Douglas Guardian Dogs

"Will Vollmers ever shut up?"

It is almost 10:00 PM and this night class seems like it has been going on forever. I thought he was going to call it a night when he finished Chapter 4, but he decided to keep going. It wouldn't be so bad but I got plans, one of which is a prank that will live on for years. Vollmers finishes Chapter 5 in Logistics, and I bolt out of the classroom. I don't stop until I get to the library. I have some articles to research for Larsen's class tomorrow.

In the car I'm trying not to look crazy as I'm laughing while driving across town.

As a trusted employee of Environmental Control Inc. (ECI) I have a key to the building. Even though it isn't odd for anyone to be working late, no one works this late. ECI is a wholesale distributor of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioners. On March 30th 1982, ECI's primary line was Carrier. But because of the credit crunch ECI didn't actually own their Carrier Inventory, it was sold on consignment through a field warehousing agreement with Douglas-Guardian Warehouse Corp. The terms of the contract called for the inventory to be segregated and secured. Only an authorized agent of Douglas-Guardian (DG) would have access to this inventory. My pal Vic Teigen was that agent. He had the key to the DG area in the warehouse; that area was protected by chicken wire.

Vic and I laughed about the security, inventing outlandish security scenarios, and planning security upgrades including patrol dogs.

I had a cheap GE micro cassette recorder for note taking. It featured a microphone jack and a remote jack. The remote jack would switch the recorder on and off.

I recorded the following message…

Hey, what are you doing!

This is a secure Douglas-Guardian Warehouse.

Leave this area at once, or I shall be forced to release the dogs.

(and with that I started barking like a we had half a dozen Dobermans.)

The key was in Victor's desk. I unlocked the DG gate and placed the recorder above. I tied a string from the gate to the remote plug on the recorder. Once the gate was opened the string would pull the remote plug from the recorder and it would start playing my message.

However there was a flaw in my plan. First thing in the morning, Victor normally unlocked but rarely opened the gate. I needed Victor to open the gate and not your boss. The solution was staring me in the face. I set a drain pan kit on the floor. Victor would see the kit lying on the floor and assume it fell off the stack. He would open the gate, return the kit to its proper place, and trigger my prank.

When I arrived the following day, Victor, Brian and the entire ECI crew were still talking about the Douglas Guardian Dogs and the surprise message that befell Victor that morning. It's a prank Victor talks about to this day.