I had to share this. Thoughts came up of it when I was thinking about my old job from another thread (and more grayed thoughts). It's 100% true, I swear it on a stack of Bibles holding up my mother's urn. And it's not a contest...
[I was hired at career day at my technical school. Great company. Mark Ain was among the first to apply computing to the collection of employee-generated time and attendance data (computerized time clocks), and process the data on the ever more ubiquitous IBM PC, linking with payroll companies. Many large companies were still using huge systems with those big tape drives behind windows for other computing tasks. My company had ventured into job data collection for tracking trends and such, and shop floor part/build/order tracking. Everyone was sticking barcodes on everything. You had to bring the part to the terminal, so it wasn't well suited to huge shop floors. Robertshaw Controls was one who tried it (their tech guy was cool, I hung out with him, his wife, and their new baby). But our terminals were hand operated. I'm sure by now they're mostly automated.
Our terminals and SW were everywhere; a lot of the big hospitals; Marie Calanders; every single Marriott (with the LGBT-friendly Mormon owner, you go where the bucks are, right?) - we had to open a branch in Singapore driven largely by Marriott's growth; banks, one in Honolulu, I was sent there and put up at a hotel in Waikiki for a week right around these places (I was a nut for the dance floor - nothing else, I was in a committed relationship back on the mainland); I could go on. Then there was this place:]
...One of our customers was named Louise's Trattoria when it was on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills...
[I had to find parking for my Camry among the vehicular swank. The terminal was having comm. problems. It turned out the daughter card was coming loose as the swinging kitchen doors slammed into the wall where the terminal was between them. We relocated it, finding an even better spot.
Another trouble-shooting adventure came at a big hospital in Orange County. More comm. problems. A big Hayes modem for every line, something about the way they were in the old building. New 9600 baud ones, smokin', they actually got very hot. Whoever it was who did the install (my co.) stacked two columns of about six modems each directly on top of each other and directly next to the other column, the top one was so hot I immediately had to pull my hand back. Once they made little shelves for each one, the comm. problems disappeared. At our expense, the ones that seemed damaged were replaced. An expensive lesson about heat and electronics, who knew?]
...As I was leaving Louise's, a woman off to the side started yelling. I couldn't help but hear that she felt jilted. "Who is she?!!! I can't believe I came this far..." I looked over at the lothario, he had to be cute, she was hot. It was Nicholas Cage, he had more hair back then, a bit higher on his head. He looked like a puppy scorned. Nobody seemed to care. Career memories.
[I was hired at career day at my technical school. Great company. Mark Ain was among the first to apply computing to the collection of employee-generated time and attendance data (computerized time clocks), and process the data on the ever more ubiquitous IBM PC, linking with payroll companies. Many large companies were still using huge systems with those big tape drives behind windows for other computing tasks. My company had ventured into job data collection for tracking trends and such, and shop floor part/build/order tracking. Everyone was sticking barcodes on everything. You had to bring the part to the terminal, so it wasn't well suited to huge shop floors. Robertshaw Controls was one who tried it (their tech guy was cool, I hung out with him, his wife, and their new baby). But our terminals were hand operated. I'm sure by now they're mostly automated.
Our terminals and SW were everywhere; a lot of the big hospitals; Marie Calanders; every single Marriott (with the LGBT-friendly Mormon owner, you go where the bucks are, right?) - we had to open a branch in Singapore driven largely by Marriott's growth; banks, one in Honolulu, I was sent there and put up at a hotel in Waikiki for a week right around these places (I was a nut for the dance floor - nothing else, I was in a committed relationship back on the mainland); I could go on. Then there was this place:]
...One of our customers was named Louise's Trattoria when it was on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills...
[I had to find parking for my Camry among the vehicular swank. The terminal was having comm. problems. It turned out the daughter card was coming loose as the swinging kitchen doors slammed into the wall where the terminal was between them. We relocated it, finding an even better spot.
Another trouble-shooting adventure came at a big hospital in Orange County. More comm. problems. A big Hayes modem for every line, something about the way they were in the old building. New 9600 baud ones, smokin', they actually got very hot. Whoever it was who did the install (my co.) stacked two columns of about six modems each directly on top of each other and directly next to the other column, the top one was so hot I immediately had to pull my hand back. Once they made little shelves for each one, the comm. problems disappeared. At our expense, the ones that seemed damaged were replaced. An expensive lesson about heat and electronics, who knew?]
...As I was leaving Louise's, a woman off to the side started yelling. I couldn't help but hear that she felt jilted. "Who is she?!!! I can't believe I came this far..." I looked over at the lothario, he had to be cute, she was hot. It was Nicholas Cage, he had more hair back then, a bit higher on his head. He looked like a puppy scorned. Nobody seemed to care. Career memories.