How A Fart Brought Down The Banking System

This is a true story that I have heard many times. Way back in the 1950's American Commercial Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina was formed from two smaller banks. In the 1960's American Commercial Bank changed it's name to North Carolina National Bank. In 1991 North Carolina National Bank acquired C&S/Sovran Corp. and took the new name, NationsBank Corp. In 1998 NationsBank Corp. acquired BankAmerica Corp. and took the name Bank of America which now operates in all 50 states and most foreign countries.

Bank of America is a big player and we are proud of the accomplishments of BofA.

A very good friend of mine worked for Bank of America back in the NCNB/NationsBank era in the computer room. Back then the bank ran on big mainframe computers that centrally tied together all the tellers and ATM's. In those days the computers were so big that employees worked among the machinery to keep the bank going 24/7.

The rooms housing the computers were serviced constantly by folks like my friend.

Late night shifts would get mighty boring.

One night a guy working along side opened the shield protecting the large memory platters. The shield mechanilally opened like something on 2001 a Space Odyssey. Then the guy rares back and farts on the platters holding the contents of the bank and pushes the lid closed.

All the guys are dying laughing at the stunt when suddenly they realize the entire system is going offline and an entire reboot will be required to bring the system back up. No small task back then.

4 comments:

Ken said...

This story smells.

Funny though!

terri said...

I'll bet that guy got more than a slap on the hand for that stunt.

Fragrant Liar said...

Who knew?

Thanks for the history lesson, and that little life lesson in case I ever want to go into the server room at my office and cut a fart. I mean, really. Thanks.

Michael said...

WHATS WITH THE OVERSIZE TEXT THESE LAST FEW DAYS ?