During the summer of 1976, after I 'walked out' on a never-ending IBM mainframe conversion at a large bank in Indianapolis, I stood in a line at the Indianapolis airport waiting to board a plane back to Dallas. In only a few more seconds I would be on the plane, free from this computer war and headed home!
As my boarding line slowly approached the ticket taker, I glanced off to the left, and, in the distance--far down the crowded concourse--I saw my boss' head bobbing up and down. I knew immediately that he was headed my way. Bummer! I will not go back! This is my third time to walk out of this massive conversion! I'm gone. No matter what he says, I will not go back and try to salvage this abortion!
Tom got to me before I boarded the plane and said, "Richard, Richard, please come back--things will get better."
"Tom, you said that before."
"But, this time I mean it!"
"And, you said that before."
"No, Tom," I said, "I worked 100 hours this week and 100 hours last week and 100 hours the week before and I'm done. It's over. Find someone else. I'm going back to Dallas."
We talked a bit longer, and, when Tom realized that he'd lost the argument, he said, "Okay, go on home, but you'll need this." He held up a black address book.
My right hand immediately slapped my left breast pocket but my black book was gone!! Christ, I thought, I'm nothing without my black book--all those magic phone numbers!
Tom said, "Richard, you're nothing without your black book and all those magic phone numbers. You left this at the office." I grinned, said thanks and accepted my black address book from Tom.
As a nice lady took my boarding pass, I shook hands with Tom and headed for my plane.
Tom turned around and went back to that abortion that was continuing at some big bank in downtown Indianapolis.
I flew back to Dallas.
Even chain-smoking Tom knew that even the hardest working computer nerds could work even better when they had all the right phone numbers.
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In 1979, when I owned my own company in Amarillo, Tom (now my 'former' boss) called me from St Louis and told me that another big mainframe conversion was in progress at a big bank there. Fifteen high-dollar computer gurus were stumbling all over themselves, the conversion was two weeks late, the company was paying a fine every day for not giving up the old mainframe computer and Tom needed help.
You can read that story in a blog called "St Louis Blues."
