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.
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
Random Flares 