ah. those old memories! make them stop!!! (ptsd revisited)

It's quite possible that you saw today's Dilbert and didn't even think it was funny because it was so weird. It's so weird, though, because it's true (itz twoo itz twoo, but I digress).

In fact, when I saw Dilbert this morning, I stopped reading the funnies first to laugh and then to immediately run to my computer to recommend the comic to a colleague, also formerly of IBM. I think she was slightly traumatized too.

IBM has a strict privacy policy about customers. I think the basic idea is that you're not allowed to make customer information (name, address, phone number, and so on) available to anyone. When IBM first acquired the company I worked for, they cracked down especially hard on this rule, which I admit is reasonable in theory.

I should point out that you couldn't get into our building without a badge or an escort. There was no sales activity in our building (and therefore not much access to customer information). Nonetheless, for a while, you were not allowed to leave your desk at night until all papers with phone numbers on them were locked up. In fact, your desk had to be cleaned off except for office supplies, and all drawers locked. If a drawer was empty and not locked, I swear to God, you had to affix a sign to it saying "this drawer does not contain any IBM confidential information".

Back to no phone numbers -- you couldn't leave out (tape to the wall, leave on your desk) your hairdresser's or day care provider's phone number. You couldn't post your partner's or your neighbor's or your boss's. And get this -- you couldn't leave out your own business card, even though your name was on your cube wall and your phone number was on your phone, and if you were standing int the cube, well, you probably knew the address, at least approximately. For some odd reason, they did not make us tape over the information on our phone. How inconsistent.

Apparently, the inspectors they hired were none too bright and were unable to tell which phone numbers belonged to customers and which to general every day life. To spare the inspectors from having to pass out too many demerits (collect enough and get fired! -- and I am deadly serious about this), they banned all publicly visible phone numbers.

Anyways, if you saw today's Dilbert and didn't howl with the pain of recognition, consider yourself very lucky indeed.