Work Thoughts/history

[learnteach]

Using the journal function. Pretty boring. Looking for themes.

So, I went to school at Santa Clara University because they made an effort to recruit me, the honors program looked neat, and it was close enough to home to keep me near the family. We were on welfare at that time, and my parent's marraige was pretty much scorched earth (that dissolved on my 19th Birthday.) Graduated on my 21 birthday, burnt out from trying too hard I think.

This was in 82. The market was tight; I took a little time off and was unable to get a job. Worked security to make ends meet, until Peter Alix hooked me up with Mouse Systems. Steve Kirsch started it to make optical mice; I was employee #10. We were taken for a classic ride and I was fucked over so hard by management it's not even funny--at one point, I had to request Sundays off. I was told we'd get comp time, but "the board won't approve it". I ended up bleeding into the circuit boards I was repairing. And when I looked at promotion? Not a chance. Real Engineers have degrees from MIT. (note that all the management went on to become very rich.) At one point the lab admin who couldn't repair a board to save his life was made my supervisor to get more work out of me...at another point, another person was hired to do that.

Finally left that to go to GE Calma. Salary was literally twice as much--50K from 25K. And within 6 months of joining, the group was repositioned and the layoffs started. I had been one of 103 engineers; when I left I was one of three in my division. 13 layoffs. You could hear men sobbing in the bathroom stalls.

Jumped to KLA. Lasted 6 months as an SE; worked for marketing, told the VP sales that I wouldn't lie to a customer. I was too inexperienced to pitch "futures", he was too stupid to see that, and he wanted a flat out lie rather than marketing speak. Left at the end of six months. Got Lyme's disease, and was flat on my back for 6 more.

Went to Tymnet thanks to a friend. Interesting work with people I knew and actually liked, in the main. Manager a big flake. Never really went anywhere...company was sold 3 times while I was there, got laid off by MCI, was angling for it. Manager had a sex change operation and is much happier now. Did get to go give a training class in England.

Did some time as a consultant/unix admin for a while, thanks to falzalot but didn't like the place very much. Wasn't as good as I could have been, but did get a lot done for them. Went from there to...

Digital Link. Worked Tech Support for a while, for an excellent guy, Patrick Baxter. Then got pulled over into sales by the Asia Pacific manager, and got great travel, but fucked schedule; wore out, frankly, doing it. She was fired (and sued, and won a settlement) and the same manager (new hire) told me to leave, so I moved to marketing.

Went through 4 startups; all four failed. 6 months each...different lessons from each.

Then, NetScout. Started working with Mike Jacobs, but he was fired for being irritating about a year in, and I was pretty sure I was next. Got to balance, the work was nice, but management was all about kissing ass up, never about improving the region. Watched the sales guys come and go...my turn.

My brother Lou asks if I'm really cut out for the geek life...I dunno, none of these experiences really have had much geek freedom. And what am I best at? Passion for social changes based on technology; social history; long term relationships and troubleshooting.

I should be a college professor. But for now, a traveller.

Comments

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

And y'know, I can't even remember which of the horrible companies I worked at that was at. :-> Dayam, I've worked at some sucky places. But it seems like that's par for the course in this area.

Good luck on the travels!