Terry Meyer and LISS 4.0 in Tales of the Jointed Track

This occurred at the NOC when I was on the power desk. I was working the night rotation, and it was the usual cast of characters, with the exception of Harold Vail, who was filling in, for the SouthCentral desk.

Terry Meyer was working the Southeast desk and his pod was next to mine. Now LISS (Locomotive Inventory Service System), was something we used to track and predict locomotive consists for the respective territories. They were always, making updates and fine tuning it after the merger. If a big update was made, then it was jumped up a number. I think at this time we were LISS 3.2 or something like that.

Sometimes the Mainframe, lagged at times. It was unusual on nights, but with servers and computers, anything could happen. Well it was lagging. Terry seemed a little edgy, so something was going on.

Now Terry spoke with a little speech impediment, which was fine, but more pronounced if stressed. He stood up and said “Hawold is your WISS acting slow?”. Harold said no seems fine. I was asked the same thing and it seems okay to me. ” Well mine seems kinda slow”. “Did try to reboot?”. “Yeah, but it still seems slow”. I was looking at Harold and he gave me a wink. Oh boy he’s gonna set poor old Terry up. There was nothing wrong with his LISS. Harold says ” Did you check yer version of LISS, mine is 4.0”. No it wasn’t, it was the same thing as Terry’s. ” Bob you have 4.0 don’t ya?” Okay now I am involved in this. “Yeah Harold, I have the 4.0”. Terry checks his machine, it is version 3.2, like ours. He says, “There’s something wrong, l still have 3.2!!! My phone rings, and I take the call.

Terry goes up to the manager and expresses concern. “Kevin, my WISS is really slow and I asked Hawold and Bob and they have version 4.0 and our desk is 3.2”. Kevin gives us that look of, you really didn’t tell him that, did you?. Kevin explains that we were messing with him, and not to worry, all desks have the current version. Terry storms back to the pod. He’s a little red faced, and says “I’m gonna get you guys!” Harold says “Well Terry, it is a long shift”, and chuckles a bit. Terry storms off coffee cup in hand. Kevin shows up and says to Harold, ” You knew he’d fall for that”, and looking at me says ” and you went along with it. He’ll be worrying all night”. Well what can I say? I didn’t think he’d go up there. We got a good laugh, the shift continued.