Bad Habits and Disillusionment

A continuation of The History of Cutter and Computers

So, there I was, back into computers again. And, in my mind, this World Wide Web thing was gonna take off. I quickly got tired of perusing online porn day-in and day-out, IRC was boring, and people were really starting to try to make money. This new online bookstore of the day, Amazon.com, was really taking off in sales, even though they still weren't turning a profit.

I was really starting to get turned off to Army life. Sitting in a job I really didn't enjoy, pouring over and analyzing tons of meaningless data day-to-day, bouncing around hither-and-yon, was really starting to affect my attitude. My one concession was studying HTML on my job's intranet, creating an internal website for our unit's Better Opportunities for Single Servicemembers Program. Then, while out singing one night, I met the nephew of a local bar owner. He and his brother owned and ran a small screen printing company on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, just outside of Ocean City. Heavy into providing marketing solutions for corporations, he saw the value of the growing internet, and wanted someone on board with the technical background to help their company to the next level.

At this point I knew I wasn't staying in the Army. I had already turned down advancement twice, feeling that those slots were better served by some other soldier who was planning on staying in for a while, and riding out the rest of my term. So when Al asked me to join the company when I got out of the Army, giving me an ownership stake, I jumped at it. I filled out my paperwork for an early out, left it on the counter of my apartment, and walked in to work to get an email. "You have been temporarily reassigned for a three month tour in the United Arab Emerites...." There was no way out of it. I was on my way to Saudi Arabia.

While I was in Riyadh a lot happened. A bomb went off in Dahran, three days after I had been there. My girlfriend left me to play the field (Her apartment burned to the ground shortly after that. Very ironic.) The Olympics began, and a pipe bomb went off at a celebration. My Grandfather had a stroke. I wasn't having a fun time. Luckily, it didn't last very long. I got back, out processed, and headed for the Eastern Shore.

McGRAPHIX became a four man shop. There was Al, the marketing guru formerly of Wall Street and IBM. Steve was an old Cobol and Fortran developer, who had helped his father (Big Al) pump the presses when the shop began. And then there was Frank, an outstanding graphic artist who could work magic with a pen, and just as much with Corel Draw (and you should see some of the stuff he started doing when he discovered Illustrator and Photoshop). I had developed a quick (and ugly) site for them before I had left for Saudi, which helped them get a technology grant from the state of Deleware. I had become pretty good with HTML, had picked up some JavaScript, and then screwed up and started working in FrontPage (oh, the shame!) Now I was ready to get down to work, and I did. They quickly put a squeegy in my hands and started teaching me the fine art of screen printing. I did it all, from sales calls to making or cleaning screens, to printing t-shirts and bumper stickers. I was dirt poor, with no family nearby, working 60 - 80 hours a week for my piece of the company pie. We slaved all year long for low profit margins, but slowly built business to three times the size of when I started. Steve and I set up internal email, created profiles and shared contact lists in Outlook, and built up the internal peer-to-peer network. I created systems automation processes using Word forms, Outlook custom templates, and Excel spreadsheets. Frank and I built a much better looking website, with him overseeing the 'corporate image', and me putting the pieces together. I had become a wizard of FrontPage, while occasionally getting in under the hood with some custom JavaScript (as long as FrontPage would let me.)

I got a hold of some old military contacts and put together e-mail and mailer campaigns to the marketing offices (and BOSS Councils) of every Army, Navy and Marine station in the world. Started placing calls monthly to each stateside office that would take my calls, and slowly began to build a strong following of military clientele. The company was growing, but I was still dirt poor, and I hated it. I just wanted to program, not push a squeegy. The guys finally decided that they needed a salesman more than an IT guy, and let me go.

So, I worked on cars. That afternoon, after being laid off, I went over to a buddy's garage and he put me to work. I was changing oil and fixing flats and sweeping up the shop everyday while sending out resumes and answering want ads. At night I started tending bar at a place run by some other friends of mine, where my girlfriend also worked as a Karaoke hostess. You can make mad tips when you sing and pour drinks at the same time. I was looking for a web related job in an area that was fairly technologically backwards, but I wasn't giving up.

Finally, I interviewed forTechnical Support position with Delmarva Online, a regional Internet Service Provider. Rick Caceres, the support manager, was a former military guy himself, who saw my credentials and potential and offered me the job. He knew that I would work my way up, and out of his department, in short order, but he also thought I could be a positive force within the company. I was finally back to the web!

Technical Support requires an interesting mix of skills. My technical background gave me the knowledge to work easily with the questions that came up on the phone. My prior experience with sales gave me the competency and tact to handle calls with clients, who usually only called when they were frustrated or angry. And my military background gave me the patience to walk hundreds of 70+ year old retirees in setting up their connection manually through the Microsoft dialer. When calls were light, I started catching up. The web had grown up, and I was behind. HTML 4.0 was the new specification, CSS was taking over the font tag, DHTML was all the rage, and the dotcom boom had fizzled to dust. I created online manuals for the tech support team, with step by step, javascript interactive screenshots for setting up connections, configuring 3 different versions of 3 different browsers and email programs. We later migrated these same files to the support section of our corporate site, fleshing out our online FAQ. Now, I was looking for more.

OK, enough for now. Next time out I'll go into how I got into ColdFusion.

This entry was posted on July 8, 2006 at 3:24 AM and has received 2095 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.