Jun 21

Friday Five: Living spaces

Posted on June 21, 2002 by Pat Berry

I’ve noticed that my answers to the Friday Five are rather lopsided; I typically write short answers to four of the questions, but ramble on at great length in response to the other one. This week’s answers are no different.
1. Do you live in a house, an apartment or a condo? House. (Answers don’t get much shorter than that, folks.)
2. Do you rent or own? After being renters for many years, Marie and I finally bought a house four years ago.
3. Does anyone else live with you? Marie and our two children.
4. How many times have you moved in your life? I would have to ask my parents to be sure about the moves I experienced before the age of five. I was born in Thibodaux, Louisiana, but I know that we moved to Texas before my sister was born. I think we lived in at least two places in Texas (my parents have mentioned Bryan and College Station), and I suppose it’s possible we lived in more than one place in Louisiana prior to that.
My coherent memories begin after we moved back to Louisiana, this time to the town of Monroe in the northern part of the state. At first we lived in a rental house on College Avenue, but that was only for a year or two while our new house was being built on Lionel Street. We lived there for about five years before moving to Rock Hill, South Carolina, where my parents bought the house on Guilford Road in which they are still living today.
In college, I changed dorm rooms several time, but I don’t count those transitions as moves because no furniture or other big stuff was involved, just my clothes and books. So the first real move after that was when Marie and I got married and moved into our first home in Carolina Gardens, one of the Family Housing sites for students at the University of South Carolina. We lived there for two years and then moved off campus to a smaller place at Westbridge Apartments, across the river in West Columbia. No sooner did we move into a smaller place than Marie got pregnant, so we moved again a year later to a larger apartment at a complex called Forestbrook (even farther west, in Springdale). It was from there that we moved to North Carolina a year later.
In North Carolina, we actually lived in Raleigh for a year, renting an apartment just inside the Beltline at Sumter Square on Jones Franklin Road. After that we rented a house on Glen Bonnie Lane in Cary, but the owner sold it after one year, forcing us to move. We found another rental house on Wyatt’s Pond Lane and ended up living there for nine years, until finally buying our current house in Holly Springs.
I believe that adds up to twelve moves for me. (I suppose I could have made this my shortest answer answer ever by just writing “12” and skipping all the details, but what fun is that?)
5. What are your plans for this weekend? At the moment, I have none.

Jun 21

Exit strategies

Posted on June 21, 2002 by Pat Berry

This was my last week as an IBM employee. With my termination date just days away, it was time to wrap up my affairs and leave.
I had started cleaning out my desk late last week by going through my file folders and discarding most of the material there, with just a few documents set aside to take home. There were several plastic shopping bags in one drawer, so I began taking my stuff home one bag at a time. By Wednesday of this week, the shopping bags were all gone, so I used the paper box that I saved back in April to take home the last load, which included a couple of larger items (such as my Star Wars wall calendar and the sweater that had hung on the back of my office door). By Thursday morning, there was nothing left in my drawers but IBM’s office supplies, and nothing on the desktop except the computer hardware and my thermal mug, which would stay until the bitter end.
On Thursday, I took a shopping bag to work containing the duplicate docking station and power supply for my ThinkPad that I had used to work from home. These were IBM property, and I returned them. I spent the morning deleting my files from the ThinkPad and uninstalling applications, leaving it in as generic a state as possible for the next user. I also logged on to IBM’s asset management system and did an official asset transfer of the ThinkPad to my manager — he would be responsible for it after my departure.
Friday was my last day. (It was also the summer solstice, suggesting that the layoff was actually a ritual sacrifice of some sort.) I dressed for the occasion: black shoes and crew socks, black slacks with a black leather belt, and a black IBM E-Business logo polo shirt, topped off with a black IBM baseball cap with blue trim. At the office, I spent an hour or so doing a final cleanup of the ThinkPad, deleting all my e-mail and browser bookmarks, and uninstalling AOL Instant Messenger (the simplest way to remove my Buddy List from the machine). While I still had access to IBM’s internal employee directory, I wrote down the e-mail and phone numbers of anyone at IBM I might conceivably want to get in touch with. (Prior to last May, if I needed to contact an IBM employee, I just called Bob and had him look up the information. Can’t do that any more.)
The other members of my team had taken the day off or were working from home, and I had already said my goodbyes over the last several days anyway. There was nothing left to do but meet with Cliff (my manager) to complete the exit process. I locked my desk, locked (but left open) my office door, and went to Cliff’s office. I turned over my ThinkPad to him, along with my desk and office keys, the Diners Club card IBM had issued me (which I never used), and my badge. He had me sign a few documents, gave me copies, and then handed me checks for my severance pay and unused vacation pay. I went back to my office to pick up my briefcase and thermal mug, closed the door for the last time, and rejoined Cliff so that he could escort me out.
In the parking lot, he wished me luck, asked me to keep in touch, and shook my hand before we parted company. Cliff returned to his office to continue his day at work, and I drove away to begin the next phase of my career: unemployed ex-IBMer.

