August's featured employee: Louise Tuttle, Materials Placement Specialist, Sector 7-G

Amalgamated Humor's own Louise Tuttle, circa 1955, at a 4378TMBG-415 Stuffing Machine. Amalgamated Humor Archives

Gary Newbrunswick: Congratulations, Louise.

Louise Tuttle: Thank you.

GN: Tell me, what do you do here at Amalgamated Humor?

LT: I'm a Stuffer.

GN: And what does that involve?

LT: I stuff things into other things.

GN: And what sort of things are these that you're stuffing in there?

LT: Oh, anything that needs to be stuffed into another thing, really.

GN: Like company products?

LT: Like company products, letters, internal memos, potatoes. Whatever you need stuffed, I'm your woman.

GN: How long have you been with Amalgamated Humor?

LT: Ever since 1949, 50 years.

GN: How old were you when you started here, if you don't mind my asking?

LT: Oh, I was just a little girl. A bit over 11 years old, I think. This was before child labor laws, of course.

GN: 1949? Was it?

LT: I think so. It must have been, right? That's what the corporate lawyers have always told me.

GN: Uh... OK, then. They must be right. Anyway, changing the subject, now...

LT: I wonder if I should look into that.

GN: I wouldn't bother. Anywho, tell me. When you started working here, company founders Ichabod Lancaster White and Sheky "Ralph" Brockie were still alive, right?

LT: That's true.

GN: What were they like to work for?

LT: Well, I can't say as I had too much contact with them. Mr. White spent most of his time either locked in the office, on the golf course, or hunched over the security monitors, waiting for any of the employees to slip up. Brockie spent a lot of time with the Research and Development Department, inventing products, or just hanging out in the wind tunnel. They did throw fantastic corporate picnics back in those days. Every forth of July, we would all be let outside for a half an hour, in shifts.
There was a huge spread of food, pony rides, a dunk booth, and a wide variety of exotic animals.

GN: I've heard about those picnics. White himself was in the dunking booth, wasn't he?

LT: He was, that's true. Nobody never dunked him, though, because he would have fired him for sure. We knew it was his way of trying to be more of a regular guy, but we all knew there was a limit to how far he'd take that too.

GN: When did they stop having the picnics?

LT: Oh, I think it was around 1957 when poor Kenny Sheehan from accounting got sick of waiting in line for the pony ride and tried to get on the white tiger.

GN: I see.

LT: That boy had a great head for figures, but not much else.

GN: What's it like to be working for the great grandsons of your original bosses?

LT: Well, they're not much different, I guess. We don't see them much. I think I saw Mr. Brockie once, sprinting to his car one afternoon. Might have been one of his decoys, though.

GN: And Mr. White?

LT: Never seen him, some whisper he's a myth.

GN: Oh, he's real enough. We're in the same yacht club.

LT: Oh.

GN: Yes. So, what do you like to do when you're not here at the office, stuffing?

LT: Oh, I keep busy. You've got to keep busy.

GN: Hobbies?

LT: I'm on a skydiving team.

GN: That must be thrilling. What's it like to jump out of a moving airplane?

LT: Oh, I've never done that. I just stuff the parachutes for the others.

GN: What else?

LT: I volunteer packing lunches for the Meals on Wheels program, I make pillows, bag leaves, and uh...

GN: and stuff?

LT: Right. And stuff.

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