The Floppies
The Floppies
I am sitting at my first desk job on my second day at EJL and my career is about to begin.
My desk sits in the middle. There’s the three of us. Steeve next to me. Seems nice. Don’t know him yet, but he looks cool. There’s another dude to the right of me who has been doing this job for at least two years. We all seem suspiciously young, tall and fit.
I’m anxious. During my interview with the boss woman with potential clown makeup, I’d pushed on my “strong computer skills.” The lady had smile/frowned (the makeup was confusing) and told me Pat was both a buyer and a computer expert. My “strong computer skills” were abstract. I could program in BASIC and knew what a computer was and did. I’d been around them since forever and had my own computer since 12.
I’m scared to meet a real computer expert, and it seemed like this was the next job in the ladder: Media Buyer. This is a person that might be my mentor and I wanted to make a good impression.
A woman bounds into our shared space. She’s dressed differently than what I’d expect for someone in an office. This was a weird space. Narconon was next door and one of the first things I learned was to hide alcohol from these people. It was one of my first instructions on the job, and was dead simple to execute as the door never opens.
This woman was wearing gym attire. A sports bra, no other top, and yoga pants.
Steeeve and I jump up. Somebody has just entered the office. Our experienced partner kept his seat, and I gather wasn’t well raised. Don’t you stand up to greet a stranger?
The woman, sensing our confusion, and seemingly appreciating our height (she was kinda short), extends her hand: “Hi I’m Pat!” Wasn’t expecting a woman and I punish myself for my sexism. Steeeve assesses and decides she’s not attractive enough and sits back down.
We greet and talk etc., but she needs my help. She’s been told that I’m good with computers and she’s a ton of work to get done. I’m thrilled as it’s my second day and I’m going to learn from a potential mentor. I’m jazzed — let’s get some real world white collar work done that doesn’t involve ice cream scooping or sandwich making.
She takes me up to an IBM PC. It was one of the first generation and had a prominent “rental sticker.” There’s two long rows of floppy disk drawers next to the computer. Not like a single box, but 50. Inside are endless numbers of green floppy disks.
She extracts two disks for the same market but for different time frames. She explains her intent as “building projections.” We’ll be taking data from one time frame, taking data for the same shows in a different time frame and combining. I am laser focused and this is looking easy.
She sits on the computer first as she’ll demonstrate how this works. There’s a stack of specifications. You input the specification into the software and hit a button.
Suddenly she’s moving super fast and not stopping. The computer has two disk bays but only one is working and pop-shick-pop-shick-pop-shick-pop-shick — she’s swapping the two floppies as fast as she can. It’s DDR with green disks. The gym attire is starting to make sense. The computer was setting the beat as she watched carefully as it asked for both disks, back and forth, back and forth. I’ve never seen 5 1/4 disks move so fast and be read so little, but I’m still watching. She’s breathing heavy as she wants to get this done and there’s so many swaps: “It’s good to get a rhythm going” and I get my first insider tip from a potential mentor. File it away: “IT IS GOOD TO SWAP DISKS AT HIGH SPEED WHEN MAKING PROJECTIONS.” After she gets a high score, the dance is over and now the printer can start creating one column of numbers for about 20 pages.
She leaves and asks if I understand the assignment. I nod. Understanding was coming slowly and I didn’t want to make a bad first impression. She’s happy with my answer. Leaves me with the rest of the work to do, and notes, “I don’t need this today; take your time” as she’s trailing down the hall outside.
That was a relief. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to match her pace, there were like 40 spec pages, and I didn’t bring my gym clothes. Didn’t feel like sweating out the first day so I looked at the screen in front of me and the computer itself. There was a hard drive. I looked and it was empty. Maybe the executable I was working with and whatever comes on a PC normally.
The software itself was odd and definitely not anything I’d seen before, but there was this prominent “option” called “settings.” Curious, I open and there’s a setting where you can set a path for the two parts of the data we need to combine. Both are currently set to A.
Super, I think. I change the paths to C: and C: for now and just copied the contents of the green floppies into each path. Push the execute button, wait a second, and the numbers are printing already. Thank goodness, I think.
So, I load all the markets as needed into these paths. The 40 spec pages, I’m typing the next as the prior is printing and I’m maximizing the printer output. Wow. Good first day, Bill. I’m worried about how to approach Pat, but I’m sure she’ll be super happy with what I found. I’m not sure about the computer expertise, but you know how people can exaggerate.
I gather what appears to be close to a ream. The fact that only a single column of numbers is printed on 17-wide is ugly, but I’m going. This is my assignment and I think I’m going to impress my mentor.
I spin around the corner and into her office. My hand is pushing the paper stack and I’m smiling, and I’m not seeing a smile back. She’s equally amazed, disgusted and just can’t believe what I’m doing. It feels like I’ve pulled a flaming squirrel out of my ass and I’m trying to hand it to her.
Pat’s vocal processing is deeply affected but she manages to express something like “Wha — huh — fuck. How did you get this done so fast?”
Oh. She’s AMAZED, but acting strangely for some reason. I explained that it was simple. You just change the path to the hard drive…
That was a mistake. She’s ANGRY and her eyes are hard. “The computers DO NOT BELONG TO US!” This was super confusing and a non sequitur. She doesn’t seem to agree and she understands that I clearly am confused. I think I’m mid “Uh. Wha—” and she expands: “You need to take that data off before they find out and they charge us for it.” I still don’t really understand her concern, but after a few more thoughts, I just apologize: “I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up immediately.”
She’s back and happy immediately. I leave shaken and go back to my room. I never delete the data as it’s clear she doesn’t know how to see what’s on the drive. She’s giving me more each day now.
The next time I’ve a 40 spec list for her, it’s the same 20 minutes or so. Same core process now, but some extra steps.
- Be sure the door is closed.
- Turn up the fan on the printer enclosure and keep it tightly down while you work.
These two steps ensure you can hide the process from Pat. It’s better to start when she’s left for lunch as when she returns, the alcohol she drank made her a better person to be around and maybe less aware.
The final step must be preserved as well. After the reports are off the printer, I put them in my file cabinet, and give the reports to Pat in the morning after the request. We’re both happy and the work is done well.