I started my job after a great honeymoon in Hot Springs, AR…I had interviewed before the wedding and had been given a phone sales job…I didn’t have any experience with sales but, what drew my boss to me was that I knew the hardware inside and out…Plus, since I had a technical background I could talk “geek”…We had space for about 24 salespeople but, I don’t remember ever having all the cubes full…They sat me with a veteran sales guy named John for the first few days and he taught me quite a bit about closing…It wasn’t really necessary though because at the time the personal computer industry was exploding…It was all you could do to answer the phone…In the beginning, I spent the majority of my time working the queue, which was the general sales orders, mostly from individuals…We sold hardware, software, and accessories…If it was available, we had it for sale…It was fast-paced and high pressure, just the way I liked it…I was also lucky in that we had a pretty good group that watched out for each other.
If you read my earlier post about CCC, I mentioned J…He finished up there and was having trouble finding work so I set up an interview and he got hired…I have to set this up for you yo understand…SW sold more products at that time than any other company in the US…I came into work one day and noticed several brand new BMWs parked out in front of the office…When I asked my boss, he explained that we had sold the most copies of Lotus123 in the world…The cars were leased as a gift from Lotus for the executives…We also sold tons of Sony diskettes which caused Sony to send a wide variety of their products…These were all kept in a locked room and were used as rewards for, particularly good sales…One day, I remember it in particular because it was my birthday, one of the owners started collecting business cards in a box…When he told me there was going to be a drawing, I asked if it meant anything that it was my birthday…His reply was “no”…After we shutdown the phones, we all gathered and the owner announced that it would be a drawing for a trip to Hawaii…The card was pulled and my friend J was the winner…The next day J came over and explained that it was a trip for two an would I like to go…I called my new bride and she told me that I was not going to Hawaii without her…J took his brother.
I had been doing corporate sales for two years and had accounts like Blue Cross, Motorola, and GE when I was approached by G…He explained that we were coming out with our SW branded computer…One of the sales points was on-site service…He was forming a new group to troubleshoot the problems over the phone and then FedEx parts to resolve the problem…Since I was technical and had phone experience he wanted me on the team…Bear in mind that at the time Windows 3.0 had just come out…It was again a very challenging job to determine the problem over the phone…We developed a lot of tricks and techniques that help speed the calls up…Time was the enemy in any support call since there was always another customer waiting to be serviced…I thought it was great since I enjoyed the pressure and the day would fly by…Not long after that, We implemented a 900 pay per minute line for customers that didn’t have a service contract…G gave me about 4 guys and we were off and running…The pressure stepped up because they were paying $1.99/minute for expert advice…As a general rule, I would have us stop after 5 minutes if it looked like we would be taking a while to figure out the problem.
I have fond memories of my time with the company…We were more family than coworkers…We had a company basketball team…Numerous parties where the salespeople, technicians and main office folks would get together and socialize…The company had three stores when I started and expanded to 250 by the time I left…I got to travel to tech sales folks in different stores on how to sell on-site service and how it worked…All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 13:03
My experience with the computer industry was the result of a long string of coincidences…After I moved to Dallas in the mid-eighties, I was in the market for any kind of job…With the anti-tank skills I learned in the Corps, Pickings were slim…I scoured the want ads (remember those) in the paper for literally anything that would bring in money…I had two prospects out at the time and to be honest, I don’t remember if I called or sent them a poor excuse for a resume…One was a warehouse shipping job at a company that produced various tapes, as in packing…The other was shipping also but, for a company that built IBM clones…I had no computer or tape background but, felt I was qualified to slap labels on boxes…I afternoon, while I was at the want ads again, the phone rang…I had done an extensive and bizarre interview at CCC (Competitive Computer Components) earlier…M was on the line and offered me the job…I immediately accepted…Within fifteen minutes I got a call from the tape company with an offer that I declined…I have often wondered, over the years, what might have happened if the calls had been reversed in order.

