After I left the office to-day, I had to stop in at Delta's office to get information relating to the forthcoming funeral service and wake for Arthur the Switchman.
[size=8pt]Yup, the news came as quite a surprise to many of us at FooCorp Incorporated (A division of Bar, Blart & Quux International Inc.) He was the one who maintained the telephone system for the building, and actually installed the office's crossbar system when he worked for Pacific Northwest Bell in the 1960s and 70s (upgraded from the original panel system that was installed when they built the place during the Depression.) After Maa Bell was slaughtered in the early 80s, he quit his job with PNB and went to work with us. He was the sort who'd meet you at the soda fountain, order you some pop and tell you all about how it was to work for the fone company "back in the good old days."
Arthur O'S-- died on Saturday, aged 81, of heart failure. Now that he's gone, there's only one other guy who seems to have even a marginal understanding of how crossbar switches work (it's not me; I don't work in that department, although Art taught me quite a great deal about such systems), and I fear they'll probably rip it all out and replace it with some crappy mass-produced computerised system in the next couple years. Another contribution to the impending extinction of a threatened species.