I started working in the computer industry in January of 1990. I worked for a small but up and coming computer manufacturer named ALR (Advanced Logic Research) After spending a full year helping with marketing it became clear marketing was fun but knowing how a computer works was even more fun. The passion to understand and solve any problem was born.
I then moved into a floor sales position with a company by the name of Entré computers. This gave me the chance to understand not only how to market computer hardware but also what it takes to make a computer run. Thus began my quest to build my first computer this was a 286-12mhz with 1 whole megabyte of memory and a 20 megabyte hard drive.
My first lesson in working on computers.
Because much of what I had to create my new computer with was actually OLD parts. the Motherboard was used the hard drive was used. things like the case, video card, power supply and floppy all where new so away I went building and then loading dos 3.3 and along comes a super tech from our sister store and insists I needed a utility to defrag my hard drive. Well after he loaded and started the program it locked up in the middle of its operation and all was lost. Dos was gone the partition was wiped. The good news I just loaded it. The bad news back then loading DOS could take as long as 20-30 minutes. It was at that point I realized I had little desire to have anyone work on my computer.
Having some sales background I was able to make a living selling computers. I had a primary conflict with the service department. They charged every customer $60.00 *1991 dollars, for setup of dos. I thought this was outrageous and began loading DOS on the systems myself and offering that as an incentive to purchase from me. Well service would not allow this as this was their bread and butter. So onward and upward.
I then found a company that allowed me to grow in better understanding of the computer industry from the brokers perspective. Now adding to my manufacturing/marketing experience and sales and budding tech experience. I delved into the world of chips. I did all the grunt work you could imagine from pulling thousands of 64k memory chips to straightening legs to re-tubing the product. I also learned more than you could imagine on through hole, surface mounts and many other types of chips and manufacturing. My company was now into reclaiming old chips to build new memory boards in the mean time I was happily working towards building and configuring all systems my company needed for running their business. The company expanded and a we moved into a facility which included a store front which quickly became a nice source of income for our company. As the sales grew the needs of the company grew and my first experience with networking (Novell 3.1). I setup, configured and maintained my company's network for several years. All this time again I'm able to work with almost every type of available pc hardware and software. I was able to learn and master dos 3.3,-5.0 and of course up to 6.22 the last version released by Microsoft.
In 1995 Windows ushered in a new era which opened a new door for our company "SERVICE" most computers up to this point were installed in the users location and did not require constant service. However with Windows now there was always something to fix : ) I continued to learn and master the windows OS through to windows 98 when I finally stepped out on my own for the first time.
This was the scariest time for me as I had never worked on my own before. I lasted about 1.5yrs then I got a "real job" where I worked for a software training company. I figured what the heck I've been using computers for 10yrs and considered I would receive the chance to educate myself further in software. I spent the first year traveling all over southern California this is where I also became one with my motorcycle as I would not have been able to do well in this job with out it. You see on time is paramount in the training industry if your late you've lost so being a life long rider this I thought was perfect.
After over a year on the road I was offered a promotion to management. I was promoted to Training Manager and would work hand in hand with the Operations Manager. My duties generally required me to hire on average 2-3 new instructors per month train them and insure they were prepared to hit the classroom. Other duties included scheduling all instructors dealing with late, unprepared instructors, instructors not wanting to go to certain sites because it was to far or they didn't like the rules of the location and so on and so on. The company I worked for was about to have a bomb dropped on them and I didn't realize at the time but I was about the save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars and save the owners from possibly loosing their business. Here's what happened.
The Sales manager had been best bud's with the VP of the company (Daddy's boy) yes it was a family owned and operated business. Well the Sales Manager did well early in his career but was slipping in the numbers. Due to the nature of the business, sell a class, schedule a class, run the class and only then actually bill the class. Billing the class at the end was the only way of doing business at that time. The company sold classes on a one class at a time or they would bid for contracts or simply offer to be the sole provider of training for a government agency or private company such as Oakley, Disneyland or Cedars Sinai Medical center. The contracts was the area of issue. These companies would set a calendar for each month then if they had enough students they would run the class. If not they would cancel the class with in the allotted 3 day period and would not be charged the class. If they did not cancel for some reason they would be billed this is where the problem began. Little did I know at the time no physical record of the class being ordered was being kept. They would process the classes put them on the schedule and throw out the copies of the authorized PO's showing the classes and dates. The SM was supposed to keep a record of this. He was not only NOT keeping these records he was also not canceling classes on time. To make matters worse he would put classes on the schedule with out a company ordering so the billing handled by the boss which also was the VP's Dad would actually bill the company with fake authorizations. The boss had no clue the classes where not being held or were not authorized but he just billed away. By the time it was said and done I was told over a quarter million dollars where miss billed over the course of a year or more.