Jun 17

Success story

Posted on June 17, 2002 by Pat Berry

Tonight I attended the June meeting of TAPIT, the Palm user group that I belong to. One of the people there thanked me for telling her about the Palm program I use to keep track of Weight Watchers points. She said that, thanks to me, she has lost thirty-six and a half pounds over the last year. Of course I don’t deserve the credit for her achievement; I’ve told numerous people how I accomplished my own weight loss, but few of them have been inspired to follow my example. Still, I’m delighted to hear that I was able to help. It’s nice to learn, once in a while, that you’ve made a difference in someone’s life.

Jun 17

Heck of a commute

Posted on June 17, 2002 by Pat Berry

I ran across this job opening today. I don’t think I would have much trouble qualifying for it. Too bad it’s in Moscow.

Jun 16

Never mind

Posted on June 16, 2002 by Pat Berry

In an earlier entry, I said that I would be posting my job search journal here. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that, because it’s not possible. My job search journal is a day-by-day record of phone calls made, e-mails sent and received, resumes submitted online or mailed, and so forth. In other words, it’s full of the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of people I’ve contacted, and I can’t post that information on a Web page without their knowledge or permission. So I’m keeping my journal in a paper notebook, just like in previous job hunts. I’ll certainly post updates here when something significant happens, like an interview, but so far it’s just been networking (contacting acquaintances by phone or e-mail to let them know I’m hunting, and to ask them to keep their ears open for leads) and submitting resumes online or via e-mail. I’ve responded to some specific job postings at the sites listed on the right side of this page, but my main focus right now is getting my resume into the hands of recruiters or managers who might be looking for a technical writer at some point in the future.
Deciding to turn this blog into an online job search journal was a mistake, because it resulted in paralysis. I couldn’t post contact information, and I didn’t want to just document the emotional aspect of the job search on a day-to-day basis, because that would be both tedious and depressing. Consequently, I ended up posting basically nothing for several weeks. So I’m going to go back to writing about other things unless I have some actual job-related news to report.

