Working Environments at IBM

Jet Pilot - 1977-1979

At the Lexington plant, in Jet Pilot engineering, we were in modules that had two engineers per module. There were two walls on each side and a 7' high wooden partition between two modules, so you could hear people in the adjecent module talking and if people were smoking in their module, the smoke could roll over to your module. Yes, people smoked right there in the office. Those were the days, heh?

Most everyone wore ties, at least the degreed engineers did. Some the technicians didn't. Some of those guys were the smartest ones around. I remember they could the hex programs that the Jet Pilot printer was programmed with. When I saw a guy doing it (scanning this page of hex codes) I thought he was goofing around and trying to fool me. But then I realized he really was reading the stuff. Amazing. I guess if you work with it enough, you learn the paterns and can read the hex.

Going to lunch with Don and Lee.

IBM Mansfield - What It Was Like

I started in the Mansfield office in April, 1987. The PC had been created (I owned one) but we didnt' have them at work. Everyone still had 3279 terminals. We had a big printer in the same room with the copier. Everyone's print went to that printer. We printed pages from the sales manuals and some.

Announcement letters came to us printed, as did product brochures. We had file cabinets full of brochures for various products. When you wanted some brochure to give to a customer, you had to go look through the cabinets to see what you could find. If there was some particular product you were often trying to sell, a System36 for example, you might keep some copies for the brochure in your own desk drawer.

Orders were processed by the administrative people there in the office. We had three or four people who processed orders, plus a manager who managed them and the secretaries. We had three secretaries plus a receptionist.

Some of the sales people sat downstairs (the more senior people) and some of us sat upstairs. The managers sat down stairs. This seemd cliquish, rather than pragmatic. After all, the more senior people should need the managers less - should be able to sit upstairs by themselves, but they didn't, so it really amounted to a clique of managers and senior people. Us dumbies sat up stairs by ourselves - exiled I guess. We weren't treated that way, its just that the seating arrangement made it look that way. Going to lunch
Upstairs.. Bob wearing his knees out.

Mansfield Home Office

A couple of time I had really funny things happen and I had no one to share them with. I taped a couple of hilarious e-mails to the back of my office door. I'm sure I told them to Connie, but it would be more funny to share them with a co-worker, but there wasn't any co-worker in my home office.