Subject: Thanx for the memories
Date: 29 Oct 1999 06:12:14 GMT
From: patmlawlor@aol.com (PatMLawlor)
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

Wow.
On Monday morning of this week I was on my way to the office. I had just
finished what I thought was the best Pinball Expo ever.
The Pat Lawlor Show had gone well, and I had met lots of new friends.
Any way, on my way in, my cell phone lit up like a Christmas tree. John Youssi
called to tell me things were not right at the office. Vendors were refusing to
work on my new game. Oh Oh.......
Louis called to say the world had ended. Oh Oh....
Seems the powers that be had decided to pull the plug.

12 years of trying to build pinball games that made people happy had ended.

I wish you could have seen the game Louis and I and the team were
building....... It was special.... it kicked butt.

I will miss Larry yelling " go away " at his closed door.
I won't miss meetings with clueless V.P. 's

I will miss Dwight yelling " SNACKS " at 4:30 every afternoon.
I won't miss idiots who have never been in the business telling us how to do
things.

I will miss Steve saying " It's not BIG ENOUGH! "
I won't miss the quality control guys telling me " it will break in 2 years.
Fix it "

I will miss Ted's thoughtfull analysis of a rule.
I won't miss the 63 mile drive to work one way.

I will miss Lyman yelling "whatever" as 3 baiters kill him.
I won't miss deadlines with no regard to the quality of my game.

I will miss calling Louis on my way to work and asking " Whats going on today"
I won't miss the years of rumors of our demise.

I will miss George telling me there were " rough edges on my cabinet "
I won't miss the weird hours.

I will REALLY MISS taking my game out on test the first time and watching
people play it.
I won't miss the I.S. dept. trying to tell any software engineer what to do.

I will miss the company that was engineering driven for years be driven by no
engineer.
I won't miss manufacturing tell me " All your games should be the same. Then we
could build them."

I will miss my daily talk with Steve K. He has forgotten more about games than
ANYONE living knows.
I won't miss being told our games don't make enough  money.  ( I was told this
after T. A.F. )

I will miss watching John K. build amazing mechanisms that I dreamed up.
I won't miss people telling me " build simpler games, our customers are stupid"

I will miss working to get the system easier for the OPS.
I won't miss people telling me " Only the cashbox matters, the OPS will buy it
no matter what."

I will miss ALL of the talented people I worked with who believed a game was
never good enough, never done, never perfect.
I won't miss greedy people. There is enough money in this business for
EVERYONE!

Just like Baseball...... The game is larger than all of us.
This game will survive.
It was an honor to build PINBALL MACHINES.

I hope to be back........

Thanx for playing my games.

Pat Lawlor.