Make Book and Tek it out

Kurtz: Did they say why, Willard? Why they wanted to terminate my command? Did they tell you?
Willard: They told me you had gone totally insane and, uh, that your methods were unsound.
Ku:rtz Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don't see ... any method ... at all

Apocalypse Now

Dominic Vautier
updated 06-2022

Selling books

Richard Abel was an amazing company with an equally amazing bunch of programmers, designers, and systems analysts.  This company was truly on the cutting edge of the business.  I got stuck with everyday boring stuff; general ledger, receivables, payables, but I didn’t mind because the users were so friendly and easy to work with and I was good at business systems.  The users were always giving me chocolate cake.  I loved chocolate cake.

Richard Abel & Co. was in the business of selling books, and they had a lot of good ideas on the best way to sell books.  I think Amazon got their model from these guys.  I often look back at my days at RA as unique because the people were generally quite talented.  If internet had been around Richard Abel would be doing really well.  They had the skill and the computer programs to do it but they came along 30 years too early.

Abel was lax by standards of the day.  We had no dress code.  You could wear a bathing suit to work if you wanted providing you had the body for it.  You could bring in a beer for lunch.  Some of the ladies had pistols in their purses because they lived in some of the more shady parts of Portland.  Many other ladies wore hippie stuff like moo-moos—no telling what was under those moo-moos.

In the computer business programmers did not get near the computers, but at Abel we were allowed to go into the computer room to talk with the operators and sample some of their “beverage”, and talk about Watergate, and how long Nixon had left in office.  We were a fairly liberal bunch of guys.

Since I worked in receivables I realized that by the summer of 73 the company was failing badly.  Once a company starts factoring receivables you know it had cash flow difficulties.  The trouble was mostly the Government because one of our biggest customers was the U. S. Military.  Our big money maker program was ADV which did advance ordering for customers so when certain types of books were published, such as dealing with aerospace or fluid behavior, that book was automatically sent and billed to many government and military libraries around the country.  Nixon drastically cut the budget for military libraries while Richard Abel & Company was in rapid expansion--not a good situation.

So almost the entire programming department was laid off, nearly all 12 of us.  Some of the systems analysts were also let go.  One I remember had relocated from New York and had a masters in Library science.  I felt sorry for him.  He was a strange guy who dressed like a woman and went around with a purse but was very brilliant.  He once assigned a program to me and insisted that I do the sort using "reverse polish" which I had never heard of, so I learned it.  

Word had gotten out around Portland that Richard Abel was laying off and their programming staff was known for it’s excellence, so all of us immediately had job offers.  I remember leaving Abel on a Friday and having a better paying job the following Monday at Tektronix.  I didn't even have an interview.

Tek it out

Tektronix at that time was the largest private employer in Oregon.  It had a sprawling campus in Beaverton and another campus down south in Wilsonville.  Tek was one of the leading manufacturers of oscilloscopes and electronic measuring equipment in the world.

They employed a staff of about 65 programmers and analysts.

I think my five years at Tek were the most productive of my life, mainly because of my job as “special projects analyst” and the tremendous support I received from management.  I was able to perform and complete a number of huge projects ahead of schedule and way beyond what was required.  What made my performance stand out was that the other people in data processing appeared to be not very motivated.  In fact the pace of activity around the shop was sometimes depressing.

After a few years I became the go-to guy, the rainmaker, the heavy lifter, the guy who was willing to take on any challenge no matter how hard.  It seemed as there was nothing I could not do.  I started working on my masters in business because there was no such thing as computer science in those days.  Naturally a degree in business became the next best thing.  I also started my own business on the side and began moonlighting for a number or smaller companies because I had developed some special programming skills on mini-computers, or midrange computers as they were known at the time.  I can't even begin to say how much money I made during this time, but I remember satisfying my FICA in October.  I have no idea where all that money went to.

I worked at Tek for over five years but began to feel like there was nothing challenging left for me to do.  Management had changed and no longer supported some of my more progressing thinking.  I felt despondent and technically unchallenged.  I got restless and looked for greener pastures elsewhere and was quite latterly wined and dined by those guys up north at Boeing.  I was interviewed immediately for three different jobs within the company at the same time.  I was made offers for all three of these jobs at a ridiculously high salaries.  It was an "offer I couldn't refuse."

                                           So go north my friend...