Dialog Short Stories – collected by Rosalie Black – 12/11/2004
Strange Noises
Then there is the time Mr. Capiaux (the head of Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory at the time) called me into his office. “Roger,” he said (and I can still hear his accent and the very serious tone of his voice), “we have a problem. One of our scientists works late and has been disturbed by what he describes as horn noises coming through the ventilation system. Do you have any idea how this happens?”
It turned out that Geoff Sharp, whom I had hired away from the Woody Herman band, and who had night operations duty in the computer room, decided that that was a good time to maintain his trombone chops in between re-IPLing the computer, printing out prints for the day, operating the decollater, and answering customer inquiries.
–Roger Summit
Ownership
My favorite memory is still the time Kim (Reck) Reed got the new Selectric II typewriter before Bea (Cosgrove) did. I came in one morning to find Bea with a rope tied around Kim’s typewriter hauling it all the way down the hall to her office. There was no way Kim was going to get the new gadget before she did! At least that is the way I remember the story … but I was maybe 19 then! (Bea was Roger’s executive secretary and Kim was Product Development’s secretary/admin. assistant).
–Kathy Reck (Human Resources)
Post Script: It’s true she took my typewriter—but the funny part was her typewriter was locked in Roger’s office and when she opened his office (after stealing my typewriter) she saw hers and had to drag mine all the way back.
–Kim (Reck) Reed (Product Development)
Saga of the Microprocessor Chips
The story that sticks out in my mind was the time the Dialnet Network Group had to replace over 1000 microprocessor chips in the Concord 1200/2400/9600 baud modems. We were to deploy an upgrade of well over 500 modems to over 65 Dialnet locations but we found a major bug in the MNP5 protocol that provided error correction. Gordon, Jane, Rick, Robert and I spent days and weeks replacing 2 chips per modem. I just remember getting sick of the chip replacement assembly line we had going. Not only was it cold but also noisy in the computer room where we did the work. (Do you remember the 110 baud modem banks that we had supporting customer dialup along with the T1 thermal print terminals with phone couplers??)
–Clyde Kennedy (Dialnet Network Group, Operations at this story time)
The Flood
In early Dialog days, the company had few employees, minimum support services but a great “can do” attitude. In 1980, the Operations people spent long, long hours in the computer room. Late one night, I thought I would find Dan Pritchard herding the computers and training the new operators so he could occasionally have a day off. Instead, I found only Dan’s backside showing, the rest of his body upside down under the computer floor getting soaked from a significant geyser of water. Don Schaaf (not so quietly) was on the telephone trying to convince a plumber that his first priority was to fix a broken pipe on Hillview Avenue. Fortunately, the data cell drives paid no attention to this melee. They just kept on humming and sending out data.
–Rosalie Black (Human Resources)
M999
Shortly after I started working at Dialog I did my first Saturday morning shift as the operator. It must have been in early 1976. Usually I would arrive at 6:00 a.m. to take over from Ken Lew who had brought up the system just before he left from a night’s work. In those days there were some commands that could only be issued from the operator console. Among these was a command to find the current users (customers) on the system that were listed by User Number. Another command permitted the operator to send a message to any user by keying “M” followed by the User Number. “M” followed by 0 was a message to all active users. Users could also send a message back to the operator.
The Dialog service went down at noon on Saturdays. About 11:45 a.m. I keyed: M0: Please logoff in 15 minutes. After one or two additional such messages one user remained: User 999. About noon, I keyed: “M999: Please logoff now.” The user didn’t. After another message I shut down the system and went about file updating which was best done when Dialog was not running.
The next week, after telling this story, I learned that User 999 was Roger Summit.
–Pete Rusch (Product Development, Chemistry)
Kitty Litter
Early Dialog’s equipment included “kitty litter” inside of each Datacell drive. This was required to catch the corrosive hydraulic fluid that leaked, before it could run down through the floor and eat away the cables below.
