On April 2, 1999 I retired from my job as a rocket scientist developing fearsome weapons so that our great and glorious nation can lean on those grubby little petroleum exporting countries to intimidate them into selling us cheap oil to fuel our gigantic noisy smoke-belching vehicles that clog up the highways and run my puny little bicycle off the road. I worked in a dilbert-cubicle in the middle of an enormous experimental mouse-maze of dilbert-cubicles, many of them occupied by tailhook pilots. The heating and cooling system was controlled by a bunch of satanic cultists who want to dump God's seasons upside down by overheating the place to suffocating extremes in the winter and air-conditioning it down to a bitter chill in the summer. But hey, what am I gonna do now without tailhook pilots for entertainment? At least one of my co-workers gave me a retirement gift: a preliminary version of a heroic ballad that he invited me to polish up and put it onto my page, so I put on a few finishing touches and here it is!

One thoroughly obnoxious tailhook pilot who worked with us several years ago was always getting upset with somebody over something. Once somebody accidentally nudged his chair, so he jumped up and ranted and raved and uttered fearsome oaths about how people oughta respect his chair. I was out of the office at the time, but when I returned, several co-workers told me about it. I started grinning, and they said, "Hey, don't tell me you're thinking the same thing we're thinking," so I said, "Yea, let's Do it!" So we strolled over and yanked his chair out from under him, set it onto his desk, and saluted it. So here he's splattered on the floor and says, "Whaddya &@%$#*& think yer doin'?" So we said, "Hey, we're respecting your chair, just like you wanted!"

And then there was the day I came into work way early to do some graphs over in the data reduction lab, and I could hear sounds from the paging speakers, because somebody in the office musta left a mike turned on. So, about normal starting time, I heard the office door open and close, then somebody moving around, then the door open and close again, then the voice of Bill, one of the tailhook pilots, booming out, "Karen! Ya gotcher dress on backwards! HEE HAW HEE HAW!" Then Karen's voice, "Why dontcha buy your own dress, then you can wear it any way you please!" Then somebody else came in, and Bill hollers, "Hey, dontcha think Karen's got her dress on backwards? HEE HAW HEE HAW!" More people come in, more jokes about Karen's dress on backwards, etc. Then I finished my graphs and took them over to the office and Bill pointed to Karen and hollered, "Hey, dontcha think Karen's got her dress on backwards? HEE HAW HEE HAW!" So I said, "Sorry, Bill, even if you wore a nice dress like that you'd still be ugly!"

Somebody brought in some nice cookies one day. After they were all eaten up, one of the tailhook pilots took the aluminum foil off the cookie tray, wrapped it around himself, and went strutting up and down the passageway announcing, "I AM MING THE CONQUEROR!" Just then, the captain walks in -- escorting a four-star admiral from the Pentagon. The admiral looks at this guy sorta funny, then turns to the captain and asks, "Got any more guys like him?"

And then there was the time a loud scream was heard in the ladies room. One of the tailhook pilots came running out stark naked with a piece of toilet paper about 15 or 20 feet long stuck to his bottomside, and he went streaking down the passageway with this toilet paper streaming out behind him and he's yelling, "I didn't know she was in there! I didn't know she was in there!" And so we're all standing there thinking, "Excuse me, but just what requirement necessitated your presence in the ladies room?"

Now I don't mean to sound like I'm slamming tailhook pilots. No Way! A tailhook pilot is a guy who straps himself into a flying machine with several million horsepower under the hood, gets himself launched off the carrier deck from what must be a megaton-dynamite-powered catapult, and enters into one-on-one combat with total certainty that the second-best guy in the sky isn't gonna be having a drink at the officers club tonight, but he has the total self-confidence to be looking forward to enjoying his drink at the officers club tonight. Could you do that? I couldn't! Would you begrudge a guy like that a few personality quirks? I certainly wouldn't! Ah, but I did enjoy the workplace entertainment!

The place I retired from
The latest news therefrom
Work Writes Dot Com, a site that tells you how much fun a job can be
Sticking It To The Man, a truly realistic view of a job.
My former co-workers enjoying their favorite entertainment.