Jun 15

Friday Five: Laundry

Posted on June 15, 2002 by Pat Berry

Looking at Ben’s blog, I was startled to see that the Friday Five has begun appearing again. I had more or less given up on it. Well, I’m a day late, but I’ll answer this week’s questions; it seems as good a way of any to break the Blogger’s Block that’s been plaguing me for weeks.
1. How often do you do laundry? About once a week. Typically, what triggers a laundry cycle is a complaint that someone is about to run out of underwear.
2. What’s in a typical wash load? I’m doing laundry for a family of four, so there’s a great deal of stuff to wash. As a result, there is no such thing as a “typical” load; I sort clothes into whites, light colors, bright colors, dark colors, reds, jeans, underwear, and linens (bedclothes and towels). Most of these are one load each, but the lights, brights, and darks typically produce two loads, and sometimes the jeans do so as well. Lately, I’ve started separating black clothes from the other dark-colored ones, since there is enough for a full load of each. I’m not sure why the volume of black clothing has increased in recent months, but it probably has to do with having two teenagers in the house. Reds and underwear are not full loads, but have to be washed separately; I usually combine them in the dryer. Whites can sometimes be combined with some of the light colors, but that means they get washed in warm water instead of cold. (I try to wash as few partial loads as possible, to save electricity, but some of them are unavoidable.)
I have sixteen laundry baskets (Ultra Laundry Baskets from Sterilite, in every color I’ve been able to find), but usually four or five of those are unavailable when I start sorting, because they’re still sitting in people’s rooms full of clean clothes from the previous laundry cycle, waiting to be folded and put away. Washing and drying a dozen loads takes a whole weekend day, or several weekday evernings.
Yes, I’m a laundry geek.
3. Front or top loader? Powder or liquid detergent? Like most Americans, I’ve never even seen a front-loading washer. And I use two powdered detergents: Tide with Bleach for the underwear (to sterilize it, and I spray the basket with Lysol afterward), and Cheer with Liquifiber for everything else. Whites, linens, and underwear get washed in hot water, light colors in warm, and everything else in cold. (Actually, if the outside temperature is below 60, I use warm instead of cold. Water colder than 60 doesn’t dissolve the detergent properly.)
4. Do you use fabric softener in the rinse cycle? No. My family seems pretty indifferent to whether softener is used, so I don’t bother. I use softener sheets in the dryer during the winter months, but that’s to control static electricity.
5. Dryer or clothesline? Dryer. We currently have an electric dryer, which was purchased when we lived in an all-electric house. Our current house has gas, but it isn’t piped up to the laundry room, so future dryers will probably also be electric unless we determine that a gas dryer would save us a lot of money.
If it sounds like I do all of the laundry, that’s not the case. I wash and dry everything, but Marie sorts the clean laundry, and everyone is responsible for folding or hanging up their own clothes.

May 23

Gone with the wind

Posted on May 23, 2002 by Pat Berry

I started updating my résumé. The only version of it that exists at the moment is a Web page that includes links to the companies I’ve worked for (and some other relevant organizations like the STC chapter I was once president of). This HTML résumé is actually a leftover from my last job search a year ago, but it gives me something to start with. I’ll undoubtedly want to create a PDF version as well.

Since I haven’t looked at it for the last year, I thought I should test all the links to make sure they were still valid. And I discovered that one of them was not: the Web site of Pliant Systems, the company that I worked for from February 1993 to March 1996, is gone. And when I did some digging, I discovered that the company is gone as well. It went bankrupt last July.

When I started work there in ’93, the company was a small startup called BroadBand Technologies. It was located in leased office space at One Park Center on Miami Boulevard, at the edge of RTP. A few months after I joined them, the company (which was expanding rapidly) moved to a much larger office complex on Stirrup Drive (off Miami Boulevard just a short distance away). The One Park Center space that we vacated was taken over by Bell & Howell, and I believe both Virgil and Miles worked there before B&H moved to other quarters. Today that space looks like this; the lack of a permanent sign suggests that it continues to serve as temporary quarters for companies that are making more permanent arrangements elsewhere.

By the time I left for Alcatel in ’96, the company was struggling. BroadBand had a innovative technology for transporting large amounts of data over optic fiber, but they never did figure out exactly how they wanted to market it, or to whom. At first they tried to sell it as a means of providing video-on-demand services to cable TV companies, but trials of that concept never generated much interest. Customers just didn’t want it. Later, the technology was presented as a means of providing broadband Internet connectivity, or distance learning capability, or DSL.

This is a classic management error in high-tech companies dominated by engineering types: they devote a lot of money and time to developing a new technology, assuming (without actually doing any market research) that there will be a demand for it. Eventually, the new technology is ready, the products begin to roll off the assembly line — and the company realizes that it has to find someone to sell them to.

Unfortunately, BroadBand never found the market it needed. After I left the company, it fell on hard times. The stock price plummeted, and after being delisted from NASDAQ, the company changed its name to Pliant Systems. The last time I checked the pliantsystems.com Web site (in April 2001), it was still operational. When the company imploded, I was no longer in touch with anyone still working there, and I didn’t hear about it.

On my way home, I stopped by the Pliant headquarters to see if I could find any trace. The space formerly occupied by the company stands vacant; the owner is renovating it in the hope of finding a new tenant. A Pliant sign is still visible on the outside of the building that it shared with Marconi.