–Shelley Giles (Operations)
Dialog Out of Gas
I may be fuzzy on some of the details, but I still cherish the memory of the time we had our first power outage of the winter season and were running the system using the rooftop gas-powered generators. Unfortunately, it had been a long summer and no one had remembered to top off the gas before the storm season, so, after quite a few hours, the generators sputtered to a halt. Might Dialog had finally run out of gas.
–Georg Romero (Marketing)
The Earthquake (or How to Use the Disaster Recovery Plan)
I recall the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake in November 1989. We were on the old Hillview Avenue campus and most everyone had gone home early to watch the Giants vs. A’s World Series. I was leaving a bit after 5:00 pm to do likewise and the quake hit when I was walking to my car in the rear parking lot. After the rolling stopped, I put my briefcase in my car and walked back into the building. The only 3 officers present were Bill Lawrenson, Gordon Schick and me. We met on the front stairs of Building 1 with the “Disaster Recovery Plan” binder. It was particularly difficult for Gordon, as his leg was in a cast (I think he had broken it) and he was hobbling around in an attempt to get his technical team organized. We quickly sorted through the binder and Bill and I took on the action to walk through both buildings to ensure that no one had been hurt or killed. Gordon put his team together to check out the data center. You’ll recall that Sonia Rodert contacted the builder of the campus and got his promise to come right over ASAP to check out the structure (what a brilliant action that was). Fortunately, Gordon’s team righted a few pieces of equipment (some drives, I think) that had toppled over and we were back “on the air” in record time. Also, fortunately, Bill, Rosalie and I found no one injured in either building. The last thing I did before finally going home around 9:00 p.m. was check out my own office, mostly out of curiosity. My bookcase had fallen over and the office was a real mess. I noticed that the phone on my desk had fallen on the floor. I actually crawled over the bookcases and books and files and the rest of the unbelievable mess and put the phone’s receiver back on the hook before I left to go home. To this day, I can’t think of why it was important to do that; but, at the time, it was.
–Bob Simons (Company Counsel)
The Power of Marketing
I’ll never forget my first day at Dialog. It was November 1981 and the Marketing Department was VERY small—something like six or seven people in all. Betty Davis was Marketing Manager, and Chris Hicks (Riley) and Sandy Mar (Steinbruner) answered all the marketing phones. The reps—I believe it was then just George Plosker, Barbara Gersh and Betty Unruh (Elias)—took turns providing back up for the difficult questions.
The day I arrived, Chris had left on vacation, and I was told I needed to handle marketing calls. The main wrinkle in this was that I basically didn’t have a clue what the company did. (In fact, I could barely remember the name of the place, and I’m sure I greeted more than one customer with “Good Morning. Thank you for calling …uh..uh..uh …”). My sole orientation came from George, who was busy trying to write the Database Catalog for the following year. As a result, the “orientation” consisted of a two-minute synopsis followed by him handing me a copy of the then-current catalog and telling me to look up whatever I needed to know. Mostly I just tried to talk callers into letting me send them a marketing package. It’s hard to believe anyone actually was brave enough to sign up for the service after being introduced to it by me!
–Kathy Mulvey (Marketing)
Space Planning/UnPlanning
Early in Dialog’s history, we shared a computer room with another Lockheed department; JetPlan. Dialog needed to get a faster, and physically larger, computer to handle increasing business. It was decided that JetPlan’s computer should move to a new computer room across the hall. JetPlan provided 24-hour service and did not want to tanek the time to dismantle the computer into small, easily moveable pieces, and then reassemble it in the new location. It was too large (approx. 12 feet long by 2.5 feet wide and 5 feet high) to move through a normal computer room door, turn it, go down a ramp, across the hall and up a ramp into the newly constructed computer room. Fortunately, Len Fick, a JetPlan (later Dialog) employee had an office with doors opening to a hallway and into the old computer room. However, the computer would have to go through his office at about a 35-degree angle while dropping down from the 12-inch high raised floor. To eliminate the step down, the Lockheed carpenters were recruited to build a plywood platform through Len’s office and across the hallway. When moving day came, it was discovered that the computer was too wide to go through Len’s office at that angle. After removing all of the computer’s doors, it was possible to go through the office very carefully with at most, a ¼ inch clearance for most of the trip. Fortunately, the plywood platform, while complaining loudly, held up and the computer completed its journey successfully and was powered up soon after.
