[QuadList] Another disaster

[GEORGENANN at aol.com]

Guys:

Dave just reminded me of something that happened many years ago, with his 
referring to quick turnarounds.

On the CBS tape floor there was a tape degausser, a big degausser.  It was 
so big that it would actually heat up a 90 min 2" tape reel. Was it made by 
Ampex??

Most of the ops were in the habit of routinely taking a fresh tape and 
degaussing it, then making their record. (After completly cleaning the machine, 
of course).

One evening, one of the ops took the air show, (Either 60 Min or Sullivan, 
not sure) and routinely put it in the degausser.  About half way thru. he 
realized his mistake and almost fainted.  WOW! was he shook.  He was a Hasidic 
Jew, very dedicated to the VT business and was so upset nobody even 
mentioned it to him, they were afraid he would pass out.  So the air master aired 
with no backup for a while till another copy could be located and synched up.

The next day the degausser was removed from the tape floor and brought down 
to the basement to the new "Degaussing Dept." Later this became the 
"Punishment" department for the techs which management didn't like.  I never was 
sentenced there, they needed maint. types too bad, (Thank God)

This also pissed off some of the "Wise Asses" in the dept, as back then the 
CBS paychecks had magnetic ink on them and they degaussed the checks which 
made the banks work a little harder. (The way  the banks are acting 
nowadays, I think I would do the same thing now if they had magnetic ink.) HI!

Oh yes, another thing comes to mind about those "Wise Asses". Someone came 
up with the idea to bring in their telephone and charge card, etc., bills, 
back when they were IBM type punched cards and put them in the paper slicer 
and take a 16th or so off the bottoms so they would look OK, but be kicked 
out of the readers and have to be processed manually. I had nothing to do with 
either of these activities, really!

73,

George Keller
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