My First Job Start Anniversary
This week my friends at LinkedIn (some physical and some virtual) reminded me that at this time of year, near the end of February in 1979, I began working for Digital Equipment Corporation as an associate technical writer. It is ironic for an app to congratulate me on a work anniversary that occurred before applications were invented. Even a few LinkedIn friends have trouble remembering just where they know me from, but that doesn't stop them from clicking Congratulate Mary Marotta. (In February of 1979, I was still Mary J. McCarron, but she doesn't have a LinkedIn account, or anniversary date, to send to everyone who's connected to her.)
It was a plum job, and led to over three decades of working with brilliant people, both managers and engineers, testers, documentation specialists and instructors. Many of these people have just been notified by LinkedIn about my work anniversary, and a few have responded. (Yes, all they have to do is click; but look how precious and important a click can be!)
I was 21 years old when I was hired by DEC. The emerging software component of the computer industry required writers who could make sense of what the engineers and product designers intended, as well as to keep track of the reams of data required to maintain and continually improve the early technical products.
In the fall of 1978, I entered my fourth year at UMass/Amherst with a goal. For the first time in my life, I knew what I was going to do when I got out of college.
The problem was, I needed to graduate by February. Training for new (associate) technical writing hires was provided starting in the spring of 1979. I had to complete my Bachelors degree, get hired by DEC, and be ready to start working full time at whatever facility hired me. My college dean must have felt steamrolled after my meeting with him; he agreed to waive a redundant course in exchange for a thesis on the development of the novel. No problem. What's one more classic novel every week?
By the time I went to my first job interview at DEC in Maynard, I had completed the thesis and all the coursework for my senior year. Fresh off campus, I smiled and stuttered my way through meetings with managers and human resources, then was sent on my way by a stern but kind old lady after a heart-to-heart talk - my first professional female pep talk. I did not get the Maynard job, but my next interview was much more successful, and I was hired by DEC at Marlborough.
Thirty-eight years later, computers link us together and even remind us automatically of our life events, our friends, each other's lives. It's odd - like having a precocious child who will never grow out of asking personal questions in public. I won't change it. I kind of like it.