A year after the move of JetPlan’s computer, Dialog outgrew its newest computer and again needed to get a newer, faster, and physically much larger computer, an IBM 360/65 with an enormous 1MB of internal memory. It was decided to move to an area that had been a cafeteria and kitchen. After much planning, which included cutting out paper models of the computer equipment and trying several equipment arrangements, it was determined that there was an over-abundance of room. Even with the steel support posts every 12 feet and with a computer that was about 18 feet wide, there would be wide aisles on both sides of the computer room from front to back.
The new computer room was built without mishap. Although I did overhear a discussion between the construction crew and Lockheed Facilities as a wall of the kitchen was being torn down. “What is this pipe doing here? It is not on the plans. Maybe it is a natural gas line for the stove, or maybe it is a water line. We can’t follow the pipe after it went into the concrete floor. Just saw it off and see what’s inside.” It turned out to be unused.
After the room was built, the computer arrived and the installers went to work. After working a couple of hours, the installers reported “The computer will not fit as the plan described.” At this time, it was discovered that the scale for the computer room and the scale for the equipment were different and the equipment models were 20% smaller than they should have been. After a couple of hours of redesigning the equipment layout, a new plan was devised with a narrow aisle on one side of the room and none on the other side. The computer was installed with the new layout.
There was one place in the main processor that was a little hard to get to for maintenance. The customer engineer had to go into a long passageway, stand on a corner to make room to allow the door panel to be opened in order to reach the computer innards. Then it was necessary to close the door panel before it was possible to leave.
–Shelley Giles (Operations)
Push the Button
A Dialog Vice President was giving a tour of the computer room to some important visitors. When they reached the “front end processor,” which handled all of the communications with customers, the Vice President explained its purpose. He then went on to explain that the key, controlling the front panel, was set in the “off” position. Therefore, all of the front panel could not be used. Then he proceeded to demonstrate this great feature by pressing the “on/off switch” and immediately being surprised when the front-end shut down.
–Shelley Giles (Operations)
Collect Calls
I used to answer the incoming sales calls at the beginning of my tenure there. As you could imagine we used to get many calls into the phone center every day. One morning I received a strange call asking if we would accept a collect call. I said yes. It turned out to be a call from a prison in Michigan. We caught on to this right away however, after I accepted the call. We were swamped from prisoners trying to call into get an outside line. It got pretty ugly. They were cursing and telling us what they would do to us if we wouldn’t give them an outside line. Finally it stopped, but it was quite a week.
–Jimmy Dworkin (Inside Sales)
The “Mipper and Yipper”
Remember the Mid-Year and Year-End Performance Reviews (affectionately known as the “Mipper and Yipper”? Once, when Roger was presenting the financial results to a packed audience, there was a loud clunk, a few rows behind me. Everyone turned around to see that Fred Zappert, who was known for drinking large quantities of coffee in an effort to stay awake, had dozed off and fallen off his chair into the aisle. Roger looked to see the source of the commotion and said calmly “We’ll get to your part in a minute, Fred.”
–Lou Ann Frey (Product Development)
The “Italian” Impersonator
Rick (Caputo) and I met on the phone when he constantly peppered the customer service call number with his many voices. On one particularly busy and trying day when he had called one too many times—I answered the phone with “Caputo, you turkey, stop calling me when I’m busy”! After a long and profound pause, I heard the distinguished and very British voice of Oliver Ball—of INSPEC—saying “Madam, please don’t hang up before you tell me what you mean by calling me a turkey?”
After that, Roger made Rick swear on a Bluesheet Manual that he would cease and desist calls of that nature during business hours … and I think he (mostly) did.
