More Detritus

I mentioned the recyclables that are being deposited on the window ledge. I didn't mention that the front hallway in the building is lined with trash containers. There are the standard recycling containers for white and colored paper, newspapers and cardboard. But there are also very large carts, maybe 30" wide and 48" long and 36" deep, one to hold glue-bound manuals and phone books and a couple to hold unclassified trash.

When I started my career with IBM in Dallas a mere 26 years ago, I was working in a group of supersmart programmers, the best and brightest that IBM had to offer. If you've spent much time around the best and brightest (such as Evil-Ex-Fiancé-From-Hell), you know that sometimes these ultrasmart people have no social skills.

One of these bright programmers in Dallas was a guy named Ed. To call him a slob would be a compliment. He tended to fall asleep at work. You might see him with a book in his lap, one hand holding back the pages, sound asleep. I remember one time sitting at my desk in the secretary's corner of the floor, hearing something I thought was a lawnmower engine. I asked some of the guys what the sound was, and they told me it was Ed, snoring.

Twenty-five years ago, every man at IBM wore shirts and ties to work. This was a good ten years before "casual Friday" was initiated in the nation's workforce. Polo shirts, jeans, shorts — never worn to work, at least not at IBM.

Ed kept a tie in his desk drawer. Every morning when he arrived, he would open the drawer and don his tie. When he left at the end of the day, he'd take it off and restow it in the drawer.

But here's the thing. Ed was kinda big. Maybe fat. Maybe obese. Some memories, thankfully, fade with time. When he'd sleep at his desk, he'd drool. When he'd go out to lunch with the guys, he'd drip food on his tie. Remember that McBarbeque sandwich that was premiered in about 1982? Yep, barbeque sauce all down his tie, never to be removed.

I had totally forgotten about Ed and these idiosyncracies until I was walking past the trash bins in the hallway and saw a tie coiled among the papers and awards and other unwanted office stuff.

It's been many a year since most men in Tucson wore ties. The standard in this office is polo shirts and khakis. The standard in my group is shorts and t-shirts.

But I'll bet that lone tie in the trash bin could tell some great stories about the old days!