Once Upon A Time...I Was A Teacher.

Yes, the last REAL work I did where someone (taxpayers at the end of it all) paid me a paycheck periodically was that of a High School (Grades 11 and 12 mostly) Teacher.
I know, it's shocking. I'm shocked! It changed my whole life, the IT being Teaching itself. I wasn't very good at it as conventional thinking would tell, but I LIKED it, it felt good, honest and necessary. It was all rather accidental to tell the truth. Yes I DID plan on becoming a teacher one day but my indirection had led me on other paths along the way...teaching...that is teaching of public school children was not one of them.

The story all began in early 1982. I was bored to death with fixing peoples computers or TRYING to manage those that did that and trying to get ahead in that strange world. I let it be known to my boss and his boss and his bosses boss within Control Data Corporation (long defunct American Corporation) that I was "looking around" for something ELSE to do with myself. I interviewed with other companies too but the jobs that always came my way were just MORE of the same, fixing large commercial computer systems or managing those that did it. No, I wasn't going to settle, I needed real Barack Obama-like change. Change with a capital C. My dear wife at the time knew of my predicament and tried to be supportive as she could while she began a job (later to be her career) in the Juvenile justice system as a counselor at a local juvenile facility. She loved kids and young people and had been such a great mom to my children when they were young that I heartily supported her through school and in her choice of jobs. What that has to do with me and my travails I'm not sure but it is an ad for persistence. It was a good time for me to find another career, I guess that's the point as there were now two incomes to keep our heads above water with. Months went by while I searched and talked and netyworked my way through the maze of corporate personnel to have them assist me in my search within the company. I had already polished my resume which I always had done in the past but now I made it sound differently. A career change was what I was looking for and I had to use the skills that I previously had to advance myself.
One particular bleak day at work I received a phone call from Corporate Personnel in Minneapolis with what sounded like an interesting offer, would I like to teach electronics (er ah ROBOTICS!) for a division of the company named Education Services?
They said someone would call and arrange an interview with me. I was stoked! Maybe there was a chance this whole effort would work out after all. Several days went by with no further calls from headquarters. The weekend came and went, my spirits began to drop. Monday came and went, Tuesday did the same. Wednesday morning as I drank my morning coffee I received a call, "yes, this is he", and I started listening intently. The voice (a male one) at the other end was describing a contractual arrangement to me in detail. It sounded interesting and I made myself sound very enthusiastic, which is not very hard for me as my dear family will attest. We hung up with him saying he'd call again with the "exact timing" of the beginning of the contract, in the meantime he gave me instructions re: personnel and what to tell them and my current boss. I was on my way! Little did I know how FAST the transfer would actually be. Thursday morning came and went with many questions by my current boss re: my impending exit. Late in the afternoon I recieved another call from my new boss, congratulating me on my new job and as I had asked for more details...I was told that classes started on MONDAY! "You'll need to wing-it" I heard him say, meaning there was nothing "in place" at the school's location, no books, no computers (Plato Terminals...I'll explain later), no paper, pens, desks, whiteboard, nothing in the way of curriculum. I was instructed to intake the students, introductions, paperwork for the contract etc. Mainly busy work 'til we could get a school together. It sounded GREAT! A real adventure for one and all.

Computer Chatter

I dunno if anyone cares but my whole working life was a curious mix of the computer industry, IBM (yes), a small company in Long Island, NY called Potter Instrument Company and my last one Control Data Corporation. I worked in an IBM plant in San Jose, CA right out of the USAF and during this time wound up getting trained as a field engineer working in San Francisco and environs. Not just a job believe me, thoroughly entertaining and at times impossible. The City (As SF is known locally and elsewhere) was a bustling place full of people, cars, buses, noise, dirt and panhandlers. I was a young man with a starter family who lived in Stinson Beach about 25 miles away along the northern coast. I loved it there. We moved there shortly after my son Michael was born, from Campbell near San Jose in the fall of 1968. It was a small (660 sq. ft!) ex-tent house from early in the 20th century. Built on a platform flat on the sand. It became a house at some time in the past with 4 tiny rooms and thin walls coverred with lath and plaster. The outside was lap siding which we painted grey with white trim, our elephant look. It remained cool and wet most every day and suited both my mood and need for refuge from the chaos of the Streets of San Francisco sans Karl Malden from the TV show of the same name.
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The computers that challenged my patience and intellect at that time were room-fillers to be sure, huge 7 foot tall black boxes that roared with the sound of fans and gears. Complex beyond belief and prone to both errors and outright failure at any time. One spent a goodly portion of each working day in study of the modes of failure and in acts called Preventative Maintenance aka PM designed to stem the flow of Incident Reports aka IRs to the main office. My friend SC worked at the same location that I did in downtown SF, Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company aka PT&T and we grew to be best friends and co-workers. Days were spent cleaning filters, vacuuming the frames and checking voltages of the 360/50 and 360/65 processors and thier related periferals. Huge racks of reference books in dark blue matching covers lined the edges of the equally huge main room. It was always cold therein, these things needed airconditioning just to stay powered up as they had extensive heat sensors to detect overtemperature conditions in each section of the machine.
Humans came in second in this multi-million dollar computer facility thus we froze except when we roasted.
More to come...