–Ann Caputo (Customer Service and Product Manager) and Rick Caputo (Manager, Field Office
Postscript: Rick was known to be a great impersonator and he never did cease doing Italian or Russian or German characters whenever he would call me, though I always knew it was him; so, he probably construed his “Bluesheet” promise very narrowly. Rick was one of the truly great characters @ Dialog and his untimely and early passing was almost unbearingly sad. Yet, I saw him a week before he passed in the hospital and he still had that tremendous sense of humor. He was one of the greatest guys I’ve ever known.
–Bob Simons
Dialog Wedding
I also remember telling Roger that Rick (Caputo) and I were planning to get married and would he be the best man at or wedding. Roger was completely astonished and asked me, “Anne, are you REALLY sure you want to do that?” I never did totally resolve whether that question was to answer whether: (1) I really wanted to marry Rick; or (2) wanted him to be the best man … or both!
–Anne Caputo (Customer Services and Product Manager) and Rick Caputo (Manager Field Office)
Rated X
I also remember answering the very first call that came into the newly acquired 800 number. We’d only had the line a day or two and it had been repurposed from another owner—the VD Hotline. You guessed it, the first call was for the former owner … but I told him Dialog had tons of information on VD’s and I’d be pleased to help them construct a search. No taker, however!
–Anne Caputo (Customer Services and Product Manager)
April Fool’s Story from the Phone Center
One day, some unnamed conspirators got together to play a little April Fool’s trick on Georg Romero. A new feature had just been released that helped a lot. We, er, the unnamed tricksters, were a bit cruel because we played this trick while he was on the phones. The nifty little feature let you set up alias commands and store them in your profile. So, we created a special file for Georg and lured him away fro his phone station while one of us quickly stored his new profile that changed your standard commands to snide comments. For instance, Georg types “select” and the response was something like “oh, I don’t really feel up to it right now.” Or, “begin” resulted in “not until you say please.” For a brief moment, he was flummoxed but was quickly on to the trick! I hear similar antics happened in Development.
–Tibi McCann (Customer Services)
Dumpster Fun
During my Year 2000 house renovation, I found a note written to Roger in 1980 with a simple sentence: “I think they (Lockheed) are setting us up as a separate company. We should probably have our own weekly staff meetings.” The staff became a Committee to set up (the then unnamed) Dialog Information Services, Inc. We established a “fun” top priority. Write a policy only if it was REALLY needed to survive. We were tripping over each other on our way to the dumpster with those huge Lockheed government-oriented manuals and directives. We had also created a policy of hiring talented people who could create and then sneak them through the Lockheed quota system. The problem was that after we became a company, I kind of missed the fun and game of “tricking” Lockheed out of headcount and figuring out fun ways to sidestep policy.
–Rosalie Black (Human Resources)
Space Explorers
Dialog has a good friend, Loren Acton (scientist and astronaut) from our Research Laboratory days. Loren was also one of the founders of the Space Explorers, an exclusive club that a member could only join if he/she had orbited the earth at least once. We were always “trading” Loren speaking engagements at our Management Institutes for Space Explorer’s search time on the Dialog system. I was negotiating with their manager when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. After a few seconds I said, “we are having an earthquake I will call you back” and dove under my desk, only to find “no room at the inn.” It was stacked with applicant resumes, briefcases and absolutely no room for me. I finally remembered to call back two weeks later.
–Rosalie Black (Human Resources)
Father Guido Sarducci
To back up Anne’s (Caputo) story about Rick, the Impersonator, I remember my calls from “Father Guido Sarducci.” Rick was really good and I eventually caught on to the Scot, the Irishman and the Russian, but never the Italian: Father Sarducci. Human Resources was always on the alert and searching for talented people to hire. We recruited from all sources and answered all telephone calls. One day, I had a call from a Father Guido Sarducci who, in his broken Italian/English accent, proceeded to give me a sermon on who to recruit, how we should run the company, and how it was only right that we treat the field offices as saints. Later, even though we were on to him, Rick would delight in Father Sarducci frequently calling us to offer advice. Anyone new in Human Resources was his “fair game.”
