DATELINE: Undisclosed location in New Jersey, 1997.
The late 1990's marked the end of the era at Standard Networks in which developers were sent into meatspace to install software, encountering actual customers in the flesh. On this occasion, I ventured out to a concern in New Jersey whose business was either curing cancer, or dunning delinquent debtors - I won't say which. I will mention seeing a call center where operators spoke to "customers" while entering notes into a mainframe application IN ALL UPPER CASE, even though both their terminals and the EBCDIC character set certainly supported lower case.
My job was to install our new web-enabling software alongside their copy of one of our more established TCP-to-mainframe products. I was a bit nervous because the job also entailed upgrading the existing product, and I wasn't very familiar with that product. Fortunately, Dale was available to lend his expertise.
The business had a very small IT department, headed by a fellow whom I'll call Ricky. As I installed the software, I tried to explain what I was doing and what the software would do for him. It soon became clear that Ricky wasn't very interested, and wasn't a very technical fellow - an awkward situation under the circumstances.
As I recall, there were a couple of other people in the department. One of them had nothing to do with the networking side and wasn't going to be involved in the installation, maintenance, or use of the software.
The other, whom I'll call Sven, was really the one I needed to talk to. However, Sven had been bitten by a spider a few weeks previously, and was having a hard time getting over it. At the time I was there, he was still showing up to work only a few hours a week. I got Ricky to talk him into coming in on the last day I was there. Sven was still pretty rattled by the time I talked to him, and I'm not sure how much of what I said sank in. However, I was able to complete installation of the software and show him the toy application I wrote for them.
What Ricky lacked in technical acumen he made up for in hospitality. He showed me around and advised me on the local attractions, to the extent there were any.
While driving around, I pulled into a gas station, and was surprised to see that there were no self-serve pumps. I could see no alternative but to let the attendant pump the gas for me, figuring this was some old ma-and-pa station that was stuck in the past. I was astonished to hear Ricky tell me that no gas stations in New Jersey allowed customers to pump their own gas. It sounded so backwards to me that I wasn't sure whether Ricky was pulling my leg.
When I got back home, I decided to send Ricky a token of my appreciation for his kindness. I shipped him some Wisconsin goodies, including a bottle of cranberry juice. My wife, a cranberry researcher, took delight in the fact that Wisconsin had surpassed Massachusetts and New Jersey to become the top cranberry-producing state in the nation. The cranberry juice, in addition to being a gift, was also a jibe at a rival state. I hoped I wasn't being too hard on poor, third-place New Jersey.
I sent off the package. Weeks went by, and nothing but crickets from New Jersey. Was Ricky angry that I'd insulted the cranberry-producing abilities of his state? Finally I called Ricky on some pretext, and casually asked him if he'd received a package from me. He said yes, and apologized that he hadn't had a chance to install the software yet.
It turned out that Ricky had assumed that the box contained a magnetic tape with a software update. He hadn't wanted to deal with it, so he set it aside. Further discussion revealed that, to my surprise, he spent very little time thinking about cranberries and state rivalries.
The moral of the story is: do not ascribe to cranberries that which can be adequately explained by magnetic tapes.
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