Working with computers

Now we go on to my first job in computers in Pasco er actually in the city of Richland and for the city of Pasco. Now that’s a mouthful of words. But then you all must realize by now that I can’t be hushed up, kind of like Calixta when she starts talking. Actually like any of my girls except… no except… no except… I guess there are no exceptions.

When I started working for the city of Pasco I thought I was the best person my parents had ever known and I expected them to say so, and I waited and I waited and I waited. Nothing ever came of all my waiting. Well it seemed they were always saying how good my brother Anthony was doing but they never said anything to me. Needless to say, I was crushed. And I wondered what I was doing that was so wrong. I ad no idea then, but now that a couple of my children are grown and I want to keep those, who have yet to grow up, well supported. On the other hand I think that the ones who have grown up do not need my support nearly so much. So why did I have to grow up so quickly??? Or why were my parents afraid of me and my actions?

There were many times when I had figured out how to do something on or with the computer when my supervisor would say that can’t be done and I would say watch this and they would be completely amazed at what I had done. I remember one time while working in Richland the boss there had asked me to try and write and extension to the IBM operating system so the operator would not have t o watch as intently for every thing that he/she was asked to respond to. Kurt asked me to do this as he could not figure out how to keep me busy. I did it even though it would benefit the city of Richland as Pasco was only renting time from Richland and the cost was a fixed amount per month. Kurt didn’t think I would be able to do this assignment. I had to do a lot of after hours reading and calling friends from college to find the answers for specific things but I finally figured out how to do it and it totally shocked Kurt as he thought I was just wasting my time. Once I had written this software I remembered how to do it on the next job I had and it proved very useful in my very next job. This only worked on the IBM System 3 and this machine went to its grave about three years later as this was the very beginning of the computer chip race. You see the IBM System 3 was one of the older type computer where the boards were wrapped in a specific way to get it to work.

Well I won’t bore you any more with technical information that has been out of date for twenty-five years. So we will start on more interesting things about me and my life.