General Electric built a world wide network to connect all its factories, offices, and supply. It was run by a finance guy, Reginald H. Jones.
GEISCO was an entity created to sell excess capacity — based out of Rockville, MD, the goal was to grow to a billion dollar company — so we were pretty stoked.
I was a Senior tech — based on my use of the product as a client at McDonalds. My role was to assist the Account Rep on technical questions, prototypes, demos.
Our clients had a strong need for networking:
- National carpet store chain reporting sales
- a regional convenience store PDQ to collect sales
- CCH: a legal publisher who sold “books” — but used the network to deliver real time legislative updates
- The “meat sheet” to create a national real-time system to bid on beef
- A trade-mark firm wanted to create a database of their trademarks and manage renewals; also created a network of intl IP attorneys (and my next employer)
Big Companies have to manage the small stuff: when a pen or pencil wore out, when my pad of paper was down to just the cardboard backing, you could go to supply and ask for a new one — but had to trade with the old one.
We sold heavy impact printers that connected to the network. For every form you had a corresponding carriage return tape: 8.5, W-2, Checks etc.
Part of my field work was to install new ones when an old one got stripped sockets — hanging chads, here we come!
We also sold Removable platter disk storage so you could easily swap out different sets of data — one day, after showing a prospect the quiet whirring of the disk and the quarter turn to remove it, i said:
“This is a real boon to productivity.”
After the client left, the rep said,
“Wow, you should be in sales!” {Laughter}
Getting closer.
I worked for the incredibly smart Tm Baker — our sense of humor was the same weird and punny. His favorite line about me was “he was a cunning ____” —- absolutely subtle and filthy. Dm me for answer….
By dayhardworking and by night we’d have a few beers and play Galaga in Illinois center waiting to get on our bus to Union Station — listening to Fleetwood Mac Tusk and Hall-n- Oates bc and Toto.
At a local deli we went to — Blackies — you’d order your sandwich and Bob would say, “Walk down…!”
First time i heard it, i took steps but much like John Cleese i couched a little with each step till i was squatting on the floor — Bob couldn’t see where i went till he leaned over: the restaurant was silent — and Baker spit out his corned beef and we laughed so hard tears ran down our faces. It became a tradition and we always laughed.
The car on the is an American Motors Gremlin — picture it Gray..
we passed one in the city — US Govt. Grey with stenciled wording on the side: “Property of U.S AirForce”
So, i drolly observe, ” so this guy joins the most technical branch of the service and ends up driving around in a Gremlin..?.”
Once again, found it hard to catch our breath we were laughing so hard.
A group of us fished, families got together for picnics, holidays. GE was very good to me…and it was a blast being downtown.
I was recruited by a client. What? Again?
going to a vendor leveraged my skills, increased my pay, and gave me a chance to checkout many different companies.
A blog by Paul Petersen 
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