Fall 1996 - The Cube

After being confirmed as "Master of the Abacus" there was work to be done at ValueRx. Lots of work. Well, actually not that much work. Scratch that. NO work. See, there was still a fully functioning department running in Detroit - the work hadn't actually MOVED to Minneapolis yet. They were staffing up for the EVENTUAL work that was to appear. But they hired a good 2 months too early.

Now to be fair, in 1996 people were starting to worry about a thing called Y2K - where thanks to disk-space saving techniques employed in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a very real possibility that computer systems would think that the year 2000 would be the year 1900. Financial services and insurance industries were particularly concerned - interest and annuity calculations, AR aging, etc. So by 1996, most forward-looking institutions were scooping up people who knew COBOL and putting them to work on rewriting vast acres of code - millions of lines of linear procedural code. And this was before the "object oriented" revolution where you make a widget and call out to it, no, basic date calculations were cut and pasted into these long long long programs.

For the record, I never needed to work on a Y2K project. I did do some minor work to make sure that the freight shipping software I helped build would handle it, but that was it.

Anyway, COBOL guys were going fast, and their prices were going up. So it was smart to build a team in advance... but we who were hired early were a bit mystified. And there was a lot of finger-pointing in the ranks of the transition team as to who was to blame for the delays in bringing the work to Minneapolis... Angry James was in the middle of a lot of those discussions, but Mark and Mike were spared, since they were just carrying out the directions.

So what we had: Office space. Staff. Chairs. What we didn't have: MUCH office space, computers. We were double-cubed, with one computer to share. I was in a cube with a traditional Cobol guy... who really liked playing Solitaire. For my part, I liked surfing the new-fangled WEB. We were in this cube 8 hours a day, and took 30 minute turns at the computer, doing nothing.

After a few weeks, we at least got copies of the source code to start reviewing... and by 6 weeks in, the first Detroit Transplants started arriving, and bringing with them actual WORK. But I'm going to level with you, those first 6 weeks were very surreal, because I was paid 40 hours a week to really do nothing. In a different way from the telephone billing system scam in 1993 - that was 6 weeks with no hope. This was just 6 weeks of idleness with the expectation that things would be getting CRAY-ZAY soon enough.

My cubemate, being a very traditional coder, was beyond thrilled when the source code came available, and would enter trance-like states of staring at screens and screens of code, taking meticulous notes. Being who I was, I could review code for maybe 20 minutes before glazing over: Tell me what you need the code to DO, and I'll make it DO it. But "learn the code?" Ugh.

So I started my now-classic method of "when you're bored, find a meeting and sit in on it". And I participated. And before I knew it, they asked me to be the team lead for the Reporting team, because I liked to get to the heart of the problem and solve issues, not just talk about it. Which was awkward for the ACTUAL team leader, who had relocated from Detroit, and was very very used to being the "Skip" of the team, guru of knowledge, and giver of long timeframes for fixing things. When I jumped in and by the next morning had the solution to the problem she said would take 3 weeks to resolve, I was not making a friend.

But I was young - like a puppy dog. Not even 30 years old - I had not yet settled into the comfort of a job you can keep doing for 20 years. (and for the record, I have still not settled into that). I didn't KNOW I was stepping on toes, I honestly thought they'd be thrilled that I found the solution. HA.

Fortunately, the people in charge who had decided to make the move from Detroit were all relatively new to the organization, and weren't fixed in their ways. They saw me not only as Master of the Abacus, but as "someone who gets things done". This reputation would serve me well in early 1997... But let's stay in 1996 for just a moment longer.

In late 1996, near the holidays, the CEO of the company paid us a visit: By this time, the Detroit people had moved in: Over 40 IT people had uprooted their families and decided to move to Minneapolis for their career. Prior to this, ValueRx had offices in Minneapolis, Detroit, Connecticut, and Arizona. This move was to centralize all operations, and allow the company to be more lean and agile.

The CEO popped in and called an impromptu meeting in our lunchroom: 40 people, some from Detroit, some from Arizona, some new employees, some contractors, all crunched into a stinky-microwave lunchroom, while one floor down a much more comfortable conference room sat, unused, because nobody thought to plan this out. The guy (his name is lost to the ages for me, and I refuse to google him) started a half-hearted "thanks for coming together, gang" speech... and a few minutes in, his cellphone rang. He reached to his belt clip and unhooked his then-awesome StarTac flipphone, and took the call. Standing in the middle of a ring of people. He simply pretended we weren't there. For 5 minutes. It was the most rude thing - he didn't excuse himself, he didn't ask the person to call back. In that moment, we just didn't exist to him.

