Episode 38 - A Story From Jim's Senate Days and Holiday Cheer

Ever wondered what life was really like behind the scenes at the US Senate? Picture this: a snowy evening in Washington DC, a bustling tech support subculture, and a cast of unforgettable characters like Rob and Becky. Join us as we pause our home renovation chaos to take you on a whimsical journey back to Jim's time as a senior network technician—a time filled with camaraderie, humorous insults, and a tale that captures the essence of the spirited Senate tech team. It's a story dubbed "Foolish Mortals," offering an amusing glimpse into Jim's upcoming tell-all book about his Senate days.

While our Eastern European escapades are temporarily on hold, we promise you laughter and nostalgia with this holiday special. From the basement of the Russell Building to the halls of power, Jim shares one of his proudest moments, offering a sneak peek into the unique world of Senate tech support. So, cozy up, because this episode promises to be a delightful distraction from the ongoing home renovations and a humorous highlight in our Travels with Jim and Rita.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Travels with Jim and Rita. I'm your host, jim Santos, along with my wife, rita, and welcome to the second season of our podcast. In the first season, we set in motion our crazy plan to outfox the real estate market in the US and actually increased our retirement nest egg by selling our home and car and spending the next three years or so living abroad and exploring the world. Now that plan is in disarray as I develop pancreatitis in Latvia, necessitating a return to the US for further treatment and surgery. Join us now as we adjust our goals and try to salvage our travel plans. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Travels with Jim and Rita and a special holiday podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Today, rita and I are busy getting our home base set up, and right now that means a lot of contractors coming and going. Before we can move our stuff out of storage, we need to replace the flooring and get the whole place painted, so we're probably still living in a hotel for as much as four or six weeks. We'll pick up the story of our Eastern Europe trip with Vilnius and Riga next week, but for your Thanksgiving enjoyment, I thought I'd do something a little different for this episode, if you've checked out my Amazon page at jimsantosnet, and if you haven't, don't you think you should you would know that, in addition to some travel-related books and audiobooks, I also have a few short stories. Now one of these short stories is an amusing little tale about something that happened to me around this time of year when I was working as a senior network technician for the US Senate in Washington DC. One of the many projects I have half-finished is a tell-all book about my time working in the Senate and some of the unusual things I saw and overheard there. This story will certainly be part of that, so it's also a bit of a sneak preview. So, as your holiday treat, sit back, relax and enjoy this true tale that I call Foolish Mortals. Foolish Mortals, foolish Mortals. Let me tell you the story of one of my proudest moments.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Our tale begins on a snowy evening in Washington DC. I was working as a computer and network engineer for General Dynamics, assigned to provide support for the US Senate, the Sergeant-at-Arms and the Capitol Police. Our office was in the basement S Senate, the Sergeant-at-Arms and the Capitol Police. Our office was in the basement of the Russell Building and it was time to head to Union Station and catch my train back to my home in West Virginia. I grabbed my long black overcoat and said my goodbyes, headed down the hallway and turned left to go out the door past the security station. As I turned to say goodnight to the Capitol Policemen who were manning the station, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a couple I knew very well. They were coming down the hallway to the door, just passing the Senate barbershop. They were bundled up in coats and scarves and clearly on their way out as well.

Speaker 1: 2:57

To understand this story, you need first to understand a little about life in the tech support subculture of the US Senate, about life in the tech support subculture of the US Senate. Rob and Becky were both working at the help desk when I started, but had since moved on to other jobs in the Senate and had also become husband and wife. The help desk environment was a little, shall we say, loose. The best way you could show respect for someone was by insulting them in the grossest and most scatological way possible. There was absolutely no respect for personal space, human decency, dignity or privacy. About 40 or so techs all were headquartered in the same room in the basement of the Russell Building in a large and open bullpen. So insults and put-downs were heard and appreciated by all. Two engineers may be seriously discussing a problem and have a third engineer approach to offer his opinion. Who the frick cares what you think was often the mock-serious retort, or someone pontificating on their recommended solution may be punctured with the response yeah, I was going to do that, only less gay. In short, it was great fun To give you a better example.

