At 10:45 AM 1/21/98 -0600, you wrote:
>> Ahh, that sucks! My parents have control of my money again, so I'd
never get away with spending
>> $50 on old computers... (They're trying to discourage me from playing with
>> computers, and being about as subtle as a jackhammer...)
>
>I'll leave this public since it might be useful to someone...I'm 29 now
>but when I was 16 or 17 my parents expended GREAT energy trying to get me
>to stop playing with computers because my dad thought they were a FAD
>(hahahahahahahahahahaa) and my mom thought it was unhealthy for me to
>hide in the basement all the time like some brain-damaged monster.
My mom once told me that computers were a tool of the devil.
>Tell your parents that today I have a college degree, have been out on my
>own working productively since I was 20 (with VERY little external
>support), earn twice the median income in my state, started a successful
I dropped out of college -- I was too busy working to finish. (Actually,
I'm only 1 beginning Cobol class away from a 2-year degree.) I've been an
independant consultant for not quite 8 years; I went indy when I was 24.
About 5 years ago, I bought my parents house (long story; they'd been
"renting" for 20-odd years) so they wouldn't lose it. My mom passed away 2
years ago (last Saturday 8^( ) and I moved back home shortly thereafter to
care for my dad.
I spent about 3 years driving them to work and home when my dad was no
longer able to take pubtrans; I was able to do that because my clients
didn't mind when I worked, so long as I worked for them. Now I'm working
from home 3 days a week so I can be with my dad more.
Meanwhile, my older brother (who my folks put through UC Berkeley (BS -
Economic Geography) and Golden Gate University (MBA)) once shouted in the
middle of a crowded plaza that he wanted nothing to do with my father (and
didn't want him attending his concert) because he *smelled bad*. With my
dad standing right there.
My younger brother (who my folks put through SF State (BA - Speech
Communications)) can't be bothered to visit or call his dad -- he's too
busy hanging out with friends and going to church. Last time he visited,
he stole my CB.
The elder of my two sisters, (UC Berkeley, Math, flunked out) is happy
being a secretary and, again, isn't interested enough to call or visit.
(My younger sister, (Johnson & Wales, Equine Business), lives at home too,
and helps out an amazing amount. She's single, btw.)
So, the moral is, your parents should either encourage you to be a computer
nerd, or a horse nut.
>My parents realize their mistake now...my father tearfully gave me his
>gold retirement watch, which I accepted reluctantly, to show how proud
>he is of me. My parents are happy with me and I'm happy with myself all
>thanks to my tinkering all those years in the basement.
My mom, too, came to realize that me and my computers were a good thing (in
spite of the fact that not all those "computer club meetings" involved more
than one person of each sex...).
Let me just add that I don't hire "micro-weenies". That is, if a person
doesn't understand that Pentium II *isn't* called that because the Pentium
was the first computer, I'm not interested in working with them. There are
tons of jobs out there right now for CoBOL programmers (btw, if you want a
job as a CoBOL programmer, you better darn well know who Grace Hopper
was!). And solid programming, database, and operations skills will *never*
go out of style, and they're a lot easier to pick up in the older/bigger
computer world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger_at_sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California
http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Received on Fri Jan 23 1998 - 23:22:54 GMT