1984 to 1986
Overcoming discontent: I was a mercenary now. It was the eighties, business was booming and the money was good. I no longer thought about becoming ‘Joe great psychologist’. But, I wasn’t all that happy with what I was doing. Then I remembered advice I had received from a former IT director. He warned me against becoming a ‘technical guru’. He said it could make me obsolete real fast. The future was in ‘business apps’ .. not the latest device coming out of IT. He recommended that I learn as much as I can about business operations. Things like sales and shipping. However, I was in no position to learn business operations. I was spending most of my time solving day-to-day ‘technical’ problems. Meanwhile my colleagues with business degrees were already forming start-up companies. One colleague successfully developed software that could keep a company’s ‘haz mat’ instructions in-compliance. Another developed a method to help suppliers deliver composite materials with less spoilage. The people I saw getting ahead were the one’s using their knowledge of information technology to solve business problems, not technical problems, just like the IT director said.
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