One of my earliest mentors in IBM was John Jones. I was hired into IBM in the same department as John in the Federal Systems Division in Gaithersburg in July 1984. For some reason, John took me under his wing, taught me the ropes, and always kept an eye out for me. In fact, he was instrumental in getting me into my first Software Engineering position in IBM (I was originally hired as something called a Systems Engineer).
From what I recall (it has been 23 years or so since working with John), he was raised in Virginia (Richmond, I believe), had a wicked and acerbic Southern wit, spent some time in the Navy, and had spent a number of years as an IBM Customer Engineer before moving into FSD.
John despised corporate-speak, pretense, and political correctness. He had high personal standards when it came to the quality of his work products and expected his peers to match his standards. If you didn't, John would have no problem calling you out. He didn't suffer fools gladly and he relished challenging authority if he thought he was right - the dude had major stones. In thinking back, he was personality-wise sort of an edgier (almost nasty) Shelby Foote.
He could also bust chops with the best of them.
Before going through a near-death experience in the early 90s, IBM had accumulated lots of older folks who were riding the proverbial gravy train, just waiting for retirement. From the IBM Jargon Dictionary:
gold-coaster n. Someone who is “coasting” until retirement. This term is especially applied to such a person who acquires or applies for a transfer to Boca Raton or Tampa, in Florida. The local tourist agencies’ name for that part of Florida is the “Gold Coast” [hence the nice double meaning]. See also IPR, ROJ.
The department that John and I worked in was tasked with building a configuration and costing management system (CCMS) that would be used to prepare hardware and software configurations, estimate fixed costs, and calculate monthly lease charges for large scale DOD logistics programs that IBM FSD would bid on. We had 5 or 6 on the team, but John and I basically did the bulk of the work. John was the lead designer and I was the lead developer. We also had a good sub-contractor on the team. The other folks on the team were along for the ride and that used to piss John off to no end.
One of the guys, let's call him BL, was truly dead wood. BL had a bad habit of sometimes falling asleep after lunch. He had a private office with his 3279 workstation on the wall opposite the wall with the door. So he would sit facing his tube but with his back to the hallway (napping in an upright position, which is actually pretty hard to do). From the hallway, walking by, it appeared he was working. Unfortunately, for BL, John sniffed this out.
John and I and one other gold-coaster shared an open office that was a good 35 feet from BL's private office. If John detected that BL was snoozing and he was walking by, he would grasp BLs office door handle and, with some serious force, slam that mother like there was no tomorrow. (The first couple of times it actually startled me - I can only imagine what it did to BL!) Sure enough, 10 seconds or so after that crack of thunder, John would stroll into our office with a shit-eating grin.
In FSD, every quarter or so, we would have all-hands meeting for our area where the executives would cover the state of the business. Since this was before the age of teleconferencing and Web Meetings, we would actually physically congregate in the Building 181 Auditorium at the Gaithersburg Site. This was a large room with theater-style seating into which you could probably squeeze 500 or so employees.
On one such occasion in 1985, when I was in IBM Rockville, I car-pooled with John for the short trip north to Gburg. I don't remember anything about that meeting, but I'll never forgot the return trip back to Rockville.
John was driving and so we get on I-270 south at the MD-124 exit for the short trip down to the Shady Grove Road exit. About halfway between the two exits, John (who was driving in the right hand lane) looked at me and said "Nedimyer, I think that is Geno ahead of us." John always called me Nedimyer. Geno was GC, a telecommunications guru on our team. Decent guy, middle-aged, bearded, balding, and pleasant enough. GC was in the second lane from the right.
For some reason, John pulls up almost parallel to GC but a foot or so behind him - right in his blind spot - and just hangs out there looking over at GC. Fate then intervenes - GC takes his index finger, and, you got it, inserts it into his nose. (Unlike Jerry, this was definitely inside!)
At this point, John looks over at me and sighs "I'll be damned". I just looked back at John and placed my palms face-up with a "What the hell do you want me to do about it?" look.
Without a spoken word, John slowly pulls even to GC and gives a gentle tap on the horn. GC looks over and gives a pleasant wave back to John. John waves at GC, smiles, takes his index finger, and jams it up his nose. GC returned the middle finger.
I almost wet my britches.
