Only a few days after my father drove away at my new University of Arizona, Greenlee Hall dormitory in Tucson, the leadership light-bulb clicked on in my head and has been burning brightly ever since. My father had been such a dominant personality, that I spent my first eighteen years as a quiet nerd; college let the gregarious me burst into bloom. But it was the time when, five years later, I led a mini-revolt at my Army accounting office, by staging a work-in on a Saturday morning that landed me in my life-long career with computers.
The year was 1963; I was the new whiz kid in the Heidelberg payroll department – fastest hand on the adding machine and a lightening memory for numbers to go with it. I had fun in the Army – It was easy for me to stay several steps ahead of the lumbering plans of the Army brass. In Germany, I ran a black market business to keep in cash enough to pay my way out of all the odious parts of Army life. During Fort Ord’s basic training, where we were supposed to be isolated for six weeks, I found a way out. At the end of the first week our CO called us together and proudly announced that, the next day being Sunday, there were complete facilities to accommodate all religions. He passed around a signup sheet to so that we could show our choice of religion as Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. As the list was going around, he gave directions to each meeting place and their time of services. He got to the end of the list and said, "For those of you who may be Buddhist, there is a bus leaving at ten-thirty in the morning. It will take you to Monterey and return at twelve-thirty. I was on the bus the next morning with three Asians. When we got to town, I walked down the path with the others to the temple. When I saw the bus pull away, I went back outside and walked the few blocks to the downtown area. I drank a beer at a bar and had an idea so I stopped at a liquor store and bought three little half-pints of whiskey. These went to the highest bidders when I got back to camp. Next week, I took orders.
My small Heidelberg office group was being punished for some unjustified, trivial Army infraction and made to work all day Saturday by Sergeant Webb. I organized an assembly line and we finished all the work by one o’clock. I bought everyone a beer at the camp pub, and then we all went to the movies. The sergeant pulled me out of the movie an hour later. “How dare you countermand my orders!” he shouted. He was red in the face, “I could have you court-martialed for insubordination!” I tried to politely point out, “But we finished all the work, Sergeant Webb. We even cleaned up the office.” Back at Fort Ord, I had learned my way around the payroll system such that I helped my friends and hampered my enemies, while keeping the office running smoothly. Same sort of thing was true of the Personnel guys; I was three years in the Army; went on leave many times; and yet was fully paid for all three year’s worth of “untaken” leave time when I was discharged. The sergeant continued shouting, “You don’t decide when you’re done,” he was pounding on a table, “I make the decisions.”
He explained that he knew I was bright and he saw, as I probably did too, that there was an irresolvable organizational conflict between him and me. He had decided to transfer me to a new group, the data processing center, where, “You can conflict with machines instead of an Army chain of command.” It turned out that I was being sent to heaven. I mastered every machine the Army threw at me and was an electronics prima-donna within a year. I learned enough to get a job at IBM when I left the Army. Fifty years later, I am still an active computer guru.
The year was 1963; I was the new whiz kid in the Heidelberg payroll department – fastest hand on the adding machine and a lightening memory for numbers to go with it. I had fun in the Army – It was easy for me to stay several steps ahead of the lumbering plans of the Army brass. In Germany, I ran a black market business to keep in cash enough to pay my way out of all the odious parts of Army life. During Fort Ord’s basic training, where we were supposed to be isolated for six weeks, I found a way out. At the end of the first week our CO called us together and proudly announced that, the next day being Sunday, there were complete facilities to accommodate all religions. He passed around a signup sheet to so that we could show our choice of religion as Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. As the list was going around, he gave directions to each meeting place and their time of services. He got to the end of the list and said, "For those of you who may be Buddhist, there is a bus leaving at ten-thirty in the morning. It will take you to Monterey and return at twelve-thirty. I was on the bus the next morning with three Asians. When we got to town, I walked down the path with the others to the temple. When I saw the bus pull away, I went back outside and walked the few blocks to the downtown area. I drank a beer at a bar and had an idea so I stopped at a liquor store and bought three little half-pints of whiskey. These went to the highest bidders when I got back to camp. Next week, I took orders.
My small Heidelberg office group was being punished for some unjustified, trivial Army infraction and made to work all day Saturday by Sergeant Webb. I organized an assembly line and we finished all the work by one o’clock. I bought everyone a beer at the camp pub, and then we all went to the movies. The sergeant pulled me out of the movie an hour later. “How dare you countermand my orders!” he shouted. He was red in the face, “I could have you court-martialed for insubordination!” I tried to politely point out, “But we finished all the work, Sergeant Webb. We even cleaned up the office.” Back at Fort Ord, I had learned my way around the payroll system such that I helped my friends and hampered my enemies, while keeping the office running smoothly. Same sort of thing was true of the Personnel guys; I was three years in the Army; went on leave many times; and yet was fully paid for all three year’s worth of “untaken” leave time when I was discharged. The sergeant continued shouting, “You don’t decide when you’re done,” he was pounding on a table, “I make the decisions.”
He explained that he knew I was bright and he saw, as I probably did too, that there was an irresolvable organizational conflict between him and me. He had decided to transfer me to a new group, the data processing center, where, “You can conflict with machines instead of an Army chain of command.” It turned out that I was being sent to heaven. I mastered every machine the Army threw at me and was an electronics prima-donna within a year. I learned enough to get a job at IBM when I left the Army. Fifty years later, I am still an active computer guru.
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