Now the SM was handling 100k per month of business and was managing the largest accounts. The specifics are unclear to me because the family most often kept everything a mystery but early along I started keeping copies of the class requests as I was responsible for putting them on the schedule I wanted a record of where the information came from. This would be key in saving the company. As the issue came to light the first thing they looked for is an accurate accounting of what classes should and should not have been billed. With out any copies of the signed authorizations or very few of them when each client got the letter from the company's lawyer informing them of the billing issue they all required proof before they would pay for any further classes and also threatened to sue if the over billed classes where not paid back immediately. The SM had very few of the authorizations but because I was making copies for my records I had everyone that I processed from the start of my management position. We were able to justify over a half million dollars of billable classes because of the proof I had. Not only that, I had to go back 1 full year pull all evaluations from the classes to again prove that not only did they order the class, many were claiming they canceled classes and were wrongly billed but t hat the classes actually happened. I spent almost 2 months working on this comparing invoices to the schedule and locating the evaluations for each of the hundreds of classes. After the smoke cleared the company lost several major accounts and was knocked back for 1/4 of a million. Not to mention the sales manager was fired of course. This left the VP to run the sales team.
As an outgoing person I was offered the promotion to Sales Manager which oddly enough made me the 2nd highest ranking Manager LOL there were only 2 managers, 1 VP and Mommy and Daddy. I took the job spent the next year rebuilding the sales team several times because when the SM quit and the VP took over the rest of the 4 salesmen quit. With in 4 months I landed the largest order the company had seen in over 3yrs 80k and shortly after landed the County of Orange as a new account. I then was successful in renewing the contract with the City of LA and several other major deals.
Here's the kicker, I was very frustrated with the fact that NOTHING the VP said actually happened other than I worked my ass off for them and put the company ahead of my family something I will never do again. With the new contract being 5yrs and the renewed contract being 3yrs we had enough business to hold us up for a bit. So how is this rewarded? UNEMPLOYMENT, I was supposedly laid off the VP took over the 2 salesmen I was managing and offered me to return to teaching. I tried to do this but the Operations Manager who had been under me for 2yrs even though he had time seniority on me was now my boss. He was my best friend when he worked for me but was the biggest dick in the world to work for as he was now taking direction from the VP only.
This lasted a very short time and the straw that broke the camels back was when on payday which was once a month he (Op mgr) disappeared at 5pm when I was to come in for my paycheck. One of the issues was being paid once a month and on the 10th to boot I had bills paid I needed to cover (don't we all ). Then he tells his assistant who called him on his cell phone that the checks had been mailed. In 3yrs working for the company I NEVER had a check mailed. So I called the VP into it and found out low and behold Mommy had come by at 2pm and picked up all the checks to mail them. Then VP calls Mommy and they get the check and finally get it to me at 6:45pm so banks are closed and 6 items bounce in my checking account. I was livid not to mention even more broke now because of the 150 dollars in bounced check charges and got even more mad when I noticed that the envelope that was supposed to be "in the mail and there's nothing we can do about it" a few hours earlier, had NO STAMP. They had no intention of sending the checks out until the next day. Here's the biggest problem, when I presented my overage charges the Op Manager denied my reimbursement and said it was MY FAULT that I didn't get my check in time. He tried to say I wasn't there at 5pm but it was he who wasn't there. Then Id out he didn't tell the big boss. Then he told the big boss but again lied about the facts of the situation. I explained to him one more time in writing and strongly suggested he forward the info to the boss. Shortly there after I received an email saying all losses would be covered. Once I got the check for that I have never spoken with the company again. Now I'm back on my own using the training and experience I got working for Soft-Train Inc.