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I went to work for Distributed Media Systems in July of 96. I had just moved from Dallas to Austin and after one month without finding a design job, I decided to return to the tech industry.
It was a good position, administrator of a small office network, and though it didn't pay well, it paid better than waiting tables. DMS consisted of a ten to twelve office workers supporting forty or so technicians out in the field. They primarily served school districts and hospitals installing proprietary networks like fire alarms and smoke detectors.
It was cushy to be office staff. You didnt have to drive half across the great state of Texas just to get to the job site. Besides maintaining a 20 node LAN didn't take 40 hours, even in those days. I spent most of my time trying to figure out why Excel wouldnt print and reading technical manuals.
The only problem with working in the office was Tom. Tom was founder, owner, president, and god of creation rolled into a 400 lbs exterior. He was nice enough when he wasn't on your ass, but he was always on someone's ass. He was the antithesis of a good boss. Everything took five times as long when he was around because the project goal and scope were changed so frequently that it was easier to not do anything and wait till he decided that was what he wanted.
Tom was a permanent structure in the office. Bruce was the other owner, a gruff technician type that spent most of his time in the field. My mantra through my excruciating time there was, "It's their company. They can run it however they want."
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I left as soon as I possibly could, as every intelligent employee did, but the nail in the coffin was a conversation with Larry. Larry was second in command in the field. He was one of the original five people that started the company. Larry was the only person in the company that I had any respect for. He was the only field manager that didn't screw up every job, and he never complained.
One day during a smoke break behind the office Larry complained. Apparently his truck had broken down, and he asked Tom to pay for the repairs. He used the truck everyday driving upwards of 100 miles to job sites. For all intent and purpose it was a company vehicle. Tom refused. Larry's complaints were understated, but the phrase that stuck in my mind was, "You'd think after 15 years they would learn to treat their employees right."
His idea of being treated "right" was obviously based on some common-sense notion of loyalty, but it seemed both sentimental and just. The entire company structure had been fundamentally build on "good ole boy" comradery, but somehow it lacked a southern civility.
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Even after I left I would get a call from Tom now and again. His wife was a very short, energetic elderly women that ran a small real estate business. Tom would have me come over and help her understand her computer.
As my salary increased so would my hourly rate, but at that point Tom liked me and he would pay whatever I asked him to. He stopped yelling at me. In fact, he started treated me better than he ever treated Larry. Maybe for that reason, maybe because I never forgot how he treated me in the early days, I eventually stopped returning his phone calls.
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5 years later I returned to Distributed Media Systems for one last visit. The office has moved further out into the suburbs. The company had been bought and Tom had been fired.
The phone call was very strange. Apparently, Syn Werk had purchased DMS some time back and had recently filed for bankruptcy. Larry assured me several times that I would get paid. "Chapter 11," he said, "just means a restructuring of the company," and that since it was past the bankruptcy file date I would get paid, "whatever I charged."
The whole thing sounded like some kind of legal scam to me, but it seemed like I was on the inside of it. I didn't really need the money, and Larry practically begged me to come. So I went.
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The problem itself was beyond inane. It was the same problem that I was fixing five years ago. It was the kind of thing my friends did for fun over beers on Friday night. They just needed a Windows machine reformatted, but this was beyond the scope of anyone they had on staff.
The issue was that their entire industry had migrated to the PC platform. Fire alarms, nurse call, and smoke detector systems had previously been run on small computers that were completely dedicated to running those systems. There was little that one could call an operating system. Setting up a system mostly involved plugging these cards into those ports.
The technicians understood these archaic proprietary systems, but couldn't grasp Windows NT to save their lives. There was no visual metaphor for them to apply their hardware cabling troubleshooting skills to. The problem was then compounded by the sad fact that Microsoft products don't work. They could follow the manuals, but as soon as they got a Blue Screen of Death, it was over.
