Team-BHP - Life's like that: Real life anecdotes

I just remembered this incident while chatting with a colleague.

Those who did PUC (+2) in science in Karnataka in late 90s or early 2000s might be familiar with Mathematics teacher Bosco, as he had written textbooks for 1st and 2nd PUC. I am proud to be his student.

He had this habit of giving punishment in class for troublemakers. But he didn't believe in asking students to solve mathematical problems as a part of the punishment. His punishments were more like, "buy a 40 page notebook and write your favourite deity's name in all pages".

One day he caught one of my classmates talking. He asked the student to get up and asked him what his favourite subject is. This boy said it is English. Bosco sir then said, "alright, write the first lesson from the textbook as many times as you want. How many times do you want to write it?"

Student: sir, only once sir.

Bosco: fine, write it once. But you could have said 0. In fact, if you had said -100, I would have had to write the lesson 100 times for you!

Student had no option but to write the lesson once and show it the next day.

Good Luck Mr. Gorsky !

On July 20, 1969 , as Commander of the Apollo 11 lunar module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. His first words after stepping on the moon, 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,' were televised to earth and heard by millions.

But just before he re-entered the lunar module to take off again, he made the enigmatic remark,'Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.'

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet cosmonaut. however, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.

Over the years, many people questioned Armstrong as to what the 'Good luck, Mr. Gorsky'... statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

On July 5, 1995 , in Tampa Bay , Florida , while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had died; so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.

In 1938 when he was a kid in a small midwest town , he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbor's yard by the bedroom windows. His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky screaming at Mr. Gorsky. 'Sex! you want sex? Damn it you'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!'

This incident happened with me when i was in my engineering college at Pune. My hometown being Nashik i used to stay in the hostel and one of my roommates also was from Nashik.
Some months into hostel life when we had become quite close friends we decided to take the journey back to Pune from Nashik together. Hence i had given him a call to confirm the plan and decide the journey date and time.

Our phone conversation : (The conversation was in Marathi, but I am translating it here for the forum)
Me: So we are going together right?
He: Yes.
Me: Ok, so Sunday 2.30 pm bus would be fine?
He: Yeah, no problem for me.
Me: Ok so i will go and get the reservations (As i stayed near the bus station and in those day MSRTC had not started their online system :) )
He: Ok but just let me know the exact Bus and its timing that you book, so that i will go and get a seat reserved for myself as well, And let me know that immediately so that i can also go for the booking as soon as possible or else we may lose the seat next to you...
Me: (While trying to control my laughter on the phone).....Dude i am going to get a reservation for both of us..Don't worry about not getting the adjacent seats..!!!
When we finally returned to Pune, I told my other roomates about the incident and then the subsequent days were spent in pulling his leg over that matter..!! :D

I had a Mr.Bean morning today. Here is how –

- Left car in office last night and went home with a friend. Kept the car keys in the bag so that I don’t forget to bring them to office today.
- In the morning, forgot that the car is in office. Mistake 1. After getting ready, started searching for the car keys. After 5 mins, remembered that I only have the keys, not the car.
- Looked for a Uber cab, it was 3X then. Decided to take a TSRTC bus today. Wanted to walk to the bus stop, but father offered to drop me there in the nano. Great!
- I should have driven myself, but was thinking something. So I let my father drive. Mistake 2.
- As we reach the bus stop, I see the bus leaving. So I tell my father to drop me till the next stop. My father understands, and says “Lets race!!”. Immediately, at the speed of 30 kmph, slots the car in the 4th gear. The car shudders, coughs and stops. By the time we start again, and start to ‘race’, the bus is well ahead. Finally at Allwyn junction, the bus clears the traffic signal, but it is RED light for us. Great!
- I decide to wait for the next bus and he drops me at the next bus stop. He goes home after dropping me.
- After 2 mins of waiting at the bus stop, I realize my blackberry is missing. I remember picking it up at home, so I am fairly certain that I dropped it in the car.
- I request/beg a guy standing on my right, if I can make a call for 1 min. He looks at me from head to toe, and thunders “NO!!”
- Hearing his “NO”, an IT engineer standing on my left offers help even before I could ask him. I am eternally grateful and call my father’s mobile. He confirms that the bb is there in the car. Phew! But he has reached home. So I think its ok to let it be, lest he needs to ‘race’ again. Mistake 3.
- I reach office and at the gate realize that my ID card is in my bb case. Now I need to get a temp card. That process takes a good 15-20 mins.

