Ok, ok, I was a just a nerd. But I did have a DA haircut.

Didn’t really get into puch cards, but did some tutoring on the old IBM data processing machines. IIRC, what looked like typewriters and had a cartridge that could hold a couple pages worth of text. Mainly used for generating form letters.

Well, now that we’re talking beyond PCs, in 10th grade, I was a proud owner of an OMRON calculator. Wasn’t just a run of the mill type for ’77-78, it was programmable and you had to use ‘enter’ as there was no ‘=’. I only had it for a couple of months before someone stole it and I was too poor to blow $150 on another import.

I also once had a real woodie calculator in 5th grade – an abacus

Recently, a customer and I were talking of the ‘old days’, using punch cards. Two ‘kids’ wondered what we were speaking about. I Google’d a punch card, and then the discussion turned to something even more ‘primitive’: slide rules. After another search, I am proud to say I have a slide rule on my shelf, next to my 8″ floppy disk. (Go to STUPID.COM to buy your own slide rule)

Said one of the kids: ‘Hey! I saw something like in the movie APOLLO 13!’

One of the orignal reasons for the company to even consider doing this was due to German labor laws; they did NOT allow overtime work. So, the German offices looked elsewhere to get the work done. The North American offices soon followed for various reasons; but one of the prime reasons was cost. For the price of one document production employee in the Northeastern U.S. the company could hire several employees in Chennai, India. The typical response from many here in the U.S. is to call it a ‘sweatshop’ This is not at all accurate. The consulting firm pays their Indian employees a bit more than if they were working for an Indian company, their benefits are not bad at all; including free transportation to and from the office. And not the least important, they only work FIVE days a week. Indian companies have their employees work SIX days a week.

Of course, I am now out of work. BUT, I am not complaining. If the employees in India can be more competative, more power to them. I, myself, got the company to pay for a trip to India to train the new hires in Chennai; whom, BTW, were very glad to get their jobs at this company and were among the best trainees I have ever had. After two months of training I took vacation in India and travelled around the country for three weeks. While I paid for my own vacation expenses I would not have been able to afford the $10,000 flight to India, so I gained something.

And after it was all over I got enough of a severance pay to help pay for graduate school. I now have an Ed.M. in continuing education to make myself more marketable and more competative. And my experiences in India may have helped as well.

I also believe that someday India, too, will be outsourcing to some other place. Remember, manufactoring first ‘outsourced’ to the Far East; Japan and others like Taiwan and South Korea now outsource to the Philipines, Indonesia, and India.

“It has to be about YOU!!” Well, In the sixth grade we used, and I believe it was several years vintage even at that time, a set up with the standard tape drive (it took forever). I think it was an Altair 8800 or a PET, but I can’t recall exactly. Used to give us a sense of the fundamentals of computing.

Beaten, all of you.

I’ve been working on computers since Nov 88. That makes DS smarter and better and wiser….

Two months later I got another job; the commute is 110 miles… each way. Relocating is not an option for me, so I do it.

No, few on minimum wage can buy a new TV, but tell me how many people aspire ONLY to make minimum wage? In 3 months, if the employer doesn’t recognize the skills of the employee, that employee ought to find another job that will recognize him. Sooner or later, he will. And if the employee isn’t worth giving a raise, then there isn’t any debate, is there?

Not only that taking one man’s (or woman’s) ability earn a living and provide for their family and giving it to someone else is not right! Isn’t that the conservative argument about the graduated income tax schedule?

The tax argument I espouse is for a flat tax.