I was sitting eating supper with some of the men in my small group when Jim, across the table from me, asked, “You’re from south Florida, right?”
I chuckled, “Almost. Not south Florida. I grew up in south Philly.”
Knowing that I’m a retired pastor, he asked, “Did you serve a church in that area?”
“No, I left there after high school to go to college in Lancaster. Then I worked for Bell Labs in New Jersey for a few years before I found my way to the seminary.”
The mention of Bell Labs sparked interest at the table. “What did you do there?”
I explained, “I was a programmer, working with a bunch of people who were way smarter than me. Like the guy up the hall who developed digital voice communication for Apollo 8. I worked on some projects for the antitrust case against AT&T, and then some telephone network survivability studies.”
One of the guys asked, “Whatever happened to Bell Labs?”
“AT&T lost the antitrust case and had to spin off Western Electric, a bunch of Baby Bells, and Bell Labs, later renamed Lucent Technologies. But that was after I had left them for another job.”
That brief discussion brought back memories of my first career at Bell Labs after graduating from Franklin and Marshall College in 1979. At the time I did not realize how prestigious the labs were. I was an overconfident graduate from a small liberal arts college with a degree in math and experience in programming in an organization filled with geniuses.
Keep in mind that programming in the early 80’s was Fortran, Cobol, and PL/1 on big old IBM 360s and 370s, with disk storage the size of forty-five pound barbell plates and long term tape drive memory. (IBM’s first desktop computers were released in August of 1981.) I could also program in Basic, which would come in handy a little later on.
My programming portfolio included compiling some survey data a friend of mine collected for the college radio station, some statistics for the basketball team, and some numerical analysis for some math classes. In retrospect, that doesn’t seem like much. But it was more than many of my classmates could do.
I only had to take three classes in the fall of 1978 to finish up my degree a semester early. I spent most of that fall applying for jobs. With just a manual typewriter, I cranked out dozens of cover letters to send out with my resume. I don’t remember how I found out where to apply for jobs. I must have found opportunities in math and science journals. I really swung for the fences, applying to Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, Lawrence Livermore in California, Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, New Jersey Bell, and a load of other places I can’t remember. I think I also sent away for master’s programs at universities all over the country. I had a pretty impressive collection of college catalogues. I had no idea how I would get there or pay for more education, but I would worry about that later.
I finished up my course work and moved back home in December of 1978. The next six weeks dragged on as I waited to hear from someone, anyone. Finally, at the end of January, I got a call from New Jersey Bell and Bell Labs in the same week, inviting me to come and interview.
My interview with New Jersey Bell came first. I drove up the NJ turnpike from south Philly to Newark. First, I took a test of general knowledge, simply math problems, vocabulary and grammar, and current events. After talking with a few people, I was taken to a room with about a dozen other interviewees to work on a test problem. The problem was a math and physics exercise about telephone poles and lines and cables. Wrote up my answer and headed home.
The Bell Labs interview was much different, lasting two days, talking to people from four different departments. They offered to put me up in a hotel in the area, but it was less than an hour away, so I elected to drive up each day. The first day of interviews was at the Holmdel, NJ location. It was impressive inside and out. I don’t remember much about the first day of interviews since I didn’t go to work at that location. The second day of interviews was in the Holmdel overflow location in West Long Branch, NJ.
I interviewed with two different groups in a department called Network Modeling. Just so you know, I had no idea what that meant. I interviewed with Gerd Printz and Ron Skoog, two group supervisors. They brought along Ted Ahern and Pam Turner, two of the group members I would be working with. I also talked with Bill Ross, the head of that department. As I sit here writing this, I am amazed that I remember these names from forty-four years ago!
Could I actually land a job there? I had no idea. But a couple of weeks later, a offer letter came in the mail and I had my first post-college job. I was on my way to Monmouth County New Jersey, my first apartment and life on my own.
Now that I’ve written this much, I think I’ll write about working at Bell Labs and leaving there in two subsequent parts.
Waite for it... 