He snapped the phone closed, finished his little speech and asked if we had any questions for him. Someone from Detroit asked him when the corporate offices in Connecticut were moving to Minneapolis, since all of the other divisions already had. His answer:

"We're going to keep that office open - it's just a few of us out there, and my wife likes our neighborhood, and the kids are in a good school, so we're staying out there. We can manage remotely."

After a pep talk about sacrifice for the company, and thanks for relocating. It was incredible. He then scurried off to a meeting, leaving us all in stunned silence.

I think 4 people quit that day, and many more of the people who were planning to relocate decided NOT to do so. Heck, these were COBOL people, and as I mentioned, it was 1996 - there was plenty of work for COBOL people then. In fact, I think that was about the point at which the local people in Minneapolis got a whole lot more work, as the transplants and the stay-behinds all found lucrative work elsewhere.

I will also note that within 3 months, there was a new CEO as well.

Fall 1996 - Master of the Abacus

I was finishing up a project at a large life insurance company when I was called by a former co-worker, Mark Loesch, who had left just 3 months earlier on some "special project". Turns out he had been tapped by another former co-worker Mike (who had left just months before I had started, but we all could say we worked at the same place) to help with an ambitious project: A large Prescriptions Benefits Management company, ValueRx, was moving its corporate headquarters from Suburban Detroit to the Twin Cities, and Mike and Mark were helping make it happen... and they needed more help.

Now, I was 29, they were 30 and 31. We were young turks. The fact that Mark had gone from a straight up Programmer to some sort of "project manager" in just a few months was mind blowing to me... so naturally I needed to be a part of this. I arranged for an interview, and of course had some coaching sessions with Mark over martinis. During one of those sessions, we were riffing about things I could to do blow the interview. The obvious "remove the pants" gags were explored, the "pretend to speak only German" gag, but the one that had us laughing the most was the "profess expertise in something completely irrelevant". Interviewing for a DBA position and very seriously presenting as a qualification your entry into the State Fair Crop Art competition, for example. Or professing knowledge of the Abacus.

I walked in wearing a suit and met with Mike, Mark, and James, their boss. James was a bit like Ian McShane in Deadwood - affable but a bit moody, and as I later discovered, very prone to profane outbursts and yelling fits. But in the interview, it was all good. They were DESPERATE to start building a team locally and if Mark was vouching for me, then I was good. The interview was casual and free roaming. And at the end, I turned to Mike and James and said "Gentlemen, there's one more thing I think you should know. I am a MASTER of the ABACUS." They both looked blankly at me, then at Mark, who couldn't believe I had actually done it. I held the character for a moment longer, raising my eyebrows and looking at each meaningfully, before Mark and I collapsed in hysterics.

At that moment, I probably could have lost the gig, but it just felt right. That afternoon, they called and said I was in, and how did I want to join? I was interested in staying a consultant: My experience with Ameridata made me shy about moving away from an hourly compensation model, and in the intervening year, I'd done pretty well as a contractor. So the employment offer was waved off, and they said "in the interest of making it easier for our accountants, we're partnering with just one consulting firm, so call them up".

What followed was a tough call: Now, in 1996, the contractor market in the Twin Cities was pretty loose. Most firms were run by a guy who was contracting himself, and folded a few people under his wing. It was typical to get a 1099 in for 5%-10% of a skim off the top. For a W2 hourly employee, 20% was typical, sometimes 30%. I understand (now more than ever) that there are costs, and that there is value to working through a firm. But having gone through 3 contracting companies and 1 FTE position in the previous 3 years, I felt I had a good feel for what reasonable was.

So when they said they take 40% W2, I laughed and said "nice try. I got the gig, I've already got it. All I'm asking you to do is process the invoices". "Yeah, but what about the next gig? We need to create a long term relationship here" Like HELL - my next gig will be with the next people who find me the WORK - I need you to bill this, and if you didn't have a lock on this client this call would already be OVER, you JERK!

And that's how I met Jay at Safenet. And despite our shouting match, we did get friendly eventually. But he never budged from 40%, and I did cave in, because even with the 40% take, it was still a 20% raise for me. And once that gig was over, I indeed did NOT work with them again.

Back to the Abacus: From that day on, I had something of a reputation with the management at ValueRx - I was the guy who cracked the absurd joke at the interview - that spoke to some insane confidence, so I must be good. That worked to my advantage (and I did do good work there).... but I think it spooked James a little, because the guy almost never spoke to me after that, and mere months later he quit abruptly and went on a vacation to the black hills with a high powered rifle to do target practice on prairie dogs. He was not a stable man.

But it did create an instant bond with Mike, and the three of us, Mike, Mark, and Jim carved quite a niche for ourselves at ValueRx. More on that to come.