Boop

After writing last night's post about my days at IBM many years ago, I remembered lots of other fun things we used to do during the work day.  We did manage to get a lot of work done, but we were fortunate to not be in a severe environment where work was suppose to be all work and not fun.

There was this phone system throughout the lab of about a thousand people.  You could dial their four digit extension and the phone at their desk would ring.  There was another thing you could do with the phones that I'd never seen before.  It was a walkie talkie-type feature.  You typed something like #7 and then their extension and you'd hear a "boop" sound and then you could say whatever you wanted. 

The thing about Boop (that's what we decided to call it), was the person you were "booping" had no control over it.  You could choose to answer or ignore a call, but if you were in a meeting with your manager and someone wanted to play a trick on you...well, let's just say you hoped your friends were kind.   They might boop you saying, "don't forget about your proctologist appointment this afternoon."

Boop was untraceable too, so if you disguised your voice you could get away with it.  Fortunately, we were mostly a mischievous versus a malicious group and even our managers got a laugh out of a well-executed joke (most of the time).

Thinking of those phones reminds me of a time when my neck and spine were first giving me problems.  I spent a lot of time on the phone while typing and holding the handset against my ear using my shoulder.  After several hours I was in a lot of discomfort.  My manager found me a headset, something that was apparently quite a search, and I was able to talk pain-free from then on.  

The Big Boy Update:  Superman.  He loves his superman shirts.  He has one that has a cape that Velcro's to the back.  This afternoon he wanted us to watch him as he flew down the hallway.  He backed up, grabbed the bottom of his cape with his hands and ran forward, making his cape flap up and down with his arms.  We laughed so much we asked him to do it again.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Coin crazed.  She got up on a chair and figured out she could put her hand in the back of the slot machine to pull out the coins.  She played with coins for the next hour.