JOHN MCLOONE

I’ve kind of been at a loss for words. I’m coming off a one-year hiatus from writing this column, so you better watch out.

I’m back, and do I have some exciting stories to tell you. Think of the best action, drama, comedy and romance movie, all wrapped into one. OK, it’s been an exciting year, but maybe I’m overselling it. For what it’s worth, I have had some outside pressure for me to get my backside back to sitting in front of a keyboard and tapping this out each week. I’ve been meaning to do it, but it’s always been the last thing on my to do list. After exactly three requests in the past five days, I have been spurred to action.

Maybe I’m slowing down a little, and I’m certainly over my halfway mark. Too many people my age are in the process of calling it quits on employment. Then what do they do? Most of them find another job for another dozen or so years. I tried the other job thing for quite a few years. It seems that people like me didn’t have a place in the corporate structure. I remember my last “real job” at a group of newspapers. No one really appreciated what I was bringing to the table or was it my sense of humor they didn’t appreciate. This is dating me, but it was back in the era of pagers. Remember those? You wanted someone to call you back, you called the pager number and typed in your number. My office happened to be near where the technical support staff were seated. If you were having a problem with your computer, you’d dial up that pager, and they’d give you a call. Once week when I had handled all my tasks dutifully, I found myself sitting at my desk on a Friday afternoon. I had a great idea, and I executed it. I looked up a phone number, called the tech support pager and typed it in. Then, I sat back and tried to keep from laughing too loud when the on-call tech support woman first called Pizza Hut and then Domino’s to try to diagnose their computer problems. Then, even better, the tech supporters schemed at who could be doing this to them and how they’d get them back.

You’ll find that pizza was a common theme to my pranks back in the day. Another time, the company was in turmoil and budget cuts had been ordered. Something else was ordered too. The company vice presidents were in a meeting in a conference room about 10 feet from my office, deciding on the fate of everyone in the building. So, I figured they could use a break, and I called and ordered a pizza sent to the vice president of sales. Instead of just making it and bringing it, they called him. Let’s just say he wasn’t happy.

I stayed under the radar that day, but eventually he got the opportunity to relieve me of my employment. I made it through about three rounds of layoffs but was forced to start working for myself again when the axe finally fell.

Some days I think maybe it would be fun to get fired again, but I’ve got a few good years left in me. And speaking of years, Happy 2024 to you all! I hope it’s a great one!