"Much of the work was top secret," says fish. "We could do engineering and manufacturing bill-of-material implosions on not-yet-made-public warplanes."
And naturally, the security extends to the DP department's physical offices, where the door opens with a keypad. "My boss, the supervisor of technical support, reset the code every week," fish says.
"One morning when I was entering the pass code, I fat-fingered the keys and hit two at once. I entered the remainder of the code correctly.
"The door opened!"
Fish immediately generalizes what he's observed: There are four numbers in the keycode. Apparently it doesn't matter what other keys are pressed, so long as the correct key is punched.
Fish closes the door and tries again, this time pushing all the keys at once with the palm of his hand four times.
And once again, the door opens.
"Being very proud of myself, I immediately went to my boss and told him the story," says fish.
"He went ballistic. I had never seen him that angry before. Apparently the security system had been installed a month before I came on board with much fanfare and kudos -- and he had managed the project of installing it."
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