Speaker 1: 4:02

As the new guy I was on probation for a while. I could tell my fellow techs were gaining respect for my skills, but I wasn't one of the guys yet, despite having worked there for a month or so. Then one day I returned from a particularly unusual problem and I was a little preoccupied with writing up the summary so I could close out the ticket. So while I'm typing away, one of the texts yells to me from across the room hey, santos, what's that ugly thing on your face? You realize, of course, that after the appropriate pause he would say something like oh, never mind, it's just your nose. But, like I said, I was distracted. I heard the setup and replied just as loudly without thinking. I don't know, but last night it was your mother. I gradually became aware that the room was completely silent. I look up and my would-be assailant is standing with his mouth agape, a look of admiration and a weird kind of joy on his face. Suddenly the room erupts with laughter and shouts of encouragement Whoa Santos goes nuclear. I remember hearing. Well, I was busy and didn't want to waste time. I said humbly but I couldn't help but feel great, I was one of the guys.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Another way we showed we were not politically correct was on a short-lived job board in the front of the bullpen. It was a list of all of us jocks and the idea was that when you went out on a ticket you would enter the time where you were headed and the ticket number. At first we amused ourselves in subtle ways, like putting the name of the shortest tech at the top of the list and the tallest at the bottom. Then we would giggle silently while watching the former stand on tippy-toe and jump a bit trying to enter his data while the latter bent double and rode upside down. Then we moved on to a more mature custom where we would print out a celebrity portrait and tape it next to the tech we thought was best represented by the photo. The aforementioned height challenge tech got a picture of the four-foot-five-inch star of the then-current reality show the Littlest Groom. The tall, gawky, incredibly white guy from the previous prank pulled Robert Hoover, the Delta frat president, from the movie Animal House. For reasons I never quite understood, I was represented as Charles Bronson. This probably would have continued, except for a visit by corporate one fine day. We may have gotten by with the pictures cited above, but they turned pale at the sight of a few others. My friend Ed, of Polynesian descent, was pictured as Oddjob from the 007 movies, for instance. An Indian woman was Manjula Nahasa Pimapetalan, better known as Apu's wife on the Simpsons. Condoleezza Rice stood in for our black female dispatcher and our Greek boss was represented as an actor known for his role as a terrorist in the movie Executive Decision and so on, with visions of lawsuits for hostile work environments dancing in their heads. The suits ordered the board taken down.

Speaker 1: 6:48

That was the wild and wonderful place where I got to know and love Rob and Becky, and I was well aware of the kind of mischief of which they were capable. So anyway, back to our snowy evening. I knew, just knew, that the happy couple coming down the hall would want to sneak up on me and either goose me with an umbrella, pinch my ass or something similarly witty. As you now know, that's the kind of sophisticated humor we practiced in the Senate. So I slyly pretended that I had not seen them and continued out the door and up the stairs to the sidewalk. The snow was light, but there was about a quarter of an inch on the ground already. There's a beautiful park area between Russell and Union Station and the sun was just about down, with the lights all coming on. The trees were all outlined in white. It was really quite beautiful, almost as beautiful as the plan I was formulating for the happy couple.

Speaker 1: 7:39

After a few minutes I could hear them walking behind me and talking quietly. They must have been fifteen, twenty feet back, whispering to each other and thinking themselves oh, so clever, I'd soon show them. I walked on as though I was lost in thought and unaware of their presence, slowly enough to give them a chance to gain ground, but not suspiciously. So they stopped talking, but I could hear them walking a little faster on the snowy sidewalk, about to catch up to me. It was really diabolically wonderful.

Speaker 1: 8:08

I listened with the heightened senses of a true supervillain and waited until I judged they were just a few feet behind me. I could hear their whisper giggles anticipating what they were about to do to me. With perfect timing, I stopped suddenly and spun around, lifting my arms in the air, so my black trench coat spread out like an evil cape. Foolish mortals, I yelled as I leaned forward, practically in their faces. Their reaction was just as perfect everything I had hoped for and more. They stopped in their tracks, eyes wide, and instinctively tried to jump back. They both lost their footing on the slippery sidewalk and fell in perfect sync onto their asses in the snow. Oh, the looks on their faces.

Speaker 1: 8:48

One small problem marred my success. It wasn't Rob and Becky. I had just scared the living shit out of a couple of random innocent tourists. I tried to apologize and help them to their feet, but they just scooted away from me. Perhaps my apology would have sounded more sincere if I could have stopped laughing. And of course, the reverse crab walk through the snow as they looked up at me in terror was just making me laugh harder. What could I do? I gave a slight bow and told them my apologies, foolish mortals, and went on to catch my train.

Speaker 1: 9:21

That's it for this week. I hope this story brightened your holiday a bit. Next time, rita will be back with me and we'll be talking about our visit to Lithuania and Latvia and hopefully have an update on when we can move into our new base of operations and start planning the next trip. So until then, happy Thanksgiving to you all. You've been listening to Travels with Jim and Rita. If you'd like to read more about where we've been, see some photos of the places you've been hearing about, check out our blog at jimsantosbookscom and on our YouTube channel and Instagram for videos. Meanwhile, you can access my books, audiobooks and short stories, like the one you just heard, at jimsantosnet, and there are links to those sites Instagram, youtube and so on in the show notes. We'd love to hear from our listeners as well, so if you have a question or a topic you'd like us to cover or you want to tell your own travel story, email us at jim at jimsantosbookscom. Until next time, remember we travel not to escape life, but so that life does not escape us. Thank you.