In 1984 I had a brief stint working for a cancer charity. I was primarily involved in installing a mini computer for the charity. This was a version of the IBM System 36, which predated the AS/400 family series. This version, somewhat smaller than normal, was known as a Baby 36.
As well as the Baby 36, the charity had also purchased an IBM PC. They really had no particular plan for the IBM PC. The main reason for installing the computer systems was to run a particular donor tracking package. Unfortunately, the director, at the time, not being conversant at all with computer technology, had, in fact, purchased the wrong hardware for the package that she wanted to run. She had also purchased a line printer for the system. A line printer was a high speed printer, but operated on the dot matrix technology of the time. The director expected to use the printer to produce high quality letters to send out to donors. When I demonstrated, to her, the absolute best printing that the device could produce, she was absolutely appalled. (It also printed on fanfold ledger paper, and not the quality letterhead that she wanted to use to send out begging letters.)
Despite the oddities of the employment, the office provided some perks. There was a lovely view over the Fairview slopes and across False Creek to the Expo lands. I was able to watch the Expo lands being constructed (as most of that territory was not actually land at the time).
There were a number of problems with the installation. The total technology installation involved two computers, two monitors or terminals, and three printers. The extra printer was because it was producing reports from the telephone switch that was in the office next door. The office into which all of this equipment was crammed was a 10x10 space. The two computers, two monitors, and three printers produced a fair amount of heat. Not enough to affect the performance of the electronics, but definitely enough to affect the performance of the office as a whole. This small office into which they crammed all of this equipment contained the thermostat that controlled the back half of the building. With the computers on all the time, the temperature in the room never dropped below 84°, even when a cold snap hit. But the fact that that room was terribly hot meant that the thermostat was never aware that it was getting cold in the rest of the building. I had warned them that the computers producing that much heat meant that it would affect the thermostat control, and that might have untoward consequences for the rest of the staff.
Those in charge of the charity obviously thought that I was overstating the case. After all, how could putting all of the computer equipment into a room, away from the rest of the staff, affect the rest of the staff? But, as noted, the there was a rare Vancouver cold snap that winter. The management of the organization finally did agree that I knew what I was talking about, when all of the clerical staff started bringing gloves to work, and tried to type with their gloves on.
There were other problems with the building. There was an elevator in the building. This would normally have been a complete disaster, but there was *some* separation of the electrical systems, along the same lines as the thermostat, where the front half wasn't directly connected to the back half. In those dim and distant bygone days, most people were not aware of the need to separate electrical systems for digital and computer technology from the electrical systems used for other purposes, and particularly for heavy electrical motors. As noted, there was some separation of the two electrical systems, but not completely. Soon I was replacing the main board for the IBM terminals on a fairly regular basis. I would report to IBM that another terminal had gone down, they would put the board for the terminal into a taxi and send it off. I, having taken the board out of the terminal by the time the taxi arrived, would exchange the dead board for the new board, and then go in and install the board into the terminal. I really do not know why IBM felt that it was more cost-effective to continually be replacing the boards for the terminal, rather than reading the management of the organization the riot act, and getting them to put in either surge suppressors, or to install a properly grounded and separated electrical system for the computers.
I was there over Christmas, and, of course, there was an office Christmas party. Being a charity, this Christmas party was perhaps a bit tamer than most. There was some kind of a gift function, and I remember that I received one of those cartoon organization charts that showed all kinds of positions and managers with weird titles, the reporting lines all flowing down to one worker: me. I posted that on my door, and invited everyone in the staff to pick what they figured their job position was and to sign their name to that position on the cartoon.
For some reason, a newly minted MBA had decided to come to work for this organization. The ink was still wet on his degree. And this was back in the early days of the MBA programs, when a great many schools were throwing together MBA programs without much attention being paid to the needs of management or administration. I recall that one of the spots in the org chart was for a "no talent good looks management trainee." Personally I thought that this fit him to a tee, but, of course, I said nothing to indicate what position I thought he might fill in the organization. Somewhat to my astonishments, that was, in fact, this spot that he chose to sign his name. I rather suspect that he thought that it was more ironic than I did.
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