Rob/Bob

I forgot all about rob/bob but when I was thinking about crazy people at my work I could write about I thought of him.
He was laid off so I can write about him now and have no worries.

When I first started working here in November I met Bob, he was a really weird guy, but every Cobol programmer is really weird so I didn’t' think much of it. So Bob and I work together on a few projects and everything is going well. The holidays come and everyone is taking time off from work or they are only here for 2 hours a day. Since Bob and I were contractors we didn't get paid unless we were at work. AT WORK are the key words here; lets just say Bob and I have very low scores on Minesweeper.

The holidays come to a close and I find myself in a meeting with Bob, the host of the meeting calls on Bob for a response. Bob says, "I've made some changes in my life as part of the new year and I am going by Rob now, please call me Rob from now on" Everyone in the meeting totally thinks he is kidding because who would change their name at age 50 and Bob or Rob was a Cobol programmer and you never take a Cobol programmer serious. So half the people take him serious and the other half think he is kidding. This same ratio spreads throughout the entire office and before long you have 500 IT employees all calling Bob Rob or Rob Bob. He even put a piece of tape over the B on nameplate with an R until he got a new nametag for his cubical. The email system was screwed up too; rob/bob wouldn't show up to meetings because people were sending the meetings to his old account instead of the new account. He had the perfect excuse for not doing any work, every time anyone would ask if he got their email he would say, "Well what account did you send it to?....well that is the wrong account, it's Rob now" It was total office chaos and it didn't go away for at least a year, everyone would refer to him as RobBob. Here is a typical conversation between a manager and I:

Manager: Tyse
Me: Yes
Manager: Do you have that work order done?
Me: Yes, I gave it back to Rob last week.
Manager: Who is Rob?
Me: You know, RobBob
Manager: Oh yeah, RobBob, Who the hell changes their name when they are 50 anyway?

It was so damn funny.

Then RobBob gets in a major accident coming back from Wendover one weekend on his motorcycle. His girlfriend dies in the accident and everyone is feeling very bad for RobBob, the news spreads across the office and the managers send out an email letting everyone know, (They had to CC both of RobBob's email accounts) The managers start to distribute RobBob's work to the other programmers because he wasn't going to be back to work for at least a few weeks if at all.

The accident happened on a Saturday afternoon, the news got to the office on Monday. Well at about 9:00 Tuesday morning guess who shows up to work? RobBob, he has all sorts of bandages all over his body, he left hand is in a cast, he has crutches and is jacked up on pain pills, he looks like total shit. (His hand was in a cast, what the hell did he think he was going to get done? If your a programmer and your hand is immobile what work are you going to get done?) Everyone is freaking out, "what the hell are you doing here Bob!!...O...I mean Rob?" RobBob says, "I'm ok, just a few scratches" The guy only missed one day of work after having a major motorcycle accident on the freeway going 75 MPH and losing his girlfriend. After a few months I asked RobBob what he was thinking coming in after the accident, this was his reply:

"I'm a contractor, I don't get paid unless I come in"

You got to love working in IT

Tyse