Why Timing Is the Only Thing That Matters in Computer Industry Success
Although it was a blessing that I landed in the computer industry when I went back in 1979. I almost wish it could have been four years earlier, starting in 1975 instead. That would have been a terrific swap, assuming I could have landed at Tek-Aids Industries back then, giving me a four-year head start on my computer career.
Why Timing Matters More Than Talent in Tech
Instead, 1975 had me starting college, also known as the four-trimester pot party. No need to rehash (pun intended) that here; it’s all in the book. I’d call it wasted time (okay, I am done with the puns), but I did learn a lot about people, which I wrote about in an earlier blog.
Had I instead started at Tek-Aids in ’75, I would have already been in the industry by the time 19-year-old Bill Gates and 22-year-old Paul Allen founded Microsoft. I would have been eighteen. Additionally, IBM entered the portable computer market with the IBM 5100, which weighed a whopping fifty-five pounds. I am unsure if it came with its own forklift.
There is a reason I said “almost wish”: getting that four-year head start guarantees nothing. In fact, it would have been only a two-year head start, as I lasted only those four trimesters. That two-year head start would instead have been 1977, and nothing personal to the Mac-heads out there, it was much ado about nothing, technology-wise. The big announcements were the Apple II and Radio Shack’s TRS-80. Neither of which was embraced by Corporate America, until Apple announced its Mac years later, which had become somewhat standard in marketing departments.
I still contend the path I chose was the right one. Granted, it’s hard to argue with that, considering the outcome. Perhaps I should have given all those jobs I took more than a day, a week, or a month a better chance before I quit them. Especially since I really had a great work ethic as a kid, shoveling snow or mowing lawns. Of course, doing those things as a kid, I hadn’t yet discovered the then merits of marijuana.
I was still enjoying those merits when I landed at Tek-Aids, but after day two, never during work. I was on a mission.
Timing really is everything. Had I bombed out of college the first trimester of 1975, my freshman year – again, I never went to class, so that could have been a possibility, who knows what The Story of Jeff becomes?
Two years makes for one helluva difference, that’s for certain. The college Dean and I mutually agreed to part company less than two years into it. Then, add those two years of collecting W-2s from warehouse jobs at numerous companies, leading to my dad’s “Sunday Sermon.”
All of this led to my landing the warehouse job at Tek-Aids Industries. I was the equivalent of Dorothy landing in Oz. Except this Yellow Brick Road was littered with garbage and cigarette butts, but I was able to fix that fairly quickly.
From Warehouse Worker to Trusted Industry Problem Solver
And being two years later made a huge difference. Technology was advanced, well, advanced for 1979 over 1975, anyway. Tek-Aids was carrying products such as Altos multi-user computers, Wyse Technology green and amber monitors, which came out in early 1980, and Okidata’s Microline dot-matrix printers. For me, anyway, this was all the latest in high-tech, but what did I know? It did not matter, as it excited me.
And that was all I needed to consume me. And consumed me it did. It had me studying packing lists while preparing shipments and analyzing receiving tickets while checking in new stock.
None of this passion to learn would have even scratched the surface of my OCD gene two or four years earlier, as there would have been nothing sexy about that technology to me. Granted, Microsoft’s founding was a huge thing, especially if you’re Bill Gates or Paul Allen.
But how did that affect me? It didn’t. It started coming standard with computers; we did not have to stock it individually, so I really did not need to learn it. At the time, anyway.
Meanwhile, back to 1979 and early 1980, one thing led to another, and customers began calling me in the warehouse as they seemed to think I was the only one to know how long it would take for a product to get from A to B, when gravitated to stock checks which gravitated to multiple stock checks which ended up landing me eventually landing in the inside sales department, assisting customers.
Funny thing, the customers were pushing me to the Inside Sales Manager, but the company owner and his wife rejected me. I was totally unaware of it for about six weeks. Then Donna, the Inside Sales Manager, made me aware of it and told me she was still pushing for it.
Sometimes Success Comes from Simply Staying Put
I was unsure what to think. On one hand, I was happy with what I was doing; the warehouse was my domain. The company owner, Jud, brought vendors back there to meet me. That was pretty cool. I walked them over to where their stock was, which was always stacked cleanly, since I knew they were coming and there was always a chance they would hit the warehouse.
On the other hand, I was like “What the fuck?” Jud talked to me all the time, brought vendors back there, and customers were recommending me. I don’t get it. It would have been better off had I not known. I just let it go.
I wasn’t going to quit or anything like all those old jobs; I had worked too hard and had already shed my dad’s mantle of his “unemployable son.” I wasn’t going anywhere. Timing mattered.
Good thing I stayed. Don’t you think? In the end, “It Worked for Me!”
DISCLAIMER: The ONLY Artificial Intelligence used to draft this blog was mine.
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To learn about this entire journey, pick up a copy of 𝙄𝙩 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙈𝙚: 𝙈𝙮 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 today! Also available now in audiobook format!
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