This is the short operator at the General Motors site, Dee Kasiowniak, who always went by the one name DEE since no one could pronounce my last name. I made the one name famous before Cher, Madonna, Prince or any one of those super stars that went by ONE NAME....
For years I have been wanting to redeem myself and offer the true facts of this story. Yes, yes - I am short. But the rest of the story with my so-called pukka-shells - where the heck did that come from?!? What follows is what really happened:
I was working midnights - alone - and regularly scheduled maintenance was being performed on Multics. Carl Taylor our CE was there to do the honors (hey Carl!!). We were chatting as always and I was sitting on our 'high' chairs leaning over the consoles (and keyboard). I always wore a gold cross on long gold chain (given to me from my now deceased loving sister-in-law who got it from Uncle Ziggie who picked it up in Africa (???different story)). ANYWAY, as I leaned over the console and keyboard, talking to Carl who was looking for something in his toolbox, my cross caught in the keyboard and as I leaned back, snap!!! The cross got into the keyboard and the chain was still around my neck. Carl threw my a screwdriver and said I could open the back of the keyboard and unattach myself. When I opened the back of the keyboard, low and behold, there was tons of yukky junk inside!! Paper clips, staples, food crumbs - you name it. I proceeded to get my cross out and clean out the yukky stuff. Then I put the keyboard together and worked around the office until Carl said I could boot up Multics for the day. Now just to make a long story short, a missed paper clip slid right under the BOOT button on the keyboard and we were unable to boot Multics up - we tried over and over again - nothing was wrong with the system - it was the keyboard the whole time. It took hours to find this problem (what a disaster). Day shift came in. I think someone finally commented that I opened up the keyboard that night. SO when they checked the keyboard they found the clip wedged under that button, removed it, and Mult came up her happy little self as usual.
There were NO pukka shells. Just a very silly unfortunate event. Still very embarrassing.
I do imagine there had to have been a dozen or so more weird things that happened to or because of us OPS. Serious at the time, but very funny now when you think of it.
Am I redeemed???
PS: you know I do OWN pukka shells but I NEVER wore them to work. Not sure how my beloved friend Zemmin(will never forget the Wizard) knew about them...