Phew! After reaching my desk, I was so grateful to have made it without another incident!

Reviving an old thread. It is amusing how nutty we are at 18 even if we morph into something different years later. Well at 18 I left home and boarded in at my college's hostel. 1978 was before cell phones or even a land line at our home in a small sea side town. My father instructed me to write every week so that he knows I'm still alive and not in trouble (clearly he had faith in my capacity to get into a mess). My mother complains, 'this irresponsible boy will never bother'. At that stage my parents were genuinely concerned if I'll ever even manage to become a lower division clerk and I had the marks and long hair to substantiate their doubts.

So father buys 26 post cards (those cream coloured 15 naya paisa ones) and writes out his address on each and instructs me to post one of these every Sunday. 'Yessir' came my pat reply. Every Sunday I would diligently post one of the postcards and complimented myself for this remarkable display of responsibility. All is well for a month or so. Then I get a very irate letter from my mother saying, ' idiot you are supposed to write something on those post cards'.

Want to add a recent incident of mine.

I had to set up a meeting the next day with the clients for a discussion and since I could not reach them on skype, thought I will send them an email and get the bridge details. So I sent it and came back home. The next day I went back to office and opened by email to see a chain of hilarious replies with many sending me pics of hollywood actresses and some not so unpleasant but hilarious text replies. I was confused and when I finally went back to see my original message I was :uncontrol.

The gist of the email I had sent was as below,

" Hello XXXXX/ABCD,

Good morning. In regards to the discussion that is to be scheduled tomorrow, can you please share the brid(g)e details so that everyone can join in?"

I had sent bride instead of bridge. :Frustrati I am still being laughed at every time I join in for our daily calls.

This is a story of a friend who was in charge of the supply chain area (of South India) of a Fortune 500 company. As part of his job, he also had to oversee the supply chain operations of the factories that fall in his area. It was the annual salary hikes and promotion cycle going on, and he was reviewing the hikes and promotion details of his staff in one of the plants to understand his team better as he had just undertaken this role recently.

One of the staff under him was a senior aged technician who's feedback on the floor had been quite good but the role and pay was not at all in-line with his experience. He called up the local HR/admin person and suggested that in-line with the work the technician was performing, he ideally should have been at a much senior level. The HR agreed and a decision was later duly taken to promote the guy during that year. This being just a small aspect of his job, my friend forgot this incident and went on with his other duties.

A few months later, he landed on a field visit to the same plant. Within a few hours of him arriving at the factory, the same technician, a ~50-year-old guy landed at his cabin, gushing and crying like a baby, falling at his feet, and thanking him for the promotion. My friend who's probably the technician's son's age was completely flustered and could just barely accept his good wishes and convinced him to get back on the floor.

Later he found out that his predecessor was a local guy who had risen through the ranks over two+ decades, and was a guy who could hold grudges for a very long time. Apparently he had prevented any proper hikes or promotions for the technician for a very long time and the poor man had lost all hopes of the situation changing. My friend who was unaware of all this had just taken a simple decision based on floor feedback and basic evaluation parameters; got a fresh perspective of how the industrial world still at times works in a very different manner from the white colored job industries.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GJ01 (Post 3761221)

Out here in Gujarat they have a name for Audi's - They are called "Bangdi wali gaadi".
Translated: The car with Bangles

