Work Experiences

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Experience.jpg

They say experience is what you get, when you didn't get what you wanted. I'm not completely sure about that... but work experiences make us who we are (or influence it). This is too brutally honest to be in any Résumé, it's more a Dilbert-esque look at the working world, not to malign the companies I worked at (which were far from the worst places), but more to remind others or myself of what experiences and lessons I got, when I didn't always get what I wanted.


28 items

ThirstyIsle.jpeg
Burgers, beer and atmosphere: we used to occasionally do lunches at this place across the street from MacDonald Douglas and Rockwell, and not far from the Long Beach Airport, called "The Thirsty Isle". This story should also be captioned, "why I never drink during work hours".
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I had to get my first Security Clearance, and was quite amused at the process. Mostly it was as exciting as filling out an IRS audit: a lot of DoD (Department of Defense) forms, and knowing they were going to do an investigation on the veracity of those answers.

I figured I was going to have problems; my real-father was from Iran, I had multiple names, and had been an experimental kid (when it came to sex, drugs and rock and roll -- some dumb experience in life wasn't going to slip by me untried).
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My mother was a placement person with a technical consulting company; and was tired of me working for the competition: so it was time to work for her company. If you think that working for your Mom would work in your favor, you haven't met my Mom, for me it was nothing but torture. The humiliation was only magnified by the fact that my Dad did work for the same places I did as well. Being a teenager you want to keep your personal and professional life as far away from your parents as possible.
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I left when I was 21, and it wasn't on the best of terms. They'd changed my bosses many times during the 3+ years I'd been there, all on a "6 month contract". But they put this person in charge of me who hated me, and everything I represented. Meaning that I was competent, smart, secure, and had some youthful self-righteousness (when I was right). Let's call this person Sharon... I learned a lot from Sharon, mostly "how not to".
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Again, I lasted a bit over 3 years on a 6 month contract. And again, it turned out I made many friends and one enemy -- but one wrong enemy is all it takes (especially as a consultant). So I left on less than optimum terms: with one enemy and many friends. But when they tried to make me look bad after I was gone, it backlashed, and Karma exposed my detractors as not very bight big-mouths.
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Two Girls, a Guy, and a Sushi Place. Actually, a few more than that. At Rockwell Collins, Sushi became a ritual. I've tried lots of foods; frogs legs, snails, game animals, snakes, and just about anything. After all, if God didn't want us to eat Animals, he wouldn't have made them taste so good: kind of an interesting attitude for an atheist and off-and-on vegetarian, but whatever. While it's common fare today, back in the early 1980's Sushi was something exotic, and this was before "Sexual Harassment" required special training and stifled people's bawdy talk during the two martini (or beer) lunches.
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We watched the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on live feed at Rockwell that morning. When it blew up, there was a bit of stunned silence. After a while, I walked back to my desk, and thought about the lives lost, and the politically correct environment, and what it would mean. Then I used a big red cancelled stamp I had acquired, and stamped it in red across a poster that was on my cubical wall: turns out, that was not a politically correct move.
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Now I've lived an interesting life, and been one of those people that things either happen to, or happen around. A lot of those experiences aren't necessarily things that I'd wish for; but heck, if I learn from them then they aren't a complete waste. Many that start hearing the extent of my life stories, start staring at me, agape in disbelief - or often just look at me with skepticism, and assume that I have to be a bullshitter, because that doesn't happen to one person (until I present witnesses or evidence). But I've lived a pretty bland life compared to some I know... and a few of those I worked with a Collins. Dr. Roger Parks was one of them.
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As a consultant you were paid to get things done. Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges. Over, under, around or through: problems will be solved. Thus permission was something for the political employees to get, I just made things happen because you either solved problems or they ended the contract and got people that could get the problems solved. It made you far more productive than the employees, but a bit of assholes that they resented, because while they were going through the process, you just made political messes for them to clean up.
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Since I hadn't failed on a couple projects that others had failed on, they decided I needed more of a challenge. So They put me in charge of INIT/BIT (Initialization and Built-in-test), I had to create all the software to test the machine on startup, and verify that it was working. This was a conundrum, since if the processor wasn't working, how you use the processor to tell if it was working? It is mostly possible, but an interesting set of problems.

