The scary thing is that they allow people like that to breed.
Tennessee bloke quits job over satanic wage slip
A Tennessee born-again Christian has quit his job after receiving a wage slip marked "666" despite previously warning his employers of a serious aversion to the Number of the Beast. Walter Slonopas, 52, toiled as a maintenance worker at Contech Casting in Clarksville until bosses issued him a Form W-2 bearing the satanic …
-
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 12:32 GMT JohnG
Re: @AC 10:36
"Just fire the ignorant idiot. He's a hazard to the corporation."
The bloke may be a bit weird in his religious belief but there was no suggestion that his employers were dissatisfied with his performance and I fail to see how requesting a different payslip number makes him "a hazard to the corporation". That the number in question was restored to him twice suggests that some at the company were engaging in deliberate provocation, which is probably a hazard to the corporation. What happens when someone thinks it would be funny to give black employees references containing the initials "KKK" or "SS" for the jewish?
-
Saturday 9th February 2013 01:30 GMT Marcelo Rodrigues
Re: @AC 10:36
Because "666" was just a serial number. It wasn't picked to make fun of him.
If the system spits out a code, like a verification digit, and it happens to be "kkk something" he wold have to be extremely stupid to think "oh, my! Not the KKK! Not them!"
It is just a bloody serial number! Get over it.
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 11:19 GMT John Hawkins
Agree. Bound to upset a bean counter or two if they have to change a number.
He might be a nutter, but he should be entitled to be one if he wants. We could get into some circular (ish?) reasoning here by noting that by forcing the chap to use a standardised number, the wage system in question really is showing signs of becoming the Beast (or Skynet or EU or whatever).
Definitely a subject be discussed after an evening at the pub; more fun that way.
-
Friday 8th February 2013 14:34 GMT Robert E A Harvey
No big deal
A really good manager could handle it.
"Mr Slonopas, we need you. This is going to keep happening to people, and you are obviously a good and prayerful god-fearing person. I would far rather it happened to you, because the armour of your faith means that it cannot harm you at all. Please stay, and be part of our fight against Satan and all his deciepts. Just imagine, once you quit this must happen to someone with far less faith than you, and how awful that might be."
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 10:40 GMT Shasta McNasty
FFS
They need to remove people like him from the gene pool.
FFS it's a NUMBER and it's only meaning is to mark the increment between 665 and 667.
13 is also a number that people have an issue with - although not scorn upon by random religions (at least none that I know of).
Strangely, people seem to have the opposite opinion of 69...
-
Friday 8th February 2013 12:03 GMT VinceH
Re: FFS
"13 is also a number that people have an issue with - although not scorn upon by random religions (at least none that I know of)."
Given the reason the number is considered bad luck lies in a Christianity story, I've always assumed it's predominantly in Christian societies that people treat it as such - although not necessarily by followers of that religion, IYSWIM.
-
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 19:05 GMT Johan Bastiaansen
Re: FFS it's a NUMBER
I think you completely fail to understand the meaning of the words "understand" and "meaning". It implies an acknowledgement of other people. If 666 is just a number to you, but very important to him, than it would be a no-brainer to accommodate him on it.
You're a manager aren't you?
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 15:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: FFS
"Are the people on the 14th floor really fooled into believing that they aren't actually on the 13th?"
Hehe. Good observation. Next time I see a superstitious looking type on the not-really-14th floor of a building or seat row on a plane (some also lack a row 13), I'm taking a mental note to make a comment to the effect out loud. :)
-
Friday 8th February 2013 15:26 GMT VinceH
Re: FFS
"Next time I see a superstitious looking type on the not-really-14th floor of a building or seat row on a plane (some also lack a row 13), I'm taking a mental note to make a comment to the effect out loud. :)"
Have a thumbs up from me, because that's now officially on my list of things to do just to annoy others. :)
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 22:55 GMT Daniel B.
Reminds me ...
Plaza Carso, which can be basically described as "Slim Enterprises Plaza" (yes, *that* Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world) has some buildings with a 13th floor. The plaza was built recently. A certain company from that group has the 13th floor unoccupied ... because most people are superstitious.
OTOH, another company has a 13th floor elsewhere, and they do occupy it. Nobody cares about the superstition stupidity.
-
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 10:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
helldesk
True story : the guy in the IT department who scored the phone extension 666 is envied by all. Right now helpdesk is being reorganised, and he'll have to give up his extension... all calls for the support will have to made to the number of the beast. So people like this might be able to procreate, but they sure as hell won't be getting any IT support in our part of the world.
-
Friday 8th February 2013 12:03 GMT Kobus Botes
Re: helldesk
Man! I could have done that!. I had a user who was forever complaining about her number ending on 666. Every time something untoward happened to her (like contracting 'flu, stubbing her toe, getting a parking ticket, etc.) I got a call to have her number changed, as she was being punished/attracted bad luck because of that devillish number.
I managed to avoid changing her number, as we had used all our allotted numbers and changing it would incur all sorts of unmerited expenses (changing business cards and other printed matter, changing fax numbers, et cetera).
Swopping her number for mine would have had all sorts of positive consequences, looking back. (Can I go back into the past?).
-
Friday 8th February 2013 13:31 GMT Peter Simpson 1
Re: helldesk
I can top that. In uni, my phone number (Centrex exchange, 5 digit numbers) was 6-6666. By the end of the first semester, we had removed the bells due to the large number of drunk-dialled night-time calls.
And anyway, Revelation says the Mark is supposed to be on the forehead or right arm, IIRC. So a literal interpretation (isn't that what these chaps are demanding?) would mean that phone numbers, W-2 forms, employee and student ID badges should be quite acceptable.
//what else?
-
-
-
Friday 8th February 2013 11:28 GMT Lee Dowling
616 has a good claim, being on contemporary documents at the time specifically as the number of the beast.
Anything "to the power", that's probably just nonsense. The history of basic exponentiation goes back to the Babylonians, but there's little evidence of it being common knowledge or used in the way we think (i.e. they probably only used it for "square" or "cubic" powers) until the 1500's. And you can sort of see why - there's no need to use it when it's just a short-hand for repeated multiplication, and the ones you're most likely to do if you're applying practical maths are squares and cubes, which have real, physical meanings, and they barely need a shorthand. Hell, throughout my maths degree I barely used higher powers than that for 99% of the time - there's really no need to.
But it's all a load of tosh anyway because nobody can agree on the number and so, short of just blacklisting all numbers, we're stuck with it. If your number is 666 and you resign, it says more about you than your boss's automated system. I also think the same about anyone who makes a fuss about 13 and similar numbers. Life's too short. How the hell does your God expect to do maths if you can't use half the numbers?
And even if you DO believe that, surely fear of the number is just the result of terrorism - being told not to do something because they are associated with something bad. And fear of an abstract concept, like a swastika (an ancient religious symbol, which I still say should have been used as the official symbol to demark toilets if you REALLY wanted to kill its use by right-wing sects), or a number is surely something that's "to be overcome" or whatever if you're a stout religious person.
I honestly see no difference between this and Ron Weasley not being able to say Voldemort. And that's a kids book, for goodness sakes.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