–Rosalie Black (Human Resources) and Rick Caputo (Manager, Field Office)
The Entrepreneur & Winner
Seems like we should include among our stories the one about a former Dialog employee who went on to become one of the founders of eBay. His name was Jeff Skoll. I have heard stories that he would show his eBay business plans to some of the marketing folks and they all laughed.
–Sophie Hudnut (Marketing)
Post Script
I remember inviting Jeff to lunch. I was delighted to have a fellow Stanford GBS in our employ and looked forward to great contributions from him. The contribution expectation was right on; the beneficiaries were a bit off target.
–Roger Summit (President)
“Update” Fashions
There’s a whole possible series on “it happened at Dialog Update.” One that comes to mind is the “Dialog Duds” fashion parade in which Barbara Gersh wore a dress made out of Dialog Bluesheets and I wore a cape covered in CDROM (others may recall the additional fashion entries from that night?). I also have fond memories of Mike Reid dressed up as Batman. I think this was for the launch of the United Way campaign, but maybe he did it again for the introduction of a new Dialog OnDisc product?
–Libby Trudell (Marketing)
Post Script 1
Ah yes, Mike Reid wore his Batman costume on at least two or three occasions, whenever he could find an excuse, as I recall. But who (who was there?) and ever forget Jim Nunan in full drag (make-up and all) doing his lip synch rendition of “I am Woman, Her Me Roar”?—Spring or Summer of 1993 or 1994, I think, at a company gathering between the buildings on Hillview.
–Carol Christensen (Product Development)
Post Script 2
Okay, with all the talk about Batman, I have to chime in and add that Mike Reid’s Batman phase led to my taking on the Wonder Woman role for a short time. It all started at the Update. I believe, when Barry Richman introduced the new CDROM team with Mike introducing his Batman alter ego. I was in Wonder Woman gear at the very same Spring Fling (or whatever) where Mike appeared as Batman and Nunan entertained (or insulted) us all with his lip-synching.
–Janice McCallum (CDROM)
Postscript 2A
The Jim Nunan in “drag” routine occured at one of the earliest Spring Flings on the original Hillview campus, when we had the party between the buildings. His wife, Margie, assisted him in getting dressed and with makeup. He was fabulous! The Mike Reed “Batman” character came about as a result of the offsite MYPRs and YIPRs, where a bunch of us (Jim DiBernbardo, Libby, of course, and others) woud put on a pre-presentation skit, where we did a take-off on popular TV shows and movies (i.e., Star Trek, Batman, etc.). Mike was always willing to take on the “key” role of the funniest character; his Mr. Spock was better than Leonard Nimoy. I also recall that his Batman character appeared atop one of the Hillview buildings at a Spring Fling, too, as someone in Operations or Facilities assisted him in climbing through the rooftop access portal. Somewhere, Susan Prather had video tapes of many of these offsite skits, particularly when we did them at the Mountain View Performing Arts Center. I think I just recently threw out my gold, Captain Kirk jersey, though I’m not sure I have a good excuse for having kept it all these years (must be a guy thing).
–Bob Simons
Post Script 3
I remember the St. Louis Update with the fashion show … although her memory was that Libby was wearing a CDROM bikini. We’ll have to get that story straight. She also reminded me about Tina Byrne dancing up the fountain with Jim Batten when we were in Miami for a sales meeting.
The Payoff
As Libby suggests, there are treasure troves of Update stories. My very first Update was in St. Paul, where one highlight was the post-dinner evening gathering at Saturday Night Jukebox (or some similar named club). When the twist contest was held, Joe Bremner started handing out dollar bills to club patrons to get them to vote for Mary Corcoran and Dwight Tousignaut as the best dancers (I think I have the right names). Joe’s tactic worked!
–Janice McCallum
Post Script
Another anecdote. Dwight and I share a birthday (just last Saturday). I should remember his name; we celebrated my 30th together—with you, too, Pete (Rusch) in a little Greek restaurant near the Novotel in London during my first London Online Show.
