It lasted for about 10 years, and I would consider them 10 golden years, but not because they accorded me with monetary returns approximating the precious metal. Rather those years were most priceless because of the over 36 years of my employment in different fields, they gave me the most exciting challenges and inspiration in my working life. Measured much more than any in the diverse fields I had found myself in earlier employment - from non-life insurance, to teaching HS and college, to branch banking, then lastly to the hospitality industry. And of course, since I was myself approaching my golden years then the description fits.
Working those golden years I found myself showing initiatives and drives I never discovered earlier, in a field that I totally was unprepared for, both academically and experience-wise. Imagine being able to devote time and intense attention learning about software applications written in thick tomes which at times got very technical.
I was literally pushed into the whirlpool called the computer and IT industry, which during those times was beginning to garner global attention and prominence, and thrown into the place which could be considered the front yard of where all the action was happening, in Silicon Valley. What exciting times, even for a doting employee approaching retirement.
I had wished then that we should have had established residence closer to the valley rather than San Francisco whose main industry was hospitality and tourism. Admittedly, it was quite envious reading and meeting some who had earned their millions simply being employed in small start-up companies in the nearby cities dotting the valley. The bigger and more-established enterprises in the valley were in hot pursuit gobbling up start-ups that could improve their own products.
Anyway with reality the way it is, I moved on and proceeded to push my nose to the grind, learning as much as I could on my own. Aside from reading textbooks and via the Internet, actually building PCs at home, and even constructing a server-workstation network with about a dozen nodes of printers and workstations, to duplicate and simulate actual work environment.
But by then age had caught up on me and the decade was up, though emerging technologies were still sizzling, even after the tech bust at the turn of the century. And today, it continues and it gets more advanced, more challenging, and harder to understand from the outside.
Anyway, pushed myself to go up my attic to retrieve what I had kept as reminders of the tools of that last trade I pursued. So I found stowed in an old attaché case, an assortment of items, from tools to parts, cramped inside that little storage, but sufficient enough to remind me of those glorious years.
Now ensconced in our attic where old stuff go to hibernate.