But the Pliant name has been removed from the parking lot sign. If you look closely, though, you can clearly see where the names “BroadBand Technologies, Inc.” and “Pliant Systems” used to be.

I worked for another small startup company, Millidyne Inc., in 1990. Today that company is also gone without a trace. And while Alcatel is still in business, the Raleigh site where I worked is a mere shadow of what it was in 1996, and I won’t be at all surprised if it closes. I seem to be leaving a trail of devastation behind me as I wander from company to company. Am I the Typhoid Mary of Research Triangle Park?

May 23

Logopolis

Posted on May 23, 2002 by Pat Berry

This blog’s original name, Scribings, was inspired by the Scribe Scroll feat in D&D. The word literally means “writings,” but it also suggests writing in a deliberate and careful fashion, as you would do if you were creating a scroll. (In 3rd Edition, one cannot create a scroll in less than a day, so it’s definitely a painstaking and time-consuming task.)
That’s what the name was supposed to communicate, but it has failed. When people mention this site to me in conversation, they almost always pronounce it “Scribblings.” I wince when I hear that, because it means rushed, sloppy writing — the exact opposite of what I had in mind. I’ve been thinking of changing the layout of the site anyway, so I may as well rename it at the same time.
“Logopolis” means “city of words.” I borrowed it from a classic Doctor Who episode that first aired in 1981 (it’s the last one in which Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor, appeared). The new look of this page is the result of applying a template called Block Head, courtesy of BlogSkins.com.
Historical note: Block Head only lasted until February 2003, when I changed the template again. I ditched the name “Logopolis” in May 2007.

May 22

Double whammy

Posted on May 22, 2002 by Pat Berry

I found out that I had been laid off at about 10:00 this morning, when my manager called me into his office to break the news. As readers of this blog know, I had been half expecting it, but finding out was still a shock.
The first thing I did, once I got back to my office, was to try to contact Marie and let her know. But she was working at the front desk, and thus wasn’t reachable by phone or AIM. I left her an instant message to call me on my mobile phone and went to Bob’s office to inform him of what had happened. I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but I had to tell someone. After a few minutes, I decided to go see the outplacement counselors that IBM had brought in for laid-off employees to talk to. They gave me an overview of the services they’re offering (skills assessment, resume development, interviewing tips, that kind of thing) and signed me up for a three-day seminar that starts Friday. While I was talking to the counselor, my phone rang; it was Marie, and I broke the news to her. She was shaken, of course, but recovered quickly. (We’ve been through this before.)
When I got back to my office, I looked through IBM’s internal job posting database. Nothing suitable presented itself. Marie IMed to tell me that Denise had seen a position listed on SAS’s jobs database. As I began looking at the SAS Web site to see if I could find it, Bob appeared in my doorway, looking distraught. He had just been informed by his manager that he was laid off too, and he was in deep shock.
It was lunchtime, and getting away from IBM seemed like a good thing to do. We went to Chick-fil-A in Durham and talked the situation over. At this point we’re both still just coming to grips with the news, so we didn’t do any actual planning or anything like that. (Bob can write about his reactions in his own blog, if he wishes.)
We got back to IBM at 2:00, and I ended up leaving, with my manager’s approval, at 3:00. As luck would have it, one of our regular family counseling sessions with Cheryl (Ruth’s therapist) was scheduled for tonight. Marie and Ben arrived home shortly after I did, and we picked Ruth up from her school and went to dinner at a cafeteria, where I broke the news to Ruth and Ben. They took it amazingly well, saying that they were sure I would find another job because I’m good at that. (I sure hope they’re right.) Then we went to see Cheryl. I won’t go into detail about what we discussed with her, but the subject of my job loss certainly came up.
The tone of this post is very strange: it’s too clinical and detached. I should be describing my emotional reactions here, but I’m not very sure what they are. Some shock and worry, but I feel oddly calm about the whole thing. Either the full significance of the day’s events hasn’t hit me yet, or I’ve been through this routine too many times before.
The last couple of times I was laid off, I started a job hunt journal, as a way of maintaining a record of networking, job leads, resumes sent, interviews, and so forth. I’m going to do the same thing this time, but my journal will be here at this blog. Stay tuned for further developments.