About Me: What I Used to Do for a Living

Since April 1, 2020, I’ve been retired. Before that, I was (for 20-some years) a fulltime database analyst and Web developer for a municipal Public Works department.

…but back up a bit. Before I got into computers, I taught high school English and journalism; drove a cab; cleaned hospital floors and rooms; delivered furniture; and loaded and unloaded many, many cartons of books in the warehouse of a large book publishing firm.

I have been involved with computers, especially software, since early 1979. In the earliest days, the only computers I interacted with were IBM and Amdahl mainframes, running a mix of MVS and VM/CMS operating systems. (God. I can’t believe I still remember those abbreviations.) My favorite programming language — “first love” — was Fortran. Later, because my employer’s R&D division had developed the Linux operating system, minicomputers entered the mix. My first training in what were then referred to as “IBM personal computers” was in, I think, 1982 or 1983. It would be a few more years until I had one on my desk at work, though.

My very first personal computer was a CP/M-based thing manufactured by Monroe Systems for Business (for whom The Previous Missus worked). That’s an ad for one over there on the right, from Computerworld’s issue of December 20, 1982. (Hat tip: Google Books.) It had a black screen; the text it displayed was the color of amber. The very first PC of my own was manufactured by Olivetti — the Italian typewriter folks — but branded with my employer’s logo, and marketed under the same three initials by which that employer (THE phone company) was known. I bought it in 1986, and replaced the hard drive and the monitor once each. I didn’t own another PC until 1993 or (probably) ’94.

I used Microsoft Windows at work; at home, I used (and still use) Windows, Linux Mint, and — increasingly — ChromeOS.

My home (desktop)  computer is a Dell XPS-8700, purchased in 2013. Other than at the very beginning, I’ve almost never owned anything but a Dell. They just run. We once got The Missus an HP computer, because she had to have a computer for her work and her Dell had been lightning-fried. (The HP was dead in the water within two or three years.) Other than that — and her first PC, built by a friend in the years before I knew her — she’s owned only Dells, too.

Whenever someone who wants to use Windows asks me where to buy a new computer, I almost never direct them anywhere but Dell. Some of them decide (for one reason or another, usually price or convenience) to get a different brand at Costco or Wal-Mart or whatever. A couple years later, the same people are often back again, again asking where they should look for a new PC. I don’t gloat. I don’t tell them I still have the same computer which I had three of their computers ago. I just say, “Dell,” and off they go to the brick-and-mortar.

Summer of 2019, I acquired my first laptop: a Google PixelBook, running ChromeOS. (It also runs most Android apps, including the Android versions of Microsoft Word and Excel, and — if I really wanted to — I could use Linux on it, too.)

Software I know– or once knew —  well enough to use without much forethought but still occasional research: Windows; Microsoft Word; Microsoft Access, especially VBA; Macromedia Dreamweaver and Coldfusion; HTML and CSS; SQL; PeopleSoft Query; OpenOffice.org Writer. In order of descending preference,at the moment,  my Web browser of choice is either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

My general-purpose graphics program of choice (cross-platform, y’know, except for on the laptop) is called Gimp. For “real” photography work, I rely on Adobe Lightroom (various versions) and Photoshop, and — on my phone — an Android app called Snapseed.

I like to fool around sometimes with software to do this or that with audio files, but am not very good with it.

I own a Google Pixel 3a smartphone; my cellular service provider is Google Fi. (I’ve also still got an LG G6, which has no cellular service but can do quite a lot in data-only mode.

My rule of thumb when acquiring tech hardware and most software: name brands, almost all the way. I don’t care about the latest and greatest, the fastest, the most fully-featured. I want the hardware to be as invisible as possible. I want to work with and through the hardware, not on it. I hate hate HATE hardware problems, in the same way that I hate flat tires. Don’t wave test-performance results at me, proving that I can do something five seconds sooner if I’d just switch to [fill in the blank]. I don’t care. My work-work — almost everybody’s work-work — doesn’t require the equivalent of a Jaguar on the desktop. Because, like a Jaguar, it will only end up p!ssing me off because it’s not spending enough time actually getting me places.

But I’m not a Philistine or Luddite, either. I love learning new technology.

The best thing about it? To become an “expert,” you don’t really need to know about everything. You just need to be curious. You need to know a little about research (it helps to have a good memory). And you need, above all, to be unafraid: confident, if not fearless, that it’s almost impossible to do something with a keyboard and mouse that can’t be easily undone. The computer won’t break. The only skill you really, really need to master — it has worked for me since 1979 — the only skill you need to master is: how to undo.

And all those things I just said about technology? They apply to writing, too. Isn’t life funny?