I was just now reading about the history of Wikipedia and remembered that I had invented a similar system for our laboratory for documention about the same time in the 90's. I have not been involved with that sort of software in such a long time and had completely forgot about that project for quite some time. Of course I had no knowledge of wikipedia, or wikis, and had no connection to the internet at that time either. It was a "private" corporate department project at our local site so it wasn't something I could profit from or even patent, as far as I knew at the time. All my other patent work had involved chemical inventions, and they were legally owned by the company that employed me.
I also remember getting an "average" rating on my annual review of my job performance for that year just a few months later after bringing the system online and fixing their gigantic paperwork mess, just in time for an ISO 9000 audit. I thought sarcastically, "wow, these people are really appreciative."
Memories.
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5 comments:
On the bright side - if you had not done it as well as you did they would have fired you. Merry Christmas.
Bugger! wrong place at the wrong time?
I don't even have a degree in computer science, my degree is in chemistry. My one course in Fortran got me the original job of baby sitting one lab computer, which blossomed into a +bunch+ more with just a wide variety of on the job training and a whole bunch of reading for nearly three decades. They essentially gave me a whole buncha toys to play with. Thats two thirds of my career in a nutshell.
Yes, I too fondly remember the reviews. The year I received a 3 or as I called it a C, I blew. I informed my boss that in over 10 years of working for him I had never been hurt, shot, murdered, run over by a hilo, written up for not wearing safety glasses or had my car stolen from the parking lot. I thought I deserved at least a B. He told me everyone got a C, it was strategy for the next year.
fmcgmccllc: Yes, I felt the annual review process was a grand discouraging device, something for others to be concerned with, for those wanting to crawl their way to the top. I became fairly happy after about fifteen years when I realized finally I enjoyed being a technical geek, I wasn't management material. I essentially stayed at the same spot nearly thirty years and had the same supervisor for around 24 of those years. My main geographic move was one floor lower into the basement.
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