Hi Andy, "bit it farewell" ? The janitor wasn't rodent-biter Ozzy was he ?
Excellent Ian On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 8:10 AM, Andy Skelton <[email protected]> wrote: > [I have done a lot of things. This story is true AFAIR. I tell it at > parties to burn my image in people's minds. It is pretty far off topic > but there was a request for a personal introduction. If you want > specifics about me, they are mostly very findable. I have Google > thinking I'm the most important Andy Skelton on the internet.] > > Soon after Y2K I left a tech support job in a call center due to a > health issue. Couldn't breathe, couldn't talk on the phone. I got a > temp job wrangling a pallet jack and quickly became the department's > database expert. Before the end of the year I switched again because > the corporate bullshit wasn't worth the pay. I moved from > multi-billion companies where I was nobody to a computer forensics lab > in the mother-in-law wing of my employer's house. He also shared the > space with an administrative assistant. When she wasn't around, it was > man central. > > It had to be. Computer forensics was not something we could have done > in a socially sterile environment. Political correctness was assailed > every instant by the contents of the hard drives we examined and the > hidden sides of people we revealed. We searched, compiled, and > reported to our clients about digital documentation of deceit and > abuse. It took a thick skin. > > We got jobs from local PD, sheriffs, staties, feds, even RCMP. But the > best ones were the private investigator jobs. > > I remember fondly the job we did for a woman who co-owned a successful > direct-marketing business with her husband. The woman came to us > because she knew that her husband was having an affair with the office > floozy. She wanted to know how deep the affair had gone. She wanted to > wave the evidence in his face and make him stop screwing around. She > wanted him to choose her, or hit the road and leave her with the > entire fortune. > > We had heard this all before. This was bread and butter to us. Since > the wife co-owned the business, she felt it was well within her rights > to inspect the company computers. Our job was to acquire the data > without the perps knowing. If the investigation were known, the jig > would be up and the wife might not have any standing. No problem, we'd > just go to the office on the weekend and skedaddle after a few hours > of dd'ing disks in BeOS. > > The boss saw no fizz in this foray. He'd had his fill of field work > for the week and his family got upset when he worked weekends. So it > was to be my first solo acquisition. > > I arrived at business address, a suite between a gas station and a > hairdresser in a 70's strip mall, with my gear and my lunch. The > janitor was an old friend of the wife and sympathetic to her plight. > He was a short, rotund man of indeterminate ancestry. A fat, old, > lovable mutt of a man. He cheerfully opened the door for me, showed me > to my workspace and then locked up and kept the lights dim so nobody > driving by would think people were inside. > > The janitor was really into the stealth aspect of this job. This was > his supporting role in a Mission Impossible film. He had parked a > block away. I parked right in front of the door. Whatever. > > Once I had my gear set up, he showed me around the suite. It was just > a bunch of private offices and a kitchen. Only two of the offices were > of any interest: those of the husband and the floozy. > > We later learned all of their dirty little pet names from scouring > their emails. The list was long and we were too respectful to write it > down. I just remember laughing for hours over Pussy Pants. Anyway, I > digress. > > The two offices were in a strange condition. The janitor had purchased > several rolls of blue masking tape and spent the early morning hours > affixing each and every item of office materiel in its place. Objects > were removed only after their footprints were outlined in blue tape. > There were five blue C's on the floor where the wheels of the office > chair had come to rest before the floozy had left on Friday. The > janitor was unbelievably thorough. > > He was also very creative. I was prepared to ignore the shattered > sheet of clear plastic on the floozy's floor behind her chair and > concentrate on the computers. While I waited for a large hard drive to > be copied into a file on an even larger one, the janitor told me what > had happened. I couldn't stop him in his glee. > > Just like I did when I was a janitor, he had a big keyring. There was > no place he was forbidden to tidy up. However, the lock on the > floozy's door had been changed very recently without his knowledge. > Rather than try to draw conclusions, he got busy bypassing the lock. > He accessed the hair salon next door, climbed into the suspended > ceiling with his fat little body (bless him) crawled over the wall and > lowered himself into the office. That was hard work, especially when > you have to bring a ladder with you so you can get down, and he did a > good job not making a huge mess of the ceiling tiles. But the 4'x2' > lens from one of the fluorescent lights had fallen out of the ceiling > and shattered on the floor. > > He had considered his options. He looked for a replacement and found > none. This being a Sunday, the store that sold them was closed. He > decided to leave the mess exactly as it lay and concoct a plausible > story. After marking the rough outline of the wreckage with blue tape > to help us avoid stepping in it, he removed the doorknob and walked > out of the building with gleeful giggles in his wake. > > An hour later he was back with a fresh set of keys made by his > locksmith friend and a brown paper sack and a look of sublime > satisfaction. He left the sack in the kitchen and got to work > reinstalling the doorknob. I had just finished copying the last hard > drive and was just about to ask him to lock the door after I left. He > stopped me with his hands full of grass and other debris from the lawn > and he told me the story of the fluorescent light. > > He was weaving the debris into the rough shape of a nest. He said he > wasn't sure what a rodent's nest looked like but it would be good > enough to convince everyone in the office. He climbed the ladder and > stashed the nest on top of a ceiling tile. > > In his story, there had been a mouse living in the ceiling of the > office. There was extra value to this scheme because, as we all know, > all floozies are frightened and sickened by the mere idea of rodents. > By the time she recovered from the shock of the knowledge that there > had been a mouse just a few feet above her head for unknown months, > the shards of plastic would have been forgotten. > > While on the ladder, the janitor removed one of the punch-outs from > the light fixture's chassis. This was where the mouse had curiously > climbed through just before crashing to its death on the floor eight > feet below. He stuck traces of fresh mouse fur to the rough edges of > the hole to create evidence that, in my estimation, nobody would > bother looking for. He did it for his own enjoyment. > > When everything was back in its place and the blue tape all crushed > into several trash bags and we were ready to go, he went to the > kitchen to fetch the paper sack out of the freezer. It was from a pet > store that was open on Sundays. He dumped the now frozen mouse onto > the pile of shards, bit it fare well, and locked the floozy's office > with a flourish. His masterpiece was complete. > > I never heard about the aftermath in that office so I guess it went > according to plan. We engrossed ourselves with the evidence I > gathered. It was a nasty mess. The husband had squirreled away enough > cash to buy a cabin on the lake where he would meet the floozy while > he was ostensibly out of town on business. We hoped his wife left him > standing naked in the rain but since she never came back for the full > evidence we guess she settled it without a court battle. > > As I said, it's a true story. I enjoy telling it. > > Andy > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
