In a posting today, I mentioned that is it important “to be seen Not Doing Something”, or how to hide in public without anyone finding, and play tricks back on people who are fucking with you.
Two tales — One in Navy, and the people from whom I learned these tricks, and
The Other a few years later, and me teaching it some one.
The First Tails, er tales, In the Navy. I was standing around doing something (we called Field Day) one day, when the Radioman I worked with told me he was messing with the Officers heads. I asked him why, and it was ‘Short Timers Attitude”, any military person knows that one by heart. Ok, good by me, I understand that one.
So I said, “What you gonna do?” and he says “Nothing” and I am like ‘Whaaa? Nothing?!”
‘Yup’ he says, ‘nothing’. Like the other day, I walked into the Ward Room, and stood at parade rest with a smile on face and waited. They saw me come in, but ignored me at first. Then someone finally decided to find out what was up and said “Yes, Petty Officer (Tryn Dunkum, not real name), can we help you?. “T”s all “No Sir, but Thank You for asking” And then marches out the door without a word.
As we were standing there, three different officers all came by to inspect us “doing Field day, Mid level passageway”.????!!!! One of them came up to me, while the other was talking to Cole, and asks me “Have you seen anything odd about “T” lately. I looked at him and said “Do you mean “Weird for “T” or just normal Weirdness from “T”. You could see that the officers was worried. I noted that. “T” said later “If you do nothing and then smile, you will drive people who are expecting you to do something, nuts”. I kept it in mind.
A few month later, Someone else was getting ‘Short Timers Fever” and was walking around the boat. IIRC it was one of the Torpedo man 6’ plus something Bear. Nicknamed “I kan’t spel Mk 48, but I kan lift one”. In a closed environment. No where to actually hide. Think Big Foot in Neiman Marcus. . Nice guy, actually very intelligent, but you couldn’t mistake him for anything but him.
One day, the OOD (Officer of the Deck/Day) needed him for answer. He looks around, grabs the Voice power phone, and calls down to Torpedo Room, “Ya’ll seen Big “M” (not his name or nickname)” “yay he was just here, he was heading to ‘compartment name’ ”.
The OOD dials the compartment: “Ye, he was just here, he is heading to ‘Compartment Name’ ”. OOD dials next compartment. “Ya, he was just here….”
And so on. We were all standing on the bridge for this one. The OOD calls Fwd to Aft, everyone has seen him, no one still sees him, he is heading to god only knows where. For nearly 30 minutes he was unlocateable.
When the OOD went for round two and figured out he was being led by the nose, turns to me and say “Go Fetch”. I chased him around for about another 10 minutes, having fun stopping and talking to folks, till I finally caught him. I was like ‘How did you do that?” and he Explained.
I just stand quietly in some compartment until someone seeing me not doing anything and asks “what are you up to” then I tell em I am heading to a compartment to do something, and then go. By the time anyone has called for me at that compartment I am two more ahead of them. But you have to ‘be seen’ not doing anything. That’s all they will remember, you was there heading for someplace else, but won’t remember when or how long you were there.”
I had used a similar trick to hide in a hospital as a Candy Strip’er a couple of years prior, by simply “Following Directions to a “T”, and doing same as the other person, being seen but not doing anything so nobody can find you.
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So some years later, I am working at the Ship Yard helping folks develop the CADD system for the NavBuships. I was working with Ross Perot’s Company, they were a contractor on the base. The folks were pretty normal run of the mill “we think being 20 and playing practical jokes is just the high cerebral humor” around the Office. I got to know one of the workers pretty well, he worked with me on the night shift where I ended up re-writing the Pen menu for the whole system and thereby saving a couple of hundred man hours per drawing, per person, per year for which I was duly written up and punished (another story).
One day, one of his co-workers thought it would loads of fun to tape his Brown bag lunch sack to the Desk. He goes to grab it, and wham the bottom falls out of the bag and throws his lunch on the floor. He wasn’t ‘that upset’ but it really did bother him, as I think it partially ruined the lunch. You know not fun.
And he was trying to think of something to retaliate with. I noted the old trick of “Be seen — do nothing”. So I coached him “You go over to the persons desk, when they aren’t there and wait for someone to see you. When they do, and ask ‘what can I do for you’, You just smile and say “Nothing” and walk away. Do that for a couple of days, but each time you see them, Smile like it’s the biggest joke you ever heard. The one co-worker told the other Co-worker “he was over by your desk”. So the person would search their desks for traps.
They even asked him a couple of times, and he told them “Nothing” and smiled and went back to what he was doing. Then They started to ask “what are you planning?” I told Him “Tell em ‘you’ll find out’.” As a Group They had been doing this for a while, one person would pull a practical joke and the other would then ‘pull one back’. Back and forth. So the other person was fully expecting a joke to be pulled. It was, but it wasn’t, if you catch the drift. This person would think of all the shit they would have done, and then would scour the place with a fine toothed comb, taking. lots. of. time. Not spent working. It starts to catch up with you.
This went on for about 4 weeks when finally his co-worker literally came begging on knees to “do something, I can’t keep this up”. They were going bug-shit crazy. I had told him earlier “When time comes, tell em the truth ‘I am not not doing anything, I am not going to do anything. I just let you fuss and make up all the tricks in your mind. But the next, you won’t know if I have, or have not pulled a trick. I may pull one, at random just to keep you on your toes.”
So he did, They didn’t want to believe it and they told him all the shit they looked out for and were planning to do when played his trick. They were not Amused, because they had just spilled their guts and ruined a whole bunch of jokes by giving them away.
So, Important Life Lessons I have learned.
1. Don’t do anything, let the other person think your are. That way, they do all the work for you, and do more Damage.
2. Make sure to be seen “not doing it”. This will cause more people to believe you are up to something even more nefarious than you could have thought of by yourself and without doing a thing.
Plus added bonus, You get to see their thinking process and learn new tricks to be seen not doing.