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Tue, 07 Apr 2020 13:18
My career started at CCC and I was given a desk by the loading dock door in the tech shop…Deon (D) and Melinda (M) were the owners…D was a self-taught genius with computer hardware, that was sourcing parts from Southeast Asia and assembling them in south Dallas to ship all over the US…M ran the office where all the accounting and such stuff took place…The tech shop sounds impressive but, really consisted of a large rectangular room with plywood workbenches around the walls…We would have anywhere from 3-5 techs working at any given time…It didn’t take me very long to realize that the IQ level did not need to be very high to assemble clones…As part of my shipping job, I had a very basic computer to print labels…It had no case and sat on a cardboard box wide open to the room…In a matter of weeks, I got the basics down because my shipping computer would breakdown and, since the techs were to busy to fix it, I would…I also was I charge of the warehouse of parts that D bought for assembly…In short order, I was in charge of the shop and would help out with building when things got busy…At that point, D hired another guy to help with shipping and the warehouse…Jamie (J) and I ended up good friends and he followed me to my next job…There was a weird dynamic between D and M…D was an alcoholic that would come in about one in the afternoon every day…I later realized it was because he would stay after close to drink and work on personal projects to the wee hours…M was paranoid to the point of extreme…She was very suspicious of anybody that she didn’t know, being on the property…What I didn’t know, was that D would get violent with her when he went home…After a year or so, one day I noticed that M wasn’t around…The rumor was that she took all the company cash reserves and disappeared…I guess she had finally had enough…There were whispers around the office but, nobody openly asked D about what was going on until one day M returned…Nobody knew what was going on and rumors were rampant…It finally came out that she had been in Denver the whole time…While that drama was taking place, my Fiancé was telling me to get another job…I have always had the problem of giving 110% to any job I had…The stress I was under was causing me to talk in my sleep…I was doing inventory in my dreams…Calling out serial numbers all night long wasn’t very good for my fiancé’s sleep…Without D knowing I somehow interviewed with a company called Soft Warehouse in north Dallas and was offered a sales job starting after our honeymoon…I have always had an extremely hard time quitting a job…I had psyched myself up one day and spent the better part of it getting up from my desk and the chickening out ant sitting back down…In the late afternoon, D cam back to the tech shop and told us to drop what we were doing and head to the accounting office…Space was tight but we all squeezed in…D announced that they were going to be closing the business…He didn’t say it but, M had been gone long enough with all the cash assets that suppliers were going to stop doing business with us…As I remember it, it was effective immediately and that they would keep J on for a week to help with the closing inventory…As the meeting broke up, I asked D if we could talk in his office…As I closed the door, I apologized for his troubles…He immediately started apologizing to me, saying that he felt bad about my upcoming wedding and all…I paused, and then told him “no problem, I was quitting anyway”…He got faux mad and called some names for not letting him know that I would be fine…My short time at CCC had taught me a lot and I found that I had an aptitude for this computer thing…So I went off to get married and start a new job…I did see D a few years later in a bar bathroom, really drunk…He didn’t recognize me and I didn’t say anything…On to Soft Warehouse

For those of you that are not lucky enough to live in the Midwest…You never know what the weather will bring…This is Friday and next week it is supposed to be in the 70’s.

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Mon, 06 Apr 2020 14:36
I am going to start adding a time stamp to blog posts to give you context to when I was writing that exact thought…

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 14:45
The entire virus thing has caused something that I think I should have anticipated but, didn’t…The cats have started to show their stripes…”Famous Personalities” have seen their time in the spotlight and on the front pages dwindle drastically over the past several weeks…It has caused them to act out in ways that cause me to drastically change my view of them…Like any addiction, these folks are jonesin for a fix…They are willing to do anything to get people talking about them…Donating money, bashing POTUS – government – republicans – democrats, announcing their positive/negative test results…I have heard about celebrities selling their time for voice mail recordings and doing video shorts for a price…Duffy (I guess that’s her name, had to look her up) has gone public with her past abduction and rape…I have no doubt about her account but, I don’t need to hear about it either…I have had bad experiences in my lifetime yet, cannot fathom sharing them with literally the world to get people talking about me…My advice is, stick with what your good at…Be it acting, singing or telling jokes…Spare me from the drama in your life.