–Janice McCallum
The Beach House
I recall the Philadelphia Update in 1989 (?) when the fire alarm went off in the hotel late at night. After the Update, Anne DelVillano invited a few of her new Dialog co-workers to her beach house on Long Beach Island for the weekend. Without going into details, let’s just say that I was involved in helping place a temporary tattoo on Anne’s husband’s backside during a birthday dinner celebration for him. Anne and I have been great friends ever since!
-Janie McCallum (CDROM)
American Ingenuity
There is a story I heard back in Library School (long before I joined Dialog), and I’ve always wondered if there was any truth to it. The “early online lore” has it that Roger and/or a high-level marketing person were in Europe preparing to give a live demo to an important potential customer. When they tried to log on and discovered that the system was down (a more frequent occurrence in those days). Rather than admit it to the audience, they dialed up the competition (either BRS or ORBIT—the only ones back then) at full international phone rates, logged on, and did a demo of “dialog,” thinking rightly that the client would never remember the subtle system differences later on. Is there a grain of actual history in there somewhere? Or is it just an “online urban legend”?
Postscript
“Urban legend” unless I wasn’t there.
–Roger Summit (President)
PG&E Strikes Again
Finally, another CDROM division story comes to mind. Not long after the Oakland fires in 1991 (again, my memory of the timing could be wrong), Barry (Richman) hosted a dinner party for his CDROM direct reports. He made his famous (as published in Gourmet magazine) moussaka. But, we almost had pizza, since the electricity was sporadic in his Berkeley house. The candlelit dinner was a success, complete with the yummy moussaka.
–Janice McCallum
Unusual Customers
We cannot forget about unusual customers either—like the one, who was trying to look up a book online and wanted to know who wrote the Autobiography of Anne Frank—yes, really!
–Jan Sykes (Field Office)
Photos
It was in the early 1980’s and many DIALOGers were in our 20’s and 30’s. Susan Prather had taken some terrific photos of staff members that were displayed in the upstairs hallway of 3460 Hillview. I was working late one night, and on my way out the door, paused to look at the photos. Roger happened by, looked at the pictures and commented “Looks like we’ll have to start thinking about child care benefits.”Barbara Gersh (Marketing)
The Hurricane
DIALOG Update in New Orleans. The evening before, DIALOG staffers and database producers headed to Pat O’Brien’s where we shared a punch bowl full of the signature drink of the bar, a Hurricane, with many straws, courtesy of John Kuranz (Manager Contents) as I recall. Along with Betty Unruh, Mary Corcoran, and Cheri Robison, I proceeded to party hearty all night and then along with a new found local friend, I continued into the early morning hours. The only time I’ve ever done this before a scheduled presentation.
The next morning at 9:00 a.m., I had to deliver an Update training that I had not written or delivered before (usually I developed the sessions I presented). I was severely hung over. It was only through the graciousness of colleagues such as Sophie Hudnut and Virginia Tucker that I made it through the session at all. Every time I was about to stumble, one of my colleagues would pipe up with the concepts that my debilitated brain could not summon. This represented the best of what I recall from working for DIALOG—working with a uniformly smart and blazingly competent group of colleagues, with a strong sense of esprit de corps.
–Barbara Gersh (Marketing)
Journalist Tours
One of my duties and pleasures as Marketing Communications Manager in the early 1980’s was taking journalists on tours of the DIALOG headquarters back in the days when the computer room contained lots of big iron and was about half the size of a football field. Invariably they would gasp, ooh! and aah! When they first set eyes upon the sea of disk drives.
–Barbara Gersh (Marketing)
How to Create a Job Opening
Originally, I was hired because Ron Kaminecki, who had been in California for a year wanted to return to Chicago so that he could marry his sweetheart. So, he joined Jo DiSalvo, who was doing training in the Midwest, solo, and the two of them became the foundation of the Chicago Office.
–Sophie Hudnut (Marketing)
Dialog “Pep” Sessions
A funny story that comes to mind still makes me laugh. During those dreadful days during the sale of Dialog by Knight-Ridder, employee morale dipped to an all-time low. Jeff and we in Sr. staff decided that employees needed pep sessions with all of us Sr. Staff supporting Jeff Galt in his inspiring talks to the employees. Several sessions took place, and, as you can imagine, after sitting through several of them, the senior team could recite Jeff’s speech.