The bonus was this project had been ongoing for a while, and was a project where two other members of me team, HATED each other and were ready to battle to the death, and take the whole project down with them... and they were both 20+ years my senior and weren't exactly hot on a kid who still had acne, telling them what to do. I guess management figured if I hadn't failed at code, at least I could fail at people management.

My solution was simple (and the immature one), they could both do nothing, and I'd do all 3 of our jobs. They didn't have to talk to each other, they just submitted whatever they wanted to me, I'd ignore it, and write something else to make it all work, and they got credit for the code, while I got credit for getting them to work together.
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I had been a bit of a hack in High School and College(s). I was never the worst/best, both because I could be lazy about it, and because I had better things to do. But I could break into systems, and did at various times, and in various ways. But most of it was not criminal or vandalous; it was usually very focused and for a reason (or the conquest of a challenge). I'd gotten over it quickly, especially when a few friends got arrested by the FBI, but as I said, it took too much time, and was too dangerous, and I mostly left well enough alone. I was having too much fun getting paid to be criminal about things. Until one day...
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I've had a somewhat interesting life, as have many people I've known. And we humans are strongly made up of our experiences. But our experiences not only happen to us; but if we are smart, we can learn something from what happens to people around us (if their actions/stories truly effect us, and we can learn from it). One person that had many stories, and life lessons, was Dave Quigley; even if some of his lessons were "how not to", or at least just "Life is fleeting, enjoy while you can".
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345 Park Avenue • San Jose, California 95101 - After I left 3M, I decided to do some time in Valley. (Silicon Valley), and work for Adobe. This was going to be a few year gig to fluff up my Resume and move on. But the company stuck and I worked there longer than any other company. (Even consulting companies where I did a few different few year gigs with them).
Azettler-logo.pngAmerican Zettler
75 Columbia Way • Aliso Viejo, California 92656

I was kind of considered an expert in Medical Device Interfaces, and I was shifting more to Mac Development, so a company called Zettler (American division) had created a Nurse Call system (Sentinal): for managing Hospital administration and nursing staff to allow patients to call for nurses and track their responses. They had a Mac based system that was having problems, and I came in and fixed their UI and programming problems, went on site to many Hospitals and worked with their staff to figure out issues. I was able to extricate the company from lawsuits, hire Engineering and Quality Assurance teams, and turned the product from legal disaster to cash cow.

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WTi 18004 Skypark Circle, Suite 240 • Irvine, California 92714

I had wanted to do Mac Application Development, so I went to a small startup called WTi (Workstation Technologies, Inc). The job was creating a QuickTime VDIG and a dithering algorithm for teleconferencing, and QT-VCR a commercial application used for recording and playback of streams. Hardware acquired by Nortel. Software licensed by eMachines / SuperMAC / UMAX

