Don’t stop me if you heard these stories before, they’re still good ones. From 1989-1992 I used to work for an end user office trade magazine. It was the oldest publication in the industry, started in the late 1930’s. The founder was still driving in from New York City at age 90 and his son, no Justin Bieber himself, was now the publisher. Even though we wrote heavily about office technology and computers, the editorial staff, and everyone else in the company for that matter, was still using electric typewriters. One day I received a demo unit of a new Xerox electronic typewriter with a two-line memory display. It wasn’t exactly a computer, but it was a step in the right direction even if it was only one to two lines of memory at a time.
So there I am setting it up and reading the manual when the publisher walks by my desk, sees the new typewriter, asks where it came from, and marvels at this thing as if it’s something out of The Jetsons. After giving it the once over, he says, “Don’t spend all day learning how to use that thing, we got work to do here fella.”
This was the same guy whose only question in my job interview was, “You’re not a clock watcher are you?” No questions about my past work experiences or my writing, editing or reporting skills even though I’ve been working as an editor and writer for nearly four years.Then there was the time Lanier I think it was dropped by the office on a press tour to demonstrate a new fax machine and I asked if it was similar to another recently released fax machine from another manufacturer. I was told in no uncertain terms by my publisher after that meeting, “Never ask about a competitor, they all hate each other.”
Cut to six months later, we’re having another product demo, and after the demo, my publisher asks them, “Is this similar to X’s fax machine?”
I kid you not.
I left that publication in 1992 and by 1994 they were history, never ever making it into the computer age. Is it any wonder?
I’m not looking to make a point with these stories, just telling it like it was back in the day.
Then again, maybe those are some of the reasons I am where I am today.
New stories this week include:
- BTA Summit Targets the Patent Trolls
- Secrets of E-mail Introductions Revealed
- Art Post’s Latest Post
- What’s Hot & What’s Not?
- March News Bytes
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