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From: kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Telephone Company "Inside Humor"
Message-ID: <12247@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 18 Sep 90 03:31:41 GMT
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In article <12159@accuvax.nwu.edu> 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E.
Kimberlin) writes:

> Well, it brings to mind three incidents that I guess can now be
> told:

  [recollections of sheenanigans by Long Lines personnel deleted]

> [Moderator's Note: I still don't think it is funny. I regard it as a
> major violation of trust; and I'm sure you are aware that had the
> employees involved in this little prank been caught and the
> subscriber's involved elected to sue, telco would have had to pay
> financially and the employees involved probably would have lost their
> jobs.  PAT]

	Humor is a very subjective concept.  Almost every industry,
profession and vocation has inside humor and humorous escapades which
would be abhorrent to the general public if disclosed.

	I cannot justify or particularly defend the actions of such
Long Lines craftspersons as related in the previous article.  However,
I can state from experience in the industry that such antics have
indeed occurred in the past, are occurring at the present, and will
continue to occur in the future.  Such antics will always occur
because of *human* nature.

	I have to admit that *I* found humor in the previous article.
I must also admit that as a one time member of a secret fraternity
known as The Telephone Company :-), I, too, have participated in
similar antics.  While I am not inclined to disclose details of my own
sheenanigans in this forum, I suppose that I owe Telecom readers
*some* kind of story from my past, so here goes:

	Once upon a time there was a young engineer supervising the
installation of an expansion to an existing SxS CO which served a
small city in the middle-of-nowhere.  Said engineer and a solitary
Western Electric installer were bored to tears after being in said
small city for the better half of a month.  Since it was common
knowledge [there were two people in the city who didn't wear cowboy
boots at all times :-)] that the CO was being upgraded to include such
newfangled features as direct distance dialing without having to give
the operator your calling number :-), we figured that we could have
some fun by causing some temporary, but "creative" wiring "errors".
Aided by couple of 106-type loudspeakers, we decided to monitor the
results of some connector terminal assignment errors.  Like crossing
the numbers of a small meat packing-freezer plant with the major
undertaking establishment in the city.


Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp.  "Have you hugged your cat today?"
     {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry
VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635  {utzoo||uunet}!/      \aerion!larry


[Moderator's Note: Isn't that marvelous! So there has been a death in
someone's family; it is a time of grief; they call to make funeral
arrangements and wind up getting the meat processing plant. You must
have really split your pants open with laughter at that one.    PAT]