Absolutely none skills I needed for this job came from high school, college, technical training or seminars. Well, that may be a stretch. I did do all of those, but not to end up in this field. All of the basic skills for this job came from childhood toys: Lego’s, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, Tinker Toys, model airplanes. I really wasn’t that good at those things, my father named me “Disintegrator Dan” since I was more likely to reduce a project to their original parts list than I was to finish it.
I guess I just sort of backed in to this career as a computer guy via the road that life takes you. I have an engineering degree from a nationally recognized university. I started out using my degree the way I thought things were supposed to unfold. Then the oil bust of the 80’s happened, I was laid off and moved back to my home town. I found a job at a large insurance company who needed technical engineering types to evaluate their commercial customers. It’s called loss control or risk management or something like that. All they really need is people who are good at figuring out what other people do and then writing about it.
The job itself wasn’t a bad deal, I got to snoop in what businesses did, ask them all sorts of questions about what they did and why were they doing it that way. Then based on little more than opinion and a few little things like OSHA, fire codes and local ordinances, I would tell them they needed to do things differently. Here’s the catch. If they didn’t do what we asked, we probably wouldn’t provide them insurance. Yes, that’s correct. They are already paying us for insurance. Then we come along and tell them they aren’t doing it correctly and need to spend more money to do it the way we want. Or else. On more than one occasion I was either escorted out or asked to leave. I learned diplomacy and tact on the job.
An insurance company may be the most typical office work environment on the planet. There are people with desks. These desks have computers, phones, in boxes, out boxes and drawers. There is even a chair for someone to sit there. There are cubicles. Any cartoon about an office could happen at an insurance company.
Now, the biggest part of our job was writing reports so someone else could do something with it. Those people are called underwriters. They sat at those desks I mentioned. Their job boiled down to 6 words-yes or no and how much. Than means-should our company offer insurance to this customer that I personally have just pissed off and how much should we charge this now irate customer. I’ve never seen a more useless bunch than underwriters. These people make chess look like a high speed spectator sport.
This is where I found my true calling. Insurance companies were the first to embrace information technology and the coming of the IBM personal computer. We were always getting new computers, having computer problems and/or learning new software. I guess through intestinal fortitude (and a lot of wasted time), I started to get good at figuring these things out.
It was at my last job with an insurance company (and last job working for anyone other than myself) that I really started to sharpen my skills. Our department was an afterthought for a large office that did mostly policy processing and claims. Our pointy haired boss and (lack of) support was located in another city that was definitely not a daily commute. We were on our own. I just got tired of getting nowhere fast with our computers so I just started digging in our manuals, on line and at bookstores. I became the defacto computer guy.
I had been at this particular job for 5 years. The company was particularly cruel to their employees but was able to get away with it because of the local job market. We had laptop computers and would cart them back and forth every day to and from work. While my associates were dutifully trying complete their work at home during the evening, I was “playing” with mine (laptop, you perverts) to see what we could do with these things. I also had acquired 2 desktop computers and was already performing my “Disintegrator Dan” magic on them.
I received a flyer in the mail about a 3 day computer course that would get you ready for the basic certification needed to be a real computer guy. Most of the courses I had seen were 2 weeks or more and cost $2000 or more at the time. This one looked pretty good, was cheap enough and was just 3 days. I had a few vacation days to waste. I signed up for a class in January. That was the week before Thanksgiving.
On Friday, 2 weeks after I signed up for my computer class (now the first week in December), I received a call that our pointy haired boss is going to be in town on the following Monday. And he wants to speak to me that morning 8am sharp. This wasn't going to be the usual ass chewing. I was low man on the tenure pole. If you've had at least more than one job during your life, you know what is coming next. At least I had the weekend to copy all of their software, pack any personal belongings and equip my new business with office supplies.
I won’t bore you with the details, but it ranks right up there with the most heartless, impersonal, cover their asses, make-sure-he-doesn’t-shoot-anyone layoff ordeals I have ever experienced, read or heard about. The fact that they wanted me to work 3 more weeks and travel extensively to the furthest parts of our service area didn’t add to the enjoyment either. Their attitude was “You have to do this or we won’t give you your severance-Yes, that’s right. We are going to make you work your ass off one last time before we lay you off. At Christmas time”. This company made layoffs real work. No slack time here, nope, you gotta earn your layoff.
I really resented being worked hard and having the door hit me in the ass on the way out. I called an attorney friend on the way home to see if there was anything I could do other than take my medicine. He suggested investigating if everyone in this wave of layoffs was required to work under the same conditions. If some were allowed to leave that day, then I could use that as a negotiating point.
Computers and technology were now really my friends. As a matter of policy, the company IT department would immediately suspended any terminated employee's computer accounts including email. Since I was technically still employed, I still had a valid email account. The company had laid off about 100 people in our department nationwide. That night, I sent a "test" email to everyone in the department and the ones I got back as undeliverable were obviously already gone. About half were already gone. Spam was my friend. I used this fact as leverage with Pointy the following morning and negotiated 3 weeks of slave labor down to 1 week of cleaning up still while retaining my entire severance package and what was left of my dignity. You have got to take the small victories when you can get them.
