warrin with an i

  GBS 2 – I Ain't Good at Faking I was a computer programmer in Silicon Valley. Computers were still a new industry. Many things were being done for the first time, guidelines and standards lagged behind and were sometimes developed on the spot. Everyone was sort of inventing the wheel but not all those wheels were round. C ompared to my friends I was making good money but my job at General business Systems (GBS) did not pay well (starting salary was $800 a month) by computer programmer standards. Surprisingly the company had a lot of great people in it. There was a real family atmosphere. Due to the type of programming (no structure, no standards or guidelines) people's programming styles and skills were all over the map. Many of the programs were a mess. It was interesting and sometimes maddening trying to figure out other people's logic/thinking . Not everyone is good at logic and being good at logic is essential to being a good programmer. Many people (those...

Joining the Fray My first programming job out of college was with General Business Systems (GBS) located in Burlingame. Burlingame is just south of San Francisco on the north side of Silicon Valley. It was the fall of 1978 and this was my first professional/career job. I had lots of jobs before this one of course. My first job was working on a farm stand. I'd worked retail, worked on the stock market, drove a delivery truck, worked in a bakery factory and in an electrical warehouse. I also worked at an elementary school and a bike shop while in college. And oh yeah, I also did a little over 3 years in the Air Force repairing navigation systems. But this was my first real career type job. I was always a hard worker, even in the Air Force, but this was the first time I was in what I considered a professional job. I was about to step into a place where I had never pictured myself. In the movies newly hired staff with little or, in my case, no real experience started out ...