got over that.

Lemon and Sue

This story is better spoken than written, but its one of my favorites. I worked with Lemon Cooper. Lemon was from Alabama, a graduate of Tuskeegee Institute. Lemon had his own accent and expressions. I don't know if they were typical of Alabaman's or Tuskeegee men, but he definitely had sounded different.

Sue Johnson, was from Eastern Kentucky, and she had a strong Eastern Kentucky flavor in her speech. One day, I heard of her saying, "Lemon, wha kant you tock rat?" As I say, its better said than written, but you get the point.

The guy who had his wife drop him off at the airport, and his girlfriend pick him up at the airport.

A guy that I worked with in Jet Pilot told me he had his wife drop him off at the airport as if he was going on a trip, and then would have his girlfriend pick him up an hour later. He'd spend a day or two with his girlfriend and then have her drop him off at the airport, and have his wife pick him up an hour later. Back from the trip honey!

Facilities Engineering

After working in Jet Pilot engineering (product engineering) for two years, I had enough of that and asked for a transfer to Facilities Engineering. My manager couldn't imagine why I wanted to transfer to Facilities Engineering who my co-workers referred to as "line cord coordinators." I got moved and liked the job much, much better. The work was varied and I got to work in several different buildings and work with a lot of different people, including contractors. It was a great job.

My department in Facilities Engineering circa 1979. Back L-R: Me, Joe Rice, Don Lyle, Rick Russ, Earl Freeman Front L-R: Kurt Reibling, Brian Cunningham, Paul "Wubba" Harmatuk, JT Logan (mgr) - See here for more info on some of these guys

Tearing the wall down that wasn't done being built.

When I was a facilities engineer, I was given a project to tear down a wall that bordered the main aisle in the plant. It was a 12 or 14 foot high wall, I think 6 or 8 inches deep, drywall on both sides - a serious wall. I issued a time and material contract and the contractor who was assigned the job, showed up at my desk. He said, "This contract says to tear this wall down." I said, "Yes." He said, "Are you sure you want to tear it down?" I sat there with a puzzled look on my face. He continued, "So and so (another contractor who's name I don't remember) hasn't finished building it."

It turns out that the wall went half the length of the plant, which was probably a couple of hundred yards. I had a job to tear down the portion of the wall on the northern part end of the plant, and the contractor was in fact still finishing the wall on the southern end of the plant. Brother!

Buying a crane and selling it for surplus (I hope.)

I had an assignment to get an overhead crane for a new area where they were going to have injection molding presses. I don't remember why, but for some reason it needed to be remote controlled - we couldn't have a pendant station hanging off the crane. Well, they do make such things, but they aren't cheap. I put out a Request for Quotation, evaluated the bids and bought, I think, one of the more expensive ones that was bid. When it was ready to be delivered, the area where it was to be installed wasn't ready. The project had been delayed. So I had it delivered ot the warehouse. Eventually the project was cancelled and the crane was sold as surplus equipment (at least I hope it was sold as surplus and not scrap - most of what was sold out of the warehouse went to scrap).

Building a platform for a machine and then having it torn out and scrapped (at least we didn't paint it).

This was a similar story to the one above. The manufacturing engineers had a new machine designed and built at the robotics lab in Boca Raton. I had drawings of the machine and was to design and build a series of platforms that would be used for getting access to load parts in the various parts hoppers around the machine. I did just that. The steel platform sat there on the floor for a couple of months until the machine was received to the warehouse, the project cancelled, and the machine sold as surplus (or scrap). I then got the assignment to have the platforms cut up and removed. Fortunately, we never spent the money to paint it.

Cotton

Cotton was a guy who I first met when he worked for a rigging contractor, and then later he started his own rigging company. He was a tough fellow. He showed a colleague of mine all of his scars one time and it took thirty minutes. He had knife scars & gun shot scars, among others.

I heard a story about him going to the local Ford dealer to get his car after it was repaired. He hadn't paid his bill and told them he wasn't going to pay. They told him his car was out back in the fenced in lot. He said he would go get it. They said he couldn't because the dog was out there. He said that was OK, because he brought his dog that "barks over here and bites over there," and raised his shirt tail to show them the butt of his pistol. They said, "We'll get your car."

One time Cotton was working on a project for me, and he wasn't hanging the drip pans on the conveyor straight. I started pointing out the ones that needed to be corrected. It was rather late on a Saturday and Cotton got mad and said, "Just what in the hell do you want?" I said, "I want them to look like they did before you took them off." I half expected him to punch me, but it shut him up. The drip pans still didn't get hung correctly. I gave him a bad rating on the job and the purchasing people told him and he came and fussed at me at my desk. Those were some tense times.

Cotton eventually was ushered off the IBM property because he made some threat to an employee. He was then barred from ever coming back on IBM property. Then he started a roofing company, and the rumor was that it went fine all summer until the fall when it started raining, and everyone's roof was leaking.

Big Scares:

- Went to Akron for the holidays when I was supposed to be watching a contractor.. After I got to Akron, I was really worried they would set the plant on fire and I'd get fired. I had to use Everything went fine.
- Hoppy (a contractor's foreman and son-in-law) took some scrap lights (which wasn't allowed) and then told me, which implicated me if I didn't report it, but I didn't want to get Hoppy in trouble. I was really mad him for that one and worried that the thing would come down on me, but it never did. Hoppy did get in trouble over taking lights.. I guess someone saw him.

Next, Sales Stories