Lobby's career

Hardest working Lobster

My interest in computers did not begin with my career in the computer industry. I first got hooked when I was 11 years old and received a TI-74 BasiCalc which had a basic programming language built in. I devoured the manual and learned how to make simple programs. I experimented with the different things I could do and eventually ended up writing a video game for my 1x32 alphanumeric display using kanji characters as sprites.

When I was a teenager in high school I took an electronics course and met up with a like minded individual. He helped me put together a PC and before long I was calling bulletin boards and having a great time! But it wasn't enough, I wanted to start my own bulletin board. So I did... then I wanted a bigger one, so I learned NetWare, setup a LAN and added a new node... I learned FidoNet networks and became world headquarters for SpookyNet with affiliations and feeds from other popular FidoNet networks and networked text based games (precursors to MMORPGs) I was a member of an elite group of Renegade modders called TRiC "The Renegade Information Crew" where I put out some amazing Renegade mods that looked better than WildCatBBS and managed to create an efficient lightbar system that didn't have to redraw the screen through the use of ANSI escape codes that availed themselves of coordinates... I was the first and only modder to try this approach and gained noteriety in the information underground under my then pseudonym "Bad Mr. Frosty" then I worked at a computer store and started spending all my money on computer equipment.

Before long I had amassed a slew of marketable skills... I thought I'd fish for a position as a technician. I sent out my resume and ended up with my first official job in the computer field... I was a network engineer, admin, technician, pretty much put all of my skills to use as well as managed to build most of this website on the clock. There was lots of free time!

My friend who helped me build my first computer landed a job at a video game company, they shortly after got bought out by Electronic Arts. In the process of moving to a larger location my friend recommended me as a trustworthy knowledgable individual to help on the technical side of things. The powers that be at EA liked my work and offered me a part time position as desktop support for their engineers and artists.

I loved the video game company culture... they offered me a full-time gig and I happily took it. We worked hard to the point that my apartment became nothing more than a place to sleep and shower between 12-16 hour days on the job including weekends, but the beautiful thing about working that hard is your only indicator of the passage of time is shock when you see how much money is in your bank account... not having time to spend all that overtime pay really adds up! Then we shipped the last of the PC games and the studio shifted to console games which meant no more need for a Lead PC Tech as all future work would be done on gaming consoles for that group... it was my first layoff and I think I took it well considering how much I had enjoyed working there. But the knowledge I had gained was MOST valuable, I had experience with just about every piece of hardware on the market including some that wouldn't come out to market for some time!

I took a job at Microsoft next... not making as much as I would have liked but I was working at Microsoft on something everyone in the world would be using not just gamers, I was working on their Win98 OS, and doing an amazing job if I do say so myself! I brought all the experience I had gained so far in technology to bear on the rather meager tasks that I was given and blew the socks off everyone by creating testing automation that no one thought could be done in ways no one had ever imagined. I really enjoyed the accolades and was really starting to feel my power as I invoked cryptic long forgotten commandline capabilities that I had gotten to know as a SysOp and made my computers do all my work for me with minimal intervention from me.

Then came the offer... a job offer for MUCH more money (hint: I bought a Q45 for myself with the difference) we were fairly close to release on Win98 and the standing rule was anyone that left the company at this point would be blacklisted from working at Microsoft again because of the toll losing a body would have on ship dates at that point. I didn't care though, my manager and his manager really wanted to keep me so they tried to put me into a an SDET position. The higher ups felt it was inappropriate to offer that position under those circumstances but decided to make an exception to their "Leave now and get blacklisted" rule because in their words "It would be of great benefit to Microsoft to have me work for them again"

This was all fine and good, but I wasn't so much concerned with working at Microsoft after touring DEC labs and finding out how much I would be getting paid. Microsoft just couldn't come close to the pay DEC was offering and at DEC I would get to work with Enterprise level hardware stuff so expensive and powerful only governments and large corps could purchase them! I *loved* Digital Equipment Corporation. That's where I got the opportunity to work with millions of dollars worth of equipment on a daily basis, I honed my programming skills, wrote a few applications and started learning more programming languages and technologies.

Then Compaq buys us out... stayed at Compaq for a little while but I had decided I didn't want to do hardware anymore, Software was getting much more interesting now that I had learned several new technologies. I went back to Microsoft and commanded twice the salary I was making the first time I worked there!

After that I went to go work for another group at Microsoft... this is where I really started to get into database stuff, I started learning everything I could about databases, borrowing things from the Microsoft library and taking full advantage of everything I could learn. I was really grooving at work too, I managed to come up with 7,000 test cases for the system under test... but as luck would have it, my best work gets flushed down the toilet when Microsoft decides to cancel the project.

Damn, well I went on some interviews and had another offer from Microsoft such that I wouldn't have been out of work a single day... but the bastards wanted to pay me less money. I told them I wouldn't take less money. They eventually upped the offer to what amounts to five cents less than I was making at my last Microsoft job. I refused to take it on the principle of the matter and spent the next three months regretting that decision as I discovered that the reason no one wants to pay as much as I'm used to is because the market is saturated with high tech workers.