I spy

My brief but successful foray into the world of corporate espionage was a thrilling experience. I felt the rush that adrenaline junkies get hooked on and, although I think I'm allergic to those particular molecules, I get why they do it. In fact, I also get why they are usually caught several years later--there is just an overwhelming compulsion to talk (brag) about it--The experience of matching wits with a system focused on keeping you out, and walking away innocently. It could be a matter of great importance, great money, a lot of danger, and stiff consequences if you get caught.

Just so you know, the above characterization is a little dramatically overstated. Maybe. Judge for yourself here...

It was 1991 and I had risen in the ranks at a relatively large Fortune 500 company based out of Minneapolis--they had a branch here in Texas and another one in Florida, but the main brains of the organization were in Minnesota.

After working for a while at an entry-level position, I was quickly promoted through the ranks to a supervisory position. But first I had a 4-month stopover as a Computer Operator, which means that I sat in a huge, windowless room that was air conditioned down to 55 degrees year round to protect the circuits on the system. That was great for when I had to ride my motorcycle in the 100-plus degree Texas heat--I would walk into the computer room and almost pass out from the 50 degree temperature change.

The computer unit was a huge storage system for the 15 million records that were on file there--it was the shape of 8 refrigerators placed side by side, and the hum from the hard drives was almost deafening in the room--the desk was placed about 30 feet away from the storage bank, across the room and flat up against the wall, for just this reason. On the wall were multiplexors, which resembled the "flux capacitor" from the movie "Back to the Future"--a soft orange glow emanated from deep inside these boxes, which were the size of large microwave ovens. These boxes enabled the Computer Programmers and Operators from other sites to log in directly to our system when we needed help, had a problem, or even for routine maintenance (before the days of Virtual Networks or high speed internet access, we had these dedicated lines so the programmers could work on the system, but they had to do it from the office's main terminal in Minnesota or Florida, which meant that if there was a problem after hours, they had to drive in to the office). There was also a huge, 200 incoming line phone system mounted on the wall on the other side of the room which handled calls from all over the country including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We were given a secret code to use to enter the room, and there were only about 4 people at any given time that had this code.

In fact, the Office Manager, who was the main administrator at our branch office, was the only management member to have this code--if she was on vacation or gone for the day, we were home free! No one could come in and bother you, so you could conceivably sleep, read, whatever--relatively undistuburbed if you didn't mind being in the middle of a giant humming snow cone machine with funky lights.

A guy that I worked with named Garrett Thomas used to fantasize openly about sneaking hot babes into the computer room. "It's a perfect locale!" he would say. Well, I guess it is if she's an Eskimo or something. I still harbor a little ill-will toward Garrett because he was a pervert and hit on my wife (before we started dating, but it still bugs me). He used to read everyone's Email because there was a funny little box that was supposed to be checked on all employees connected to the Email system--somehow, by an error in authorizing him, that box wasn't checked, so he used to sit in the back and read everyone's Email (yes, your worst nightmare come to pass--Garrett is the kind of guy that would just do that). And he wore an idiotic Fedora hat along with his large, round glasses, Addidas t-shirt, dirty jeans, and blue tennis shoes with white stripes--some sort of uniform that he always seemed to have on.

When training as a Computer Operator, I seemed to glean more from the week-long course than most. After I left, I saw people come and go, and they just never seemed to get below the surface understanding of how the thing operated. It used a type of programming that used key words and subroutines to query our large database with different formats and authorizations to view and/or change data. Most people had a very streamlined set of authorizations--a menu would pop up and they would have two or three choices of functions they could do. As a computer operator, I had about 40 authorized functions on seven different menus.

Our Boss in Minneapolis was Dan Fargo (one year the whole computer department dressed up for Halloween as Jason and the Fargonauts). Dan was a no-nonsense guy extremely strict rules about operating procedures. In fact, the whole company was run with an iron fist, particularly regarding absence and tardiness. One minute late equals a tardy. Three tardies in a 90-day period equals automatic termination. No questions asked. No exceptions. Working for the company for seven years ingrained that unreasonable expectation into me so deeply that it would still come out when I had employees--much to their chagrin. But there was no humor to be found, anywhere. I once royally pissed off Dan Fargo with the following joke: What do KMart and Michael Jackson have in common? A: Boys Underwear half off...He shot me a glaring look and called out "Michael!!!" My theory was that I struck too close to a nerve...

One time I really got in a LOT of trouble, perhaps almost fired, for modifying Fran's email. She called me after hours and was looking for a specific message that had a phone # in it--she read me her authorization number and password, and I accessed her messages and read them to her(I promise, I did not have the funky "Garrett" authorization). I thought it would be a funny joke to add a sentence at the end of an Email from one of her friends, Donna. I think it was "you know, your boyfriend is a real fruitcake--what are you doing with that guy, anyway?". Once I added it, I forgot about it completely.

The next day, the shit hit the fan when Fran asked Donna about the Email, and Donna, who I didn't realize was prone to freaking out, completely went ape-shit crazy and called everyone but the damn FBI to find out about it. By the time I got to work (I worked 1-9 in the evening), the whole office was buzzing, and Fran had already figured out that it was just my stupid sense of humor. We both got written up and she was in tears over getting me in trouble--I was warned not to get creative again.

Three years later, I was a little wiser in covering my tracks when that same creativity struck again....

To be continued (really).