8/11/2004 at 10:00am
wednesday
i am feeling old
i am still working on my carpal tunnel. day in and day out. i did take a small break over the weekend. went to a bbq, hung out with friends, searched for a new pair of shoes...to no avail.
in the news - online shopping turns 10, has it been that long? i remember it like it was yesterday. my first "official" job in the online world was here in san luis with a local isp (i already was doing web design for businesses on my own). but i wanted to be in the mix. learn how the guts of the internet work on someone else's dime. all the high end tech junk that i would probably never see until it was obsolete.
i had a friend who worked at the grid and setup an interview with the owner (the quickest one i have ever had - 'you know about computers?' 'yeah' 'you like to surf the web?' 'yeah' 'you good at troubleshooting?' 'yeah' 'do you like aol?' 'no?'. i meant no! but then again i never used it).
when i was hired there were only 5 other techs and 2 managers/owners and the 2 sys-admins. i was employee number 6. the office was a small 700 square foot building. they converted the upstairs loft into the modem room. about 60 us robotics 33k modems stacked on top of one another held steady with duct tape. all plugged into a port replecator. the high tech stuff was just that, everyday things you could buy on your own, plugged into a box, that plugged into a computer, that plugged into a t1 line. the accounts were exploding. everyone was going crazy about the interent. signing up by the minute. all over the county, then all over the state. and soon all over the west.
once the company began this massive expansion they relocated into a building 4 times the size of this little shack. just down the road. that is when the big equipment came in. endless amounts of equipment, from endless streams of money, while we were given the rations from the payroll fund. the help. all these crazy toys...and looking back on it, were they really necessary? who knows...
and then the news hit...surf the web at twice the speed. x2 technology (56k modems) came out. all the rage. you see the phone company always said that the copper residential lines could only handle up to 33k. so when this new technology came out we were on top of it...bought the two competing technologies (x2 and flex56) so customers who bought either modem could connect to our network. we had to hire more support to handle the flood of calls for the few people who wanted to sign up and the masses who needed their computers fixed. 56k was a migraine. people couldn't connect at 56k. it was rare to connect at 50k (which in small print on the modem boxes was the fact that the phone company only allowed a 53k connection). it was all hype and marketing. most of the tech calls were ended with having the phone company test the customer's phone line or buying a 'line conditioner' at radio shack. a nightmare...we all hated seeing that damn flahing light on the control board meaning a customer had been transfered to us. the board was always lit up.
it was an amazing time as i look back on it. fun.
i learned about the backbone technology of the internet; loved the fact you could search for anything; learned how to play quake projected on the conference room wall against the world; found out where to download these music files called mp3s (yes way before napster); bought books online even though it was faster to walk to the bookstore; read complete stranger's life stories; always watched the coffee web cam because, at the time, it was way cool. but i also worked. i did a ton of troubleshooting and support to help these everyday people connect to this thing called the web. you know those emails you get with the worst horror stories about people calling up for tech support? like thinking the cd rom tray is a coffee cup holder. those are 100% true. i had a lady think her power strip was her modem but after 55 minutes on the phone i found out she didn't have a modem at all. see these are funny to those outside the support realm, but those who have spent hours and hours trying to help someone with a hopeless problem...know how white their knuckles can get when they clinch their fists in frustration. 'sir, please hold'...
it was a great experience, i still talk with some of my co workers, some of whom are in a related field, while others will create a beautiful landscape for your million dollar home by the bay. we all laugh at the humble beginnings...good and bad.