One day, a session scheduled after lunch pushed me to the max, and I confess that my eyes closed a few times. Hovered, I was one-upped by (I cannot remember his name from HR), who not only dozed, but slid down his chair and there was not pretense: He was dead asleep.
Feeling guilty and sharing my shut-eye with my commuting partner, Pete Papano, he gave me grief about how could I not show a demonstration of support to our leader, which only made me feel worse. However, we both cracked up over, whatever his name was, about him falling asleep. I forgot to mention that he sat on the very front row. Poor Jeff,. He was such a good guy and put up with us. On the same note, I remember Fred Zappert who fell out of his chair at one of the company’s semi-annual report meetings. At least we were able to stay in our chairs.
I will always miss those days and value Dialog as the highlight of my working career.
–Anne DelVillano (Sales/Marketing)
The Deer Hunter (not the movie)
Don Schaaf, Larry Legard and I left from work for an excursion during deer season in the Sierras (about 1978?). I was driving and Don had left his pack in the shipping area during the day. We had arrived and hiked “in” a piece and when we unpacked our gear, Don was bemused to find three large, round rocks marked with happy faces. Compliments of Joannie Windhausen.
–Dick Stephan (Administration)
–Don Schaaf (Facilities)
–Larry Legard (Adminstration)
The Crime Scene
A special Dialog memory for me is the time that Tim McDonald and Frank Gerber “decorated” the elevator lobby at the Chicago office. On April 1st, I stepped out of the elevator to find police barricade tape around the doors and an outline of a body on the carpet. The word soon leaked out and we had tenants from all floors stopping to see the crime scene.
–Jan Sykes (Field Office)
Holiday Spirit
In the early days there was much debate on whether or not to operate on holidays. Sometime in the ‘70s, though, we decided to be available on Christmas and put out an announcement to that effect. A new customer called, very irate, to advise us of our lack of customer sensitivity. The gist of her message was, “I signed up for Dialog in November, took the training in early December, and now you make me wait until Christmas to go online.”
–Roger Summit (President)
The Microphone
In the Midwest, we were delighted to find a wonderful new training site in Ypsilanti. You have to understand that other sites included the Missouri State Mental Institution in St. Louis where halfway through the seminar we discovered that one of the inmates had slipped in and had a better grasp of Additional Indexes than most of the class. Anyway, this new, high-tech site in Ypsilanti had, among other innovations, a wireless microphone for the instructor. The grateful instructor clipped it onto her lapel and found it worked great: students could hear her riveting explanation of field suffices and Boolean logic above the hum of the speedy TI 1200’s. And it continued to work great as the class took a break and the hapless instructor, forgetting to unclip the microphone, made a noisy trip to the Ladies’ Room.
–Ann Lee (Field Office)
Late Arrival
Dialog training trips required many nights in Red Roof Inns, Ramadas, Holiday Inns,and other such hostelries. After a particularly grueling journey in bad weather, one unnamed Dialog employee found her way late at night to just such an establishment, gathered her key from the front desk and trudged down a long hallway to the further reaches of the hotel, eager to crawl into bed. Imagine her surprise when she opened the door and found that the bed was already occupied. Not missing a beat, the gentleman offered, “I don’t mind if you don’t.”
–Anne Lee (Field Office)
The Great Chicago Flood
Ron Kaminecki and Tim McDonald enjoyed the distinction of being the last evacuees from the building at 75 E. Wacker when a water main broke in the tunnels beneath the city and caused a freak flood of virtually all buildings downtown. All other exits being closed by that time, they had to climb down a rickety fire escape, which had been installed shortly after the Chicago ire.
