Later that year I had a job with an interesting company that was involved with satellite communications for the trucking industry. This particular company sold a piece of software, that had originally been intended only as a sales tool, for the sales people from either the satellite company itself, or the two different companies that made the units that were installed in the actual trucks. The units in the trucks would do very short text messages to communicate through satellite communications links to the satellite company, which the trucking company headquarters would then be able to query for information about where their trucks were, based on Loran location data, and for these short messages. Shortly after I joined the company there was an incident where the device, because of the ability to get a message to headquarters and have an ambulance and medical response team dispatched to the location of the truck, actually saved someone's life. All of us at this particular company felt very good about this event, and being part of such an important tool.
One of the first things that the company did, was dispatch me, along with another employee who had with been with the company for much longer, on a tour of some of the trucking company headquarters which had purchased the system. This was to give me some familiarity with both the industry, the types of companies that I would be dealing with, and the types of issues that they had with the software.
Apparently, all, or it seemed almost all, trucking companies were headquartered in the deep South. This trip took place in February, and in Vancouver we were having a bit of a cold snap . So, I showed up at the airport with one of the warmest things that I own, a sheepskin jacket. The other employee laughed at me, noting that we were going to the deep South, and that a sheepskin jacket would be much too warm and heavy to wear where we were going.
We landed in Mississippi. In the midst of a cold snap. It was, if possible, even colder than it had been in Vancouver. The hotel where we were booked had had the furnace give up and die, because it had never had such a demand placed on it. The next morning we headed out to see the first of the companies that we were supposed to visit. Me in my sheepskin jacket, and him in a suit jacket. The taxi dropped us at the location and left. The office wasn't open yet. We were standing in a parking lot, outside the office, near puddles that were completely frozen solid. I made some comment about how nice it was to be in the warm and sunny deep south. "Shut up," he told me.
I was basically doing technical support. I was fielding calls from the people in the headquarters of the trucking companies, when they had an issue with the with our software. The company's office was in Richmond, directly under the flight path for Vancouver International Airport. We got used to the fact that jets were taking off directly over top of our building. But occasionally, on the phone with somebody from Texas, a jet would thunder overhead. I wouldn't notice, but the person on the phone would wonder what the [epithet deleted] was that? Oh, I'd say, probably a 727. (727 are extremely noisy aircraft.)
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/05/mgg-5-hwyd-lawyer-joke.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/05/mgg-517-hwyd-10000-system-15-cable.html
No comments:
Post a Comment