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The strangeness of the phone call began to unravel at lunch. The sterile alienating atmosphere of a suburban Wendys somehow set the perfect tone.
Tom had jumped at the chance to sell the company. He got a 1 million buyout, and Bruce got a 500k buyout. Syn Werk owned two similar companies in Dallas and Houston, and purchased DMS as their Austin location. It seemed like a perfect fit.
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But after six months Syn Werk declared bankruptcy and defaulted on half of Tom and Bruces buyout prices. Tom filed lawsuit to try and get his money and they fired him.
So he tried to start a new company to take back his employees and clients, but his business was built on distributor licenses with companies that made fire alarm and phone systems. Those companies wouldnt have anything to do with his coup attempt.
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When Syn Werk stopped making payroll nearly everyone left the company. Most of the vacancies were filled by relocated Syn Werk employees.
Larry stayed of course. He spent most of his life with that company. He had tried to get a job with a competitor, but wasn't able to do so without taking a significant cut in pay.
Meanwhile even Larry's projects became plagued with problems. PC hardware and Windows software cropped up in every system they used, and still the company refused to send him to training. They encourage rather that he hire new technicians that have the skills they need.
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As Larry told me all of this I felt the sort of sentimental loyalty that he had so patiently waited for. Larry didn't own stock. In a company like that, there isn't stock to own. His job is not in immediate danger, and the company has started payroll again.
But his skill have become out-moded and there was a sense of desperation in his voice. I asked him if he would feel sad if Syn Werk were to fail due to their business practices. He said no. "It's not like I've ever gotten a Christmas bonus."
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My activist conscious made me not want to charge for my services, but it wasn't Larry that paid for my services. Larry knew I made a killing on contracts like this. He prompted me to charge as much as I wanted. My suspicions of a money scam transformed into the sense that Larry was in a small way trying to pay me a portion of the retirement that he would never get.
It was Larry I wanted to help, and how could I do that?
I thought of spending a week in the office training him. That would help him and the other five people that happened to be in the office that week. I could give those six people the technological skills they would need to make it through the next year, maybe two.
But then I'm not a teacher or a technician. I'm a writer, and maybe my writings would have an audience of more than six. It's probably hope beyond hope to think that it's effects would last longer than a year, but it still seems that I can help people like Larry most by doing what I do best.
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Postscript:
A few days later I received another phone message from Brett. Brett was the son of the Syn Werk owner and had moved in to manage the Austin location after Tom was fired. He assured me that my invoice had been submitted for payment, but explained that they were attempting to recover their loses from the manufacturer and need a list of the services that I performed.
I responded with the following email:
hey brett,
um, i think you may be barking up the wrong tree. the machine in question was not "loaded incorrectly" as you said in your voice mail. it was loaded according to the manufacturers specs from when the machine was purchased.
the specs of that time were grossly negligent, and eventually resulted in the manufacturers change in policy and specifications.
the specs have now been modified to avert the problem that you experienced. legally, your case would fall under a class action suit to show negligence, rather than a damaged property claim.
in any event, the list of services that i rendered can be summed up by saying that i rebuilt two servers to provide maximum stability in their network operation. delineated, my tasks were as follows:
+ troubleshot unknown software errors on a proprietary network media machine.
+ negotiated with the manufacturers technical support to provide a viable solution within the constraints of the particular client (some hospital).
+ troubleshot unknown software errors on a custom-built PC machine.
+ rebuilt custom-built PC machine. this included removing all current software, fdisking existing partitions, creating new partitions, formatting hard drive media, reinstalling Windows NT operating system, and installing a variety of Windows NT operating system upgrades (for compliancy with proprietary network media software).
my services did not include training of any DMS staff, however this was identified as being the greatest deficiency of the company and ultimate source of the problem i was hired to remedy.
sincerely,
sfear°
ps. i have cc-ed rhonda [ed- the secretary] on this email as i have never used your addy before. ;-)
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fle://\\° ~~ general contractor for virtual construction
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