Here's one about the phone company...
My Dad was a phone man, most of the time a central office guy in step, crossbar, or power. This was in a suburb of Los Angeles.
As some of you may remember, in the early 1960s everyone took the threat of a nuclear attack VERY seriously. Grade school kids did civil defense "duck and cover" drills once a month.
When civil defense air raid sirens throughout the region sounded for about two minutes at 10AM on the last Friday of the month, every school kid would crawl under their desk and curl up in the fetal position. After two minutes of warble tone, a steady siren tone yould signal the "all clear", and things would go back to normal. It was a regular reminder that a Russian (well, Soviet) H-bomb could be heading your way at any time. Cheery thought.
One day, early in the month, in the middle of the week, the sirens went off. There was mild panic; I mean, were we all going to go up in a mushroom cloud? And what difference would it make if you were curled up in a ball under your desk?
The "all clear" was sounded very quickly, and no one could figure out what the deal was.
That night at dinner, my Dad said that one of his fellow switchmen had been doing routine maintenance on some circuits right next to the civil defense siren circuits (which all went through the phone company central office). This guy bumped the CD equipment and triggered the sirens.
I don't recall that this fact was ever made public.
Of course, there was a telephone co. inquiry. My Dad said that on the morning that the poor schmuck was to be grilled by the investigative committee, the other central office guys were all giving him advice on how to play it, hopefully so he'd keep his job.
The winning advice was that he should dress up like a janitor, walk in with a fake mustache and carrying a broom and dust brush, and, in a fake German accent, say:
"Vell, I vas chust dusting zee equipment..."
And in the end, the guy kept his job.
Cliff
