I didn’t always feel the way I do now about work. I avoided it as much as I could when I was younger. In fact, I was probably considered lazy. I guess it was after my dad died that I started thinking about my life, where it was going and where I wanted to take it. I did what I could to help my mom around the house. Clean, cook, mow the lawn, I even had a job delivering newspapers for a while. After I went away to school, I would work on my summer vacations. One job I had was washing dishes in a restaurant. Didn’t pay much but it was something.
Three weeks after graduating from high school I joined the USAF. I did it for several reasons: my mom couldn’t afford to send me to college but they had the GI bill and I joined that branch thinking it would be my best chance to NOT go to Vietnam. I found out that wasn’t completely true but I did luck out and get stationed in AZ for the rest of my tour.
After the military I had a few different jobs until I moved the Bay Area and started out in a career of word processing. They were: (AZ) cleaning two post offices before they opened for business; (PA) worked at a pottery factory (1 week) which was hard considering what I had to breath in every day; a shipping/receiving clerk in the restaurant at a Hilton (there about 2 months and my boss was rumored to have ties to the mob); (AZ) a pest exterminator (there about six months and hated it when I found out they were doing all they could to rip off the customer; at the end of the day we would sit around telling stories of all the stupid customers we scammed); (CA) maintenance man in a 96-apartment building in Oakland – I expected to be assistant manger but after I got there that job was gone; full time (on GI bill) student at Laney College and later part time as the bill didn’t pay what I hoped and I needed to get a job. I went to a school courtesy of the CETA Act. I tried to take welding which paid $19/hr to start after graduating and I wasn’t afraid of heights but there was a year waiting list and needed something right away. What was available right away was word processing. What is that? Typing and working with computers (this was 1977 after all). Well, I taught myself to type when I was 13 (bored ok?) but I hadn’t done any typing in about 5 years. Well, they had a practice center 1 block away from my apt so I went over there to see where I was. I needed to do 30 wpm and had a week to do it. I was at about 12. The day I took my test I did exactly 30 wpm. 
I started class 3-4 weeks later. I was 1 of 2 males in a class of 25. It was a 9-month course that I finished in 2, not because I was particularly smart but the government wanted to make sure people would pass. I helped the teacher for about another 2 months (i.e. procrastinated I mean). You see I found out I would have to create a resume and go through an interview process. I had never interviewed for a job before. I had always filled out an app and said “when do I start?” I guess I thought of it as performing. Funny thing. First place I interviewed, they hired me! I guess I was worried for nothing.
In (CA) Crocker National Bank. They started with about a dozen word processors in their training and development department and when I left 5.5 years later, it was just me. I was responsible for typing up the training manuals for every job in all of CA. I even remembered what I typed, not that I was cross-training or anything.
I then went to Townsend and Townsend (T&T) and worked with my sister who I had just helped move to CA a few months earlier from IL (along with my niece). I was there for the next 6.5 years. That’s where a partner came into the WP center one day, plopped down a new IBM AT (’83 I think) and asked “anyone want to learn about this?” That’s when I set on my new career path.
From there to Heller Ehrman, White and McAuliffe (HEWM). I was there for 3.5 years before marrying and moving to IN. Funny, I went from highest salary, HEWM, to lowest, Pythia. 
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