I steal from Bob Sutor the blog post title, "24 years, 364 days". The day I joined IBM was officially 1st. January 1983. 1st. January was a public holiday, so I started work on 2nd. January 1983. Tomorrow I complete my 25th. year as an employee of IBM! In the company we say I join the "Quarter Century Club."
Like Bob, I applied to IBM because I had "worked" there, as an industrial trainee for two months. Since I was a known quantity, I was accepted to start work quite immediately after my final exams and before the results of my Diploma in Electrical Engineering (Electronics) at ITM (Institut Teknologi MARA, now UiTM - Universtiti Teknologi MARA).
I started as a Customer Engineer for the then popular System/34, which was a mid-range (is there such a category now?) system. The PC was not invented yet. More than half my career in IBM were in the services division, supporting other hardware including banking terminals and mainframes. I went on to be managers of various support and services units.
In 1998 I began working with the Government, being a member of the National Y2K Working Group that helped the critical sectors of the country become "Y2K ready." Now I continue working with Government, on other important national IT policy areas.
I started in services, and my latest interest is also in services -- SSME (Service Science, Management and Engineering).
I had met my wife in ITM. My first "bonus" (13th. month contractual salary) helped fund our wedding in January 1984. We were to be wedded in the evening of that Saturday, and there I was working in the morning, installing a hardware upgrade for the System/38 at Colgate-Palmolive. Our two children (girl and boy) are responsible young adults now, and our additional child in the family (youngest sister of my wife, from another mother) begins her high school life in a boarding school. I owe my family everything for the 25 years. My wife and I will celebrate our 25th. anniversary in just over a year's time -- any suggestion of how we should celebrate is very welcome!!!
25 years have breezed by! I continuously excite myself in work and family.
I did my part-time MBA 15 years after work and have just been accepted to study part-time again 25 years after.
Will I retire in 5 years' time (that'll be when I am eligible to retire)? Or 10 years' time? I don't know. When the time comes, we will know. "Retire" in this case means retire from this company. I don't know what retire means in other aspects of this exciting life.
I cant believe that you started working on 76. I was born on 76! :P
Have a wonderful year ahead abang!
Posted by: Adik | Thursday, 03 January 2008 at 09:36 PM
May your wish come true pak teh..Good luck!
Posted by: norisza | Saturday, 05 January 2008 at 05:54 AM
Man! 25 years??!! I can't even stick to a company for 5 years. The longest was 4 1/2 years.
I still remember then, you were called "pomen pakai tie". There's the picture here. Hahahahahaha. CONGRATS!!!
Posted by: Faizal Sohaimi | Wednesday, 09 January 2008 at 04:24 PM