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Dave Bajaj and I worked at Baxter. But the company had a cost cutting measure that eliminated all (or many) of the consultants. Dave bounced up. He went on to start his own biomed consulting company: Relsys. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade. Actually, I think he'd been socking away money and planning for this kind of stuff all along; lessons for me about discipline and planning. At first, it was out of a spare room in his house, and I was his first employee. I helped with the demo that got him his first contract. But soon he got an office. I worked for him on a few projects and we took on some much larger companies on contracts, and won. That fearlessness and "go for it" attitude also impressed me. We got Alcon and Spectramed and a few others. It was also a big life lesson about how people you work and contacts you make can be much more significant than you realize at the time.
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Irvine, California - After I left Rockwell the second time, I went to work for Baxter (Edwards Critical Care division), where I made medical instruments. I enjoyed Aerospace Consulting, the money was good, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be a lifer and just petrify as an automaton; I wanted to get out and try new things. I wanted to start migrating towards commercial development and medical seemed like a half step. Plus I'd helped with the killing people side (Aerospace), I figured I should balance the karmic scales by working on saving people (Healthcare). While saving lives wasn't as "interesting" or creative as building weapons systems to take them; it provided interesting learning experiences none-the-less. Like I learned some lessons about dating on the job, the costs of defensive medicine, and just the problems in the provider side of healthcare.
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3731 West Warner Avenue • Santa Ana, California - After I left Rockwell, I went to work for Rockwell. Rockwell was a large, many-division company. I moved from NAAO (Lakewood) and Airplanes (B-1), to Collins Radio (Santa Ana/Costa Mesa) and was working on the MILSTAR Satellite Communication Terminal: a system that was used for most of the secure military battlefield communications. Never have I worked with such a ragtag bunch of humans... and had the time of my life. I was only there 3 years and change, but it was a lifetime.
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2770 East Carson Boulevard • Lakewood, California - I came of age at NAAO. I got my security clearance, learned to deal with eccentric co-workers, learned about nepotism and how not to mix substance abuse and work, got "hit on" in front of my parents, and learned how NOT to exit a company.
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17032 Armstrong Avenue • Irvine, California 92614 - At the age of 18, I'd been consulting for a few years; I was getting pressure from the parents to "get a real job" and not just consult. I figured 6 months or a year wasn't exactly short term or flakey (for a teenager), but I took it to heart and was going to try for something "more stable". I tried to find an employed position, but it was harder than I thought: companies would pay me more as a consultant (based on experience), but they wanted to hire based on pedigree (Degree). I was willing to "start at the bottom" and work up; and "the bottom" turned out to be in QA (Quality Assurance) at Pertec. Hey, I'd try anything once, and things I liked more than once, so why not?
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101 S Schuyler Ave • Kankakee, Illinois 60901 - while going to School in Kankakee, I walked a couple miles away to the local computer store. I walked in, and just pretended I worked there, and was helping people with sales and support until I found the manager. Since I'd already helped sell a computer, he hired me.
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Jamboree Road at Ford Road • Newport Beach, California - The whole defense industry was interesting and hysterical at the time, and there are so many stories to tell about these weapons systems. You work around and swap companies, or are swapping people with other companies; so it was a whole subculture. But the programming of this stuff was insanely funny, in the way that non-life-or-death software can never be. Software and people can be so amusing when they aren't meaning to be.
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333 Harbor Boulevard • Costa Mesa, CA 92626 - One of my earlier contracts was with Brunswick Defense. Yes, the people that make bowling balls and boats, had a weapons division in Costa Mesa, California that used to make weapons systems for the government. I worked on two systems there. In both cases, I was writing Quality Control and Quality Assurance software. Basically, I started controlling all sorts of Lab Equipment that did pressure or temperature tests or plotted graphs and so on. So I wasn't even out of high school, and I was working on these two weapons systems.
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1346 East Chapman Avenue • Orange, California 92669 - As a teen, I hung out in a computer store, and I sold Computers by asking people, "What would you like to use it for?" By listening to their answers, I could solve their problem, and sell them a computer... AND my programming services. By 15, I was making good money selling computers. By 16 (once I got my drivers license) I was making better money contracting to folks who needed my services (programming), including Brunswick Defense and Glendale Unified School District.
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3001 W Chapman Ave • Orange, California 92868 - A summer job I did was at the local movie theater; the Orange Cinedome. In writing this, I did a web search and found that it has been torn down. But they captured pictures before they did that. It brought back some memories. It was one of the last 70mm theaters in the area, at least before it was gone. I'd know it was big, but not how big. As jobs go, working in a movie theater wasn't too bad. I was young, and the toughest part was getting down there. Biking about 5 miles down wasn't bad; riding back after my shift, and it was a gradual uphill grade, was a lot tougher. Plus it got hot, and getting there, without being disheveled wasn't always easy.
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109th and Compton - While I was a rural/burb kid, I lived summers with my Uncle in Hollywood, or Grandparents in Burbank. Hustling on Sunset is nothing like being "white bread" working in Watts; which I did one summer. South Central was not the best time I ever had working, but I learned a lot. Most of it was not good stuff; racism, corruption, contempt/distaste for the inner-city subculture and their sloth and hypocrisy. I didn't like that world, and while I could exist in it (briefly), I knew I didn't want to.
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1051 Meads Ave • Orange, California 92869 - All parents have issues, mine were into status ("things"), working, and social events: yuppies a few years before the term was invented. I have social anxiety, but I'm not into status symbols (much). But I do value the independence that working got me, and I started working at a young age. I remember washing cars, selling lemonade, mowing lawns, and my first real non-summer job was being food prep, bus-boy, dish-kid, and various odd jobs (like collecting the balls from the driving range, and so on) at the local country club (at 12 or 13).