Colorful Characters of the Past

Anyone that is reading this knows enough about LaCroy to know that there have been a lot of characters that have passed through our doors. Many of them were broken in some way--be it lack of intelligence, lack of social skills, or even lack of simple motor function. I prefer to think of them as "colorful."

This is a short list of some of the colorful coworkers from my time. I'm sure there were many others before my time, and there are also some there currently, but this isn't about them.

Howard - There isn't much I can say about Howard (at least I think that's what his name was) because he didn't stay long enough for anyone to know him. He hired on, and within two weeks was found sound asleep in a toilet stall. I mean sound asleep--as in snoring. Bye bye Howard.

Bathroom Bill - Most of the time the bathrooms are cleaned every Friday by the "low man on the totem pole" at LaCroy, but at one time we had a man that lived for it. Bill was a proud, proud man when it came to his bathroom. I say 'his' because he was very protective of it. Overly protective. Apparently he owned his own cleaning business at one time, and when he got the opportunity to do the same thing at LaCroy his eyes probably took on a faraway gleam of great experiences he had shared with porcelain and tile. Anyway, Bill loved cleaning the bathroom. He cleaned and polished things pretty much all week long. God forbid he should catch you doing something that put the cleanliness of his bathroom in jeopardy--like actually, uh, using a toilet for what it was intended for. He was an ornery old guy and you would definitely feel his wrath. I think he actually lived in his van.

John Ferrill - I never saw John really do anything. I saw him pretend to do things a lot though--pretty much all day every day. I guess he was also quite the ladies' man. You didn't have to ever see him with a woman to know that because he took delight in volunteering such information. Yes, he would tell you. He liked to volunteer just how well endowed he was too. I guess he thought of himself as a human tripod. I was very surprised to find that he owned a Harley-Davidson when I saw him ride it to work one day. You just can't tell a Harley rider by his geekiness I guess. After all, look at me. Anyway, I guess someone finally noticed John earning money for doing nothing. For all we know he's making Jewish porn films in Fargo now.

Vernon - Vernon was a real piece of work. Not only was he a habitual drinker whose fumes would almost trigger a hazmat team, he was able to do it twice at LaCroy! After working there one time for a few weeks, he was sent down the road. He would be missing days during his first week of employment. Imagine our surprise when, about a year later, they hired him again. Just like the previous time, he didn't last long. Poor Bruce though... Vernon cost him $20. Vernon was always trying to borrow money. I lent him $5 myself, and I had to collect it in small increments. If memory serves me, I got 2 dollars back once, 1 dollar once, a dollar a different time, and finally was able to close his debt when he paid me that last dollar in the form of 4 quarters. Bruce wasn't so lucky. I heard it said once that if you lend someone $20 and they disappear and never come back, it was probably worth it.

Jim the Hammer - Jim used to work in tooling. Jim was a hack. I'm pretty sure that Jim was the inspiration for the Playskool hammer bench kids toy. I'm also firmly convinced that he was also the inspiration for the famous Hammering Man artwork that stands in front of the Seattle Art Museum. Whenever I see the big, gray, lead hammer with worn, curled edges that still lives in the tooling department at LaCroy I think of Jim. Oh how he loved to swing that hammer. It didn't matter much how small the thing was that he was trying to install or remove, he swung that baby with lust in his eyes and fever in his swing. He left a lot of him behind when he departed to go work at another company--all in the form of dents and dings.

What About Bob? - Bob was a colorful character for sure. Multi-faceted would be a good way to describe him. Some days found him to be a functioning member of our company and other days found him with a serious short circuit. I think the title of the movie, What about Bob? was kind of fitting. He did so many things his own way that I even dedicated a blog post to him in my old blog a couple years ago. Bob was fun in a unique kind of way. I sorta miss him.

There are, of course, characters I have not mentioned here. Stay tuned...