Memoirs Q8: What was your first job, and what did you learn from it?

My first job was as a developer in EESSCOM - I forget the aronym, but it was a PC assembly company that sort of repackaged, painted, then sold the PCs. I was hired as part of the software developemnt team, but also became part of the after sales service team. Part of the package back then was for every PC sold, there would be a free training in some software. These were DOS, Wordstar, Harvard Graphics and maybe even Lotus 123... just enough to make the buyer able to use the PC they bought.

What did I learn? FOr starters, that the business wasn't totally honest with what they sold. THey had two lines of PCs - one more expensive thatn the other - but the inner workings were all the same? The difference? The other was a dark gray colored casing (all painted internally, of course), so what the customer was paying for was just paint for the more expensive line. I also learned the need to test the PCs after, by keeping them on overnight - complete with monitors looping certain displays - their version of a hardware stress test.

I learned that if you were not in sales, you were not important in tihs company. I even participated in a 'fixed' bidding for a province, wehre we were supposed to represent different companies bidding for a hardware sale to the province. i was given the task fo representing one company (we were all formone company though, and I believe the Governor knew this). Man... I didn't enjoy that.

Given the chance, I got out to seek better employment.