Wapsi Square Forum

The problem is that I already bank with a credit union. What's going on is that the company that operates that little kiosk in our break room is based in Michigan, and apparently there's been a lot of fraud there, so they block everything from there, and apparently whoever wrote the program that makes it do that automatically never considered a situation like this, and didn't make it possible to allow this specific thing.

Dave wrote:You might want to see if you qualify to join any of the local credit unions.

Like, say, this one.

Alkarii wrote:The problem is that I already bank with a credit union. What's going on is that the company that operates that little kiosk in our break room is based in Michigan, and apparently there's been a lot of fraud there, so they block everything from there, and apparently whoever wrote the program that makes it do that automatically never considered a situation like this, and didn't make it possible to allow this specific thing.

Then what you need to do is tell your boss to have a reputable company run the kiosk in the break room.

Alternatively, brown-bag it.

Yeah, I'd actually started doing that, and spending less money per day doing so.

I have orientation on Monday, so I'll start making that extra money next week. After doing some math, each week (aside from next week, due to the fact that my next pay period starts 12am on Sunday) that I have a night of overtime, I should get more than $800 before taxes... And I have three nights of overtime scheduled for April, one of which is next Friday night.

Hell, if I get married to someone who makes close to the same as me or more, we'd be able to buy a house and some land in a short amount of time.

Hee hee.

True story: decades ago, Honeywell instituted a Cost Reduction Awards Program. The least you got if you filed a suggestion for a cost saving was a nice custom coffee mug with the program name on it. It took at least 30 nanoseconds for this to be universally known as "the CRAP cup". I might still have one in a box in the garage.

We never did learn whether the corporate types who approved this program and its name were being stealthily sardonic, or dim beyond belief.

Dave wrote:True story: decades ago, Honeywell instituted a Cost Reduction Awards Program...

OH. This explains SO much about you, Dave...

Dave wrote:Hee hee.

We never did learn whether the corporate types who approved this program and its name were being stealthily sardonic, or dim beyond belief.

If it was Honeywell the latter is nearly assured. Having had the pleasure of working on what Honeywell was trying to compete with DEC and DG with...yep. Used to have a programmer's panel of one of the DDP-516s in my dragon's hoard long ago.

And as far as Honeywell Bull....we just won't go there.

I don't recall how I ended up with this one in the YouTube suggestions on the right, but it really doesn't matter.

Meanwhile, I can't decide whether to be disappointed or relieved, that the homes of 2001 didn't end up as anticipated in this video...

jwhouk wrote:

Dave wrote:True story: decades ago, Honeywell instituted a Cost Reduction Awards Program...

OH. This explains SO much about you, Dave...

Yeah well, I'm pretty sure it was them my Pops worked with when he & Moms migrated from the East Coast to California in the late 50's...

I doubt there was overlap, but still- Great Thinks Mind Alike...

Sing it with me...

Ohhhh... IBM, DEC, and Honeywell, HP, DG, and Wang
AMDEL, NEC, and NCR, they don't know anything
They make big bucks for systems, so they never want it known...
That you can build a mainframe from the things you find at home!

This is the chorus for a filk about a fellow cobbling together a mainframe out of a reel-to-reel movie player, washing machine, and other appliances. Unfortunately, few of us these days remember any of these companies. Or, for that matter, remember how mainframes look to understand most of the jokes involved.

Just Old Al wrote:

Dave wrote:Hee hee.

We never did learn whether the corporate types who approved this program and its name were being stealthily sardonic, or dim beyond belief.

If it was Honeywell the latter is nearly assured. Having had the pleasure of working on what Honeywell was trying to compete with DEC and DG with...yep. Used to have a programmer's panel of one of the DDP-516s in my dragon's hoard long ago.

And as far as Honeywell Bull....we just won't go there.

Yeah, we at LADC were not in love with either Honeywell's hardware or the corporate structure.

LADC was a rather separate development group, consisting at first of a team that Honeywell had acquired from Xerox, the first time Xerox decided to get out of the computer business. Xerox had purchased SDS (Scientific Data Systems), a company which made a very flexible mainframe intended for scientific and academic computing. Xerox renamed it XDS, did a couple of generations of follow-on including the development of CP-V (a very advanced timesharing-and-batch-processing operating system I used in college), realized that they weren't able to compete in the business market with IBM, and gave up.

Xerox sold the business to Honeywell, and LADC was set up to develop a CP-V-like operating system (called CP-6) which would run on Honeywell's Level 66 mainframe and Level 6 16-bit front-end processors. This was my first job out of college, and a great one... LADC had a great software team. Dealing with the quirks in the Honeywell hardware architecture was less great... but it's always good to have challenges.

Dealing with the "mainstream" Honeywell people was quite a chore. Honeywell's mainstream operating system (GCOS, originally from GE) was rather stone-knives-and-bearskins by comparison, and its team seemed to resent the very existence of LADC and CP-6.

After a few years, Honeywell corporate pulled off a bit of a coup... they forced out the head of LADC (an ex-Xerox guy) and transferred over a compliant GCOS manager to take over. At least one of LADC's senior developers quit on the spot. Another made his feelings known by renting a gorilla costume, crashing the meeting at which the new guy was introduced to the LADC management team, jumping up on the table and leaping about and gibbering, and then dashing out of the room (and picking up one of the pretty young admins and carrying her down the hall over his shoulder).

I don't think the new boss ever really recovered from the experience.

That is absolutely amazing. I want to buy that man a beer and convince him to run for office.

Scott Adams wrote in one of his books on horrible management of a company that had a couple of new products coming out that had been developed under the engineering codenames "Ren" and "Stimpy".

Management - and especially Sales - had no idea that Engineering had chosen those names.

When they found out, just before the products went live ... there was a certain amount of behind-the-scenes consternation and a ukase that all future codenames be cleared with .... rational ... people

Adams carefully did not name the company.
Funny thing.

In 1995 - 96, i had been working phone support, so i knew that NCR's new PCs for 1976 had been codenamed "Ren" (desktop) and "Stimpy" (tower)...

=====================
"1975 - 76"?

Arrgh! Was typing on the phone, waiting for "Black Panther" to start.

FIXT

AnotherFairportfan wrote:In 1975 - 76, i had been working phone support, so i knew that NCR's new PCs for 1976 had been codenamed "Ren" (desktop) and "Stimpy" (tower)...

Ren and Stimpy predated Kricfalusi's 90s cartoons? Hadn't heard that before.

Now I'll be hearing "Happy Happy Joy Joy" in my head all night . . . .

Don't forgot about Log, or the best piece of advice ever:

Don't wizz on the electric fence.

Ren and Stimpy?

I don’t geddit...

Don't Whizz on the Electric Fence!

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Don't say you weren't warned!