I had overheard a few guys talking on a tea stall on the Ahmedabad - Mehsana Highway and they kept talking of the "Bangdi wali gaadi". Took me some time to realize they were talking about the Audi

:)

Those are hilarious. :D
Out here in the UAE, I have a friend who's a Mercedes G-Wagon fan. I wasn't aware of that. Once when we were travelling, a G-wagon passed by and I said "woh dekho, Mercedes ka Bolero jaa raha hai" [look over there, A Mercedes' Bolero]
Everyone started laughing at the same time lol:

This is from several years back, when my niece was four years old. Though I knew that just spending time with me made her very happy, I still got something for her whenever I went.

Before one such visit, I went into the biscuits and chocolates section in a supermarket. Took over 15 minutes, and carefully selected a handful of items, remembering what she has enjoyed eating in the past, thinking about what new items she might like etc. After billing and payment, it turned out that two rupees was due to me, and the store executive placed one packet of Cadbury Shots in lieu thereof, into the bag.

Duly took the bag along and handed over to the little girl. She explored the items in the bag, and guess what she was most excited about, with eyes going wide?

Yes, the Cadbury Shots.

Another anecdote from Uniform life;

A group of retired para officers thought wise that they should attend befitting farewell of a fellow officer who had risen to two stars in olives, now how do para's make this moment memorable so brain storming happened;
Idea 1 - Para jump to the location and catch all by surprise, this idea ingenious to the T was rebutted as conclusion would have been devastating not to mention cost !!
Idea 2 - Attend in para attire with para bags, on close look at respective physical bearing the para bags idea seemed suicidal, however para attire was OK
Idea 3 - Extension of idea 2 head to the venue in a 'Shaktiman' (for those who don't know what that thing is pls click on this link and don't disturb Mukesh Khanna) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakti...tories%20Board.

Luckily one particular department within olives was headed by an old colleague and he got the shaktiman arranged, the machine belonged to the 90's,in 2020's it felt right off the place for every possible reason and a good 125kms journey was to be covered.

The good day arrived, at allotted time -2 hours all suited to T boarded the truck, till now only distance was calculated but not the terrain for which one passed multiple narrow lanes, covered two high slopes and then passed through a village of sorts. When the high slopes came a retinue of cars honked mercilessly at the back, when the narrow lanes came the truck barely and meaning barely managed not to graze through parked cars, when finally the village arrived it happened to be the day of the bazaar, if anyone has seen how that works in hills of North India one would know the buzz and not long done the truck hit a electric pole, it dented it to an extent the overhead wires came unplugged throwing the village folks into a tizzy.. not to mention time was running on the late side, cops (rural ones who have their own sense of humor) came and first asked if this was a stolen piece of machine, why would anyone in right senses steal a shaktiman remained mystery. On showing rank and file the cops went into bouts of laughter as to who in their right minds would take up such a stupid venture...as if they didn't see "Special Forces" tags on the uniform lol:

After a decent amount of time spent in damage control and now T-1hour the journey commenced, expectation was nothing more could, would and should go wrong...in probably 200 meters away BANG came a noise from the front, halting in a jiffy a few found themselves on another but safe ejection !! the BANG was no shot fired but driver dear had rear ended the District Magistrates car :Cheering: the angry soul went bombastic so round two of damage control happened. Luckily for the truck who in hey days would have seen worse this was walk in the park !!! So T-2 hours finally counting stars the journey commenced and ended at the exact moment our distinguished guest was about to get into his car post ceremony !! Now as an eventful day had passed in reaching it was best thought that our Guest Of Honor would board the truck and do the entire return journey in togetherness !!!

PS : The look on the faces of the cops seeing the truck passing by again on return was simply priceless !!

Quote:

Originally Posted by tatafanatic (Post 5220982)

The three ideas itself show why we call them daredevils rl:
I just imagined the entire event and laughed. The idea of a soldier\'s fun.