The Birdhouse

A true story of Americans in Holland from the development of the CD-ROM (only slightly enhanced from many tellings.)

At one time I worked for Digital Equipment Corporation ("Digital" or DEC,) writing micro-code in a little hardware lab attached to the corporation's premiere software site at Spitbrook Rd. in Nashua, NH. One of our lab's jobs was to develop a system that could master a CD-ROM in real time (meaning we could cut a 72 minute disc in 72 minutes.) These days, any old laptop can do the same thing in about 10 minutes, but in those days it took 24 hours and a room full of complex equipment to master a CD-ROM. The problem was the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code that was the ECC, but that doesn't really matter for this story....

At least once a month, we'd go over to the Philips Laser Lab in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Usually, there was a manager and some number of engineers who went, but this time just one other engineer and I went.

There's an interesting difference between Americans and Europeans when it comes to working: Europeans know when to quit. When it gets to be five o'clock, they put down their tools knowing that what couldn't be done by 5:00 doesn't need to be done until tomorrow. Americans, on the other hand, just have to "win." If 5:00 rolls around and the code doesn't work, then leaving is losing. And we won't lose.

We were experiencing that very cultural difference on the particular day of this story. We had been trying to master a test disc and although we started at 4:00, we ran into a little snag that put us a few minutes off schedule. It was a 60 minute disc, so we weren't going to be done until 5:20. The lab crew wanted us to abort the run and start again in the morning, but if we did that, then the master wouldn't get flown to Polygram in Germany until the following evening and we wouldn't have the test copies back until we had already returned to the US. We appealed to the plant manager who agreed to let us stay on if we met his conditions:

1. We must do nothing to call attention to ourselves. He would get in huge trouble if anyone found out he let us stay on.
2. We must lock the lab behind us and leave the key at the guard shack at the exit gate. His lab manager would pick the key up when he arrived at work 6:30 AM the next morning.
3. We must leave immediately after the run and go out by a specific exit gate which was closed and locked promptly at 5:30.

Naturally, we agreed. We were representatives of a huge multinational corporation and took ourselves quite seriously. We were professionals. They could trust us.

Naturally, something went wrong -- just a little five minute glitch that I could code around and get us back on track. We'd be out at 5:25, we could still make the gate.

At 5:25, the recording stopped and my friend Alan and I fled to the parking lot. We reached the car and were about to get in when we looked across the roof at each other and realized at the same time, "We didn't lock the lab!" So we sprinted back into the building, down the hall and locked the lab. Then sprinted back to the car, jumped in and blazed for the gate.

The guard was just closing the gate as we roared through and sped off to the Hotel Cocaigne feeling exultant. We stopped at the bar for a couple of cleansing ales and then went to the dining room where we had just settled behind an appetizer of brie on toast when Alan reached into his pocket. And instantly I knew. He still had the lab key in his pocket.

So we signed our tab, jumped into the car and headed off into the Dutch evening trying to figure out how we were going to get the key back to Philips. We drove up to the gate we had left from. It was locked and deserted. We drove around trying to find another gate, but couldn't. We drove back to the gate and stared at it.

"There has to be a way to contact the guards," Alan whined logically. And then we noticed, beside the gate, was a button. We walked over and pushed the button. Security cameras swiveled toward us from several directions. A long stream of Dutch words came out of the loudspeaker over the gate. Alan knew what to do. He confidently spoke to the gate, "Hello."

Now, it's important to know, if you're not used to travel in Europe, that most Europeans you will meet speak English. They also speak French or German, Italian, occasionally Spanish or Greek but they speak English. In fact, any given European speaks his native language and probably English as well. So a German might not be able to speak Swedish, and the Swede in the shop he walks into might not speak German, but the two of them can communicate in English. Perhaps not an English that any English-speaking person might understand -- the German will be speaking Genglish and the Swede Swenglish -- but through a combination of continuous repetition and refusal to admit they don't know what they're saying, they manage to communicate. The way you signal the start of this game is to state, "Hello."  In this case, "Hello" means, "I don't have the slightest idea what you just said, would you please repeat it using random English words?"

There was a sound of much Dutch whispering that came across the loudspeaker. Then a tentative louder, slower Dutch restatement of what had come out before. You see, the trick to the paragraph above is that the people you meet in Europe all speak English. But the people you don't meet, don't. Waiters and bar tenders, for example, can quote anything from Chaucer to Tom Clancy, but walk into a grocery store, where tourists don't go, and it's your job to know their language, not their job to know yours. This was the after-hours security detail and they didn't speak English.

My friend and the loudspeaker exchanged remarks in their various languages. Again, there was a lot of whispering in Dutch. Finally, there was a very unconfident, "el-lo?" from the loudspeaker. I imagined whomever had English in high school most recently had lost the argument. "Don't be afraid, kid" I imagined them saying, "We'll all be listening. Between us we can figure it out."

"We have the key to one of your laboratories," Alan said slowly. "We forgot to drop it off on our way out tonight. We need to give it to you."

Murmuring voices again. Some arguing back and forth, then, "el-lo?"

"I have the key to your lab. I need to return it."

"Ve vill find off you some of for to speak."

I remember standing there, admiring the sunset. I remember a lot of back-and-forth between my friend and the loudspeaker, but I forget most of the details. Finally, someone had been dragged out who spoke confidently out the loudspeaker.

"I am open the gate. You see vhere liffs the guard?"

"Yes, we see."

"South on ze guard place you vill put ze key in ze birdhouse and zhen you vill leaf."

"The birdhouse?"

"Yes. In the birdhouse you will put ze key as we watch. Zhen you leaf."

"Ahhh... OK." We're engineers. We figure stuff out for a living. He probably meant "drop box" or something like that. We'll find it. It will be obvious.

There was a loud click and then a whirr as the gate rolled back. We advanced on the guard shack as the cameras pivoted. We stopped in front of it. "Put ze key in ze birdhouse."

We walked around the guard shack. "No, no, no, no...ze birdhouse!!" Drop box? None. Maybe a little barrel or something? None.

"We don't see any birdhouse," my friend wailed

 More muttering. "Ve vill sent at you a car," the voice announced, "Vait!"

So ve vaited in the gathering darkness until a car showed up. A very polite security guard came up, strode over to the guard shack and waggled the cover of a mail slot. "Ze birdhouse," he explained. Alan reached into his pocket and dropped the key in. The guard stood by his car until we had walked out the gate and then said something into his radio and the gate closed behind us. He drove off.

Alan and I went back to our own car and climbed in. It was dark now. We realized we didn't know how to turn the car lights on. We looked in the manual, but it was written in Dutch, French and what might have been Martian. No English. This was not a good day for English. Alan reached into his pocket and pulled out the key to the laser lab.

"You put our car key in the birdhouse, didn't you?"

The next morning we walked in to the Philips plant with major hangovers. It had been a harrowing drive back to the hotel in the dark, driving with no lights on. We saw the plant manager coming out of a conference room. We wondered, "Does he know? Are we in trouble?" He took one look at us and nearly convulsed with laughter. He shouted something in Dutch to the room he had just come out of. Thunderous laughter came back. We looked in and saw, on a huge monitor the security tape of us standing in front of the guard shack, 'We don't see any birdhouse!' wailed the image on the screen. The whole room laughed. One of the lab guys turned to us, "Ze best part is yet coming when you call ze guard back ze zecondt time."