September 24, 2009 - 7:55pm
From the Daily's Vault: When the Coke machine went empty
BY GARY GRACA
This may seem like an overstatement, but few things in the Student Publications Building have inspired as many memories or attracted as many writers to the Daily as our Coca-Cola machine.
Having been at the Daily for four years, I've heard countless alumni reminisce about the their times here, and almost all of them have asked about or told a story about the Coke machine. Everyone wants to know if a pop still costs 5 cents (or 10 cents or 25 cents or 50 cents, depending on your era). They want to explain how we subsidized the cola so writers could buy it for rock-bottom prices and attract writers with a sweet tooth. Or in some cases, they want to reminisce about how they met their husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend over Cokes.
Basically, they want to explain how one simple machine has been an oddly cohesive force in the Daily's history — something that keeps overworked and underpaid students together when things get stressful. The Coca-Cola machine is our newsroom oasis.
It is with that background that I bring you this week's slightly belated "From the Daily's Vault."
The story starts begins an unspeakable tragedy. Following an incident with the Coke machine, building's general manager Nancy McGlothlin did something that can only be described as draining the blood from the newspaper: she began rationing the amount of pops available.
Outrage followed. And two weeks into the militant control of the "beloved" machine, so did a confession.
Writing in a memo, a staffer took the blame for the debacle and explained how it related to his acquisition of a universal key to open Coke machines (a 80001 key for those in the know). The writer acquired the key from the Coca-Cola Company through his other job running sales, service and promotions at the Michigan State Fair. And he put that experience to work on the Daily's Coke machine, opening it to swipes a few pops (though he claims that he always paid for them later).
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When Nancy discovered the scandal, martial law followed. Reflecting the staff's hatred for and mistrust of Nancy at the time, things got out of control quickly. People claimed that Nancy secretly brought Coke representatives in. Others used the Coke incident as a proxy for the larger fight against Nancy — a manager who was long despised and would soon after lose her job.
But collective punishment reigned for all. And the Coke machine sadly ran dry.
