I had, the time of my life.

Saturday night, I spent the evening with a bunch of people I worked with 10 years ago, or more. This company was my first "real" job, whatever that means. I'm pretty sure the hours I spent at Taco Bell, serving tacos to the inebriated is considered a real job, but since I had no intention of it being my career, I always looked at it as a temporary stop on my road of life. I lucked into my job at CE, my best friends mom worked there and knew they were looking for someone in their production area to label computer diskettes and pack programs into boxes to ship to customers. It wasn't rocket science, but it got my foot in the door. I put in 15 years at the most fun place I've ever worked at. So Saturday night, a group of former CE employees got together to reminisce and catch up. I remember so many funny stories that one night wasn't enough to get them all back out. Of course, there were a bunch I had forgotten and enjoyed the refresher. Here's a few samples:

Here in Des Monies, there use to be a place called Big Daddy's BBQ. Now Big Daddy was know for making some incredible sauce, HOT sauce. So when a new guy joined the CE team, and started bragging about how hot he liked his food, it was suggested that he be taken to Big Daddy's and taught a lesson. The next time I saw that guy, he had black circles around his eyes and looked like he was dead, up until he came back to life and came to work. I asked him what happened and he said he was in the hospital because after he ate 1/2 of the sandwich at Big Daddy's, he threw up so much he burst the blood vessels around his eyes. He told me he still wasn't right, on the stomach and pooper side, but at least his tongue wasn't numb anymore. What a glass is half full kind of guy. There was one thing I learned from that. Don't challenge Big Daddy. You will loose.

My favorite story EVER from CE, was when we had a computer programmer visiting us from China. He was leaving our building for lunch with a bunch of other programmers. He came down the stairs and made a sharp left turn to head out the door to the parking lot. Unfortunately, the doors were not located at the sharp left location he was attempting to exit. No, the doors were actually about six feet to his right. So where did he attempt to exit? Through a 8 foot by 12 foot sheet of glass, which thankfully did not shatter when he smashed his face into it at full speed. It sounded as though he hit it three times, perhaps his head was bouncing off the glass, but it sounded horrific. I happen to be upstairs, just out of view of the impact area, but as soon as I heard it, I ran out to look over the balcony, to see the guy run out to his lunch group like nothing happened. I asked the ladies at the front desk who appeared to be in shock. They told me what happened, so I headed over to the glass and found a perfect face print on the glass, including forehead, nose, cheeks, chin and even eyelashes. To say that he hit it hard would be the understatement of the year. I laughed so I hard I nearly pee'd myself, and I wasn't alone. I think productivity was done for the day.

There were tons more, like putting a motion activated recorder, that when placed behind a toilet, scares the crap out of people when they go to use that toilet and it says "I'm watching you." Removing the pins from the hinges on a door, so when the person opens that door, it comes off the hinges and smashes the guy in the face. Many things were shrunk wrapped, which if you don't know what that is, wrap something in Saran wrap, and then heating it until it is super tight. Now imagine everything on your desk being wrapped, individual pens, stapler, tape dispenser, keyboard, mouse and anything else we could get our hands on. We covered a guys office floor and chairs with computer diskette labels. It was actually pretty cool looking and the guy loved it. Taught him to lock his office when he went to lunch though. We boxed up a girls car when she left it in the parking lot and went out of town. We had several days to work on that one. We had a big snow one year and a guy had left his car in the parking lot. After the plow truck sort of buried his car, we got out our shovels and finished the job. His car was buried under 3 feet of snow, then we watered it so it was icy.

I slept at the office on numerous occasions. One night, we were working late and it was about 2am. The cleaning crew was just wrapping up and getting ready to leave. We had spoken to them several times, so they knew we were there. I was using the restroom, when I heard over the loud speaker, "You have violated a restricted area, the police have been notified." I thought that was odd, so I headed out to the alarm panel, just in time to see the cleaning people look at me, then run for the parking lot. Somehow, they had forgotten we were in the building and set the alarm on us. Nice.

Everyday at this place was an adventure. The thing I remember most was, it was a family. We were together so much, it was our home away from home. How do I know it was family. Ask anyone who worked there and they'll tell you the same thing. It was a unique place, nothing I had heard of before or after. What group has a work reunion, 10 years after it, in all honesty, died. Half the people at that reunion were either laid off or fired. You get laid off from a company, do you go back to see the people that did it? I suggest that this might be a first. Do you hug your co-workers? I did. Do you tell your co-workers that you love them? I did. Still do. It was a great time in my life, a time I will never forget. Plans are in the works for next years get togther, and I can't wait. Hopefully more people can make it and more stories can be shared.