Into the breach

Dominic Vautier
6/2022

I went to work for the City of Portland.  As soon as I walked in the door on my first day, I realized it was all a terrible mistake.  Nobody knew I was the new guy and nobody knew what I was supposed to do, or where my desk was.  It was just a bunch of people sitting at desks or running around without a clue of what they did, or what they were supposed to do either.  In addition to that, the employees were kind of stupid, but what was even more surprising they seemed to know they were stupid.  The whole experience was a dream right out of “Paradise Lost”.  I was in the tenth circle of hell.  Everything was make work.  Everybody was very busy doing nothing, and nothing is what was being produced.

The city and county were at that time merging their computer shops which was great news for the media and for the taxpayers as well, and it was great to see how much cost saving the city and county government was making. The city worked on one side of the building and the county worked on the other side and they never talked to each other.  The city worked from 8 until 4 and the county worked 9 to 5 so they compromised and started working from 9 to 4.

We came to work at 9.  At 9:30 we took a break and went over to the local pub/coffee shop and sat around until 10:30 drinking coffee and complaining about the people on welfare who never worked for a living.  We promptly came back to work and took lunch at 11:00 and often found some reason to extended lunch until 12:30.  At 1:30 we promptly took another coffee break which lasted slightly longer, like 45 minutes longer.  We sometimes left a little early before 3:30 because there was something to pick up, or the kids had a game, the car had to get tuned up or any of a hundred other things.  Public service was an easy life if you wanted an easy life.

The city side of the shop used IBM and handled a lot of the funding systems, water supply, and police.  The county dealt mostly with property.  Their property files were stored on these huge Univac memory drums in the basement.  Every time a truck went by they would lose a few property records.

Nevertheless, I worked on a lot of things while I was with the city and pointed out to the systems analysts how they could improve their systems. These guys would have none of my advice.  I was just another trouble maker who needed to move on or fit in.  I still did do a lot of work on parking tags, police information and law enforcement.  I wrote several new systems.  Nobody much noticed.

The entire government is driven by budget.  It doesn’t matter what has to be done or what work requirement is there, or if there is a need to develop anything that saves manual work or improves data flow.  The only criteria was how much money you have in your budget and how it can all be spent and protected.  The budget had to be spent and more had to be required for the next year.  It was a terrible job and I resolved never again to work for the public sector, and I didn't.

Ring Ring Hello.

The next year I went to work for a telephone company.  United Tel of the Northwest, Located in the bustling town of Hood River, Oregon (pop 4000), it was the second largest independent after General (disaster) Telephone company, which is not saying much since “Ma” Bell had 90% of the industry to start with.  So United Tel had about 3% of the country, most of it rural so the company made lots of money since just about every call was long distance.  Every year the company improved the building.  I never saw a building that was improved so many times.  Every room was on a slightly different level. 

Programming in the telephone environment was very interesting because I was exposed to a lot of specialized computer systems that were found only in a smaller telephone company.

Hood River, nestled on the great Columbia river lies between the lush wet area of Western Oregon, and the dry baron, basaltic regions over by The Dalles, only a scant 19 miles to the east.  There is a dramatic change in climate within those 19 miles.

The first thing I realized was that I did not like living in a small town.  Second, there were no Pizza places in town.  To get pizzas required driving to The Dalles to get Pizza and just about anything else except maybe a haircut or a pipe wrench.  The only industry was the phone company and Diamond Fruit Growers.  All the other businesses in town were small.

I worked for the phone company for over a year then I got fired because of a door.  The other programmer did not get along well with the boss.  They often got into huge rows over the door between the programmer’s room and the boss’ office.  The boss wanted the door open and “Lee”, the other guy, wanted it closed.  I made an error in one of my programs dealing with toll rating.  The boss really wanted to fire “Lee” but fired me instead.

I didn’t mind it so much because I wanted to get out of Hood River.  In fact this was the only time I ever got fired in my entire life.  It’s an experience that everybody should go through I think, like having a baby or writing a book.  It's good for the soul.  Things are different after you get fired.  You gain a respect for nature and yourself and your limitations.  I did anyway.

But I was out of work for maybe one week—that’s it!  One week was all the time I was ever out of work during my entire computer career from 1969 until 2002.  That’s a solid 35 years of paying taxes, so I really have nothing to complain about.

I walked into my first interview back in Portland.  Portland is always in a recession.  When the country has a recession, Portland has a depression.  But I got an interview and the first thing the manager asked me was why I quit my job.  I told him I got fired.  He said something like he was relieved that I was not irresponsible and hired me on the spot.  Not only did I get out of Hood River in style but I got a better job and a raise along with it.

Off to the Book Store...