First Day

I'm up at 6AM and driving to the Oakland airport, boarding a Southwest flight to Burbank airport. I was told to fly there because its and easy airport to get in and out of. This turns out to be true as the plane front and rear doors both open and the plane empties out quickly. Car pickup is fast and I'm off driving to the first of three (or was it four) customers' sites that day.

The first customer was in Simi Valley and I am driving and looking at my printed directions at the same time. This was pre GPS or always on internet connections, which is to say this was just a few years ago. The only thing I know about Simi Valley is that is where OJ was tried or some such thing and is supposed to be a more conservative area of Southern California. I get to the auto repair shop and ask for the owner by name. In the back of my mind I'm expecting a racist to show up which I remind myself is a pretty racist thought by itself. He comes out in a hurry, not tall but heavy. Not new heavy. Sustained heavy. He has no idea why I am there but says the last time someone from my company visited that they broke his printer and glad I'm there so I can fix it. I have no idea what he's talking about. I tell him I'd be happy to help and the other reason why I'm there. He takes me to the operations room of the shop which resembles a narrow closet. Or a coffin with a door. Inside is his operations manager also known as his wife. Sustained heavy. I am plopped in front of a computer running vintage MSDOS and some custom management software. No USB, no network, no CD/DVD drive. Luckily I have a floppy disk. I install the software and run it and have no idea if it worked. I call the home office and they also have no real idea so we try a few more times. Then it seems to work. I work on the printer a bit but could not figure out what was wrong with it. On my way out he asks me about the printer and does not seem too concerned that I didn't fix it and it dawns on me he might have been trying to get some free IT support. I learned later he wasn't yet a paying customer of ours.

My second stop was in the heart of LA if there is such of thing. I really have no idea where I was but that's where the printed directions took me. It was definitely urban and I had to circle the block to find a parking spot. The shop was much, much bigger than the one in Simi Valley, maybe 16 bays with lots of activity. I found someone who found someone who found someone who knew vaguely why I was there. He asked me how Anne was and why she didn't come this trip. I had no idea who Anne was but I said she was great and side stepped his question about why she didn't come. As it turned out, Anne was quite a bit prettier than me. Then the guy turned me over to his support guy who led me upstairs to the operations area. Note "area" not room. It was a large open space on the second floor of the shop with plenty of space, desks, computers and what not. I was planted in front of the computer and the support guy told me not to do that thing Anne did when she visited and then he left. I said no problem which was easy enough because I had no idea what Anne did. I installed the software I needed to and got the process going. It was at this time that the support guy came running up the stairs and yelling "hey, I told you not to do what Anne did!". Ooops. Apparently our software caused the software they used to look up parts, order them, write invoices, and what not to freeze.

After escaping the second shop I was on my way to the third shop. Time wise I thought I was ok and able to hit my 6pm flight out of John Wayne Airport back to Oakland. Then I reached the 405. Inch by inch I made my way through LA. I called the shop and told them I would be a little bit late. They had no idea I was coming and told me they did not mind if I didn't come at all. There was a woman in the car in front of me and from her rear view mirror I could see she had a pretty face. At least until she turned up her mirror at the ceiling. Need to learn not to stare.

A few hours later I was at the airport having given up on the final shop. Ready to board the plan and listening to my mp3 player I lost my boarding pass.

This was my first day on a job eight years ago, the CEOs idea of a test, me being too naïve to figure that out and as happy as a lark when the day ended.