–Anne Lee (Field Office)
Water-Related Memories
Other water-related memories: Hal Espo getting heaved into the swimming pool at Ricky’s Hyatt by Cynthia Wrasman, et al.; Tina Byrne and Jim Batten dancing in the waterfall at Key Biscayne Marriott; the fragrant sales meeting at “Pheasant Run-down” where there was no hot water for two days.
–Anne Lee (Field Office)
The Equalizer
I remember Mike Reid (aka Batman … on a department discussion probably about PC committee items, I suspect … at one point he made a great statement. “I believe we’re saying the same thing … we’re just saying it differently.” This is a great ice breaker that allowed everyone to take a breath. It stuck and continues to be used in those difficult conversation moments, even today.
–Dawn Lombardi (Marketing)
Our Wonderful Customers
And our wonderful customers: Ron Scheidelman (for those who remember him, I need not say more); the woman who came to every free event where food was served; the student who couldn’t find the Autobiography of Anne Frank in Books in Print because she didn’t know the author; the blind man who attended one of Joyce Camp’s seminars with his not-yet-house-trained seeing eye dog; the enterprising student at the University of Illinois who absconded with a training password and downloaded the entire D&B database; the customer who observed that being a Dialog trainer must be a lot like being a flight attendant. At the time, I didn’t realize how right he was!
–Ann Lee (Field Office)
Spring Fling Concerts
I think it was the last Spring Fling concert when the police showed up because we didn’t have a noise permit and I wondered if they would take Bob Simons away with them.
–Mira Wooten
Post Script
Hey, the local cops showed up at ALL of the Spring Flings that we did in Mountain View. I had a standard “spiel” for them, ala … we just had a big sale and this is an impromptu celebration … didn’t know we had to get a permit … we’ll make sure we do that next time … have some ribs or chicken, as the party is already winding down. This worked every year!!! By the way, I always appointed someone (Like Aimee or Delifina on my legal staff) to immediately intercede with the officers who showed up, explain that the company’s lawyer is in the band and that he’ll discuss the complaint with you ASAP upon coming off the stage. All of the many musicians over the years who performed with Dialog’s “Private Reserve” knew that I put the yearly set together for about 11-12 tunes. What they didn’t know was that I figured that the 1st “neighbor” complaints would get called in at about tune #4; the cops wouldn’t arrive until about tune #9; and, we’d be done with our set and I could use the above spiel to fend them off until the set was over. No one ever got busted and the party never got shut down. Thanks for reminding me of this Mira.
–Bob Simons (Company Counsel)
Conehead
Am I the only one who remembers “Aunt Jemima Conehead,” aka Jim Wittmeyer???
–Karen Scarpelli (Product Development)
Post Script 1
As I remember, for those of you who did not know Jim, he was very very tall (for those of us at 5’1”). He appeared one day, after the movie “Coneheads,” walking through the buildings with some prop so his head was cone shaped, making him even taller.
–Rosalie Black (Human Resources)
Post Script 2
I remember that very well. As I remember, it got Him up to about 7’6”.
–Stan Skudneski (Product Development)
Knight-Ridder Support
Having just returned from London and spent some time with Nick Paget-Brown—former manager of the UK office, I was reminded of the time when … Nick was attending a Knight-Ridder Management Training session in Miami and somehow managed to lock himself out of his room without a stitch of clothes on while fetching the morning paper. Utilizing what he referred to as his newly acquired “lateral thinking skills” he fashioned a skirt out of the Miami Herald, rode the elevator to the ground floor, went to reception to ask for another key and never felt more supported by KR and the power of the press.
–Rich Ream (Sales & Marketing)
Dialog
Excerpt: There is a time in successful startup companies, pioneering new technologies, that is quite fun and enjoyable, even when everyone is working as hard as possible. Everyone in the company knows each other; they are supportive and committed to the mission of the company. And their customers truly love their produce or service. Dialog was one of those special companies—at Dialog Updates, I remember customers telling me how much Dialog had made their professional lives so much more productive and provided high value to their customers … And I value staying in contact with them (Dialogers). We are soccer parents, library board members, and personal resources for each other, as well as professional colleagues.
–Jean Bedord (Product Development)
DIALOG History 