Category: Work stories

In the early 1970s, I worked at a pizza restaurant in Auburn, Alabama. During a slow work night, I was the only employee working other than the delivery person. I would take orders and then prepare them. A man came in and was the rudest customer I’d ever met. I had trouble taking his order as he snapped at me. He had an attitude, and I didn’t know why. I held my tongue as he ordered a pizza, paid, and entered the dining room.
Continue reading “Thin Crust”

In the 1970s, I worked off and on at an Auburn, Alabama pizza restaurant. There was an employee there; I’ll call him Tom. He was a lot older than the rest of us.
Continue reading “I Knew This Guy (#1)”

When I worked at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, in the early 1980s, members of my department sometimes flew to Dayton, Ohio, for meetings at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. For our return flights, we had a choice of either a 6 a.m. or a 9 a.m. flight back to the Macon, Georgia airport. We always chose the 9 a.m. flight, arrived in Atlanta around 10 a.m., changed planes, and would arrive at Macon around 1 p.m. The majority of us would return to work for the rest of the day.
Continue reading “6 a.m. Blues”

One summer in the mid-1970s, I wasn’t in school, needed a job, and visited an employment agency in east Alabama. I sort of knew the job-seeker in line before me, and they sent him to a truck stop kitchen a few miles down I-85. I wanted that job, but he got it. They sent me to a construction site about a mile past the truck stop. I drove past that truck stop twice every day I worked on the construction job.
Continue reading “Timing Is Everything”

In my thirty-year and seven-month computer analyst career at Auburn University, I made two significant technical mistakes that almost no one witnessed. I barely survived both mistakes.
Continue reading “Pay Attention, Dude”