Now, back in Broward, lets’ see how the day went for those of us whose business conventions are held at Burger King. Today was another good one, I am still stunned by the number of callouts. Each day I grow more convinced that my competition has gone under, but I do stress it is the unseen competitors. Not the shop across the boulevard, but the whiz kid who charges half my prices. All I know is that something has changed and I hope it is a trend.For example, a walk-in this afternoon found me troubleshooting a true museum piece. It was an office completely equipped with Win95 computers and DOS programs. From what the owner says, I may be the only person left who knows DOS, another thing I’m starting to believe. (That’s part of the mystery of my competition, because anybody younger than me is unlikely to have a DOS background.) The office equipment was in sparkling condition, including an old Epson dot matrix printer.
The owner is the guy who runs that ring and coin booth at various clubs and shows. The programs were totally 1990s, he had Peachtree and First Choice (accounting and database), with the old lo-res graphics and chunky screen menus. He had jammed a program called “Kargas” which he uses to print those tiny price tags you see on rings. Turns out he had accidentally reconfigured it. Back then you didn’t install a printer driver, you custom configured the printer and computer combination each time. He was so impressed, he paid me the second largest tip in my computer career.
Earlier, a client came in to use my shop computers for his on-line course in CIS (Computer Information Systems). We got to talking, and although I encouraged as much as I could, I was dismayed by the shallowness of current computer courses. It amounts to my saying I’m glad I did my studies back in the day when we really had to learn something. The client, although in a graduate year, and I’m sure his grades were up there, didn’t have much of a clue about what is really required.
Then, I also was the victim of such schooling when I was younger. These days I’d know precisely what to tell a counselor who said I had to take a philosophy course when I was signed up in the sciences program. I still refer to that as “tuition gouging”, but I was 17 and I bought it. However, I emphasize that I did take all the available computer courses (around 8 all told) and it is the content of those that was superior to anything today.
Another thing that strikes me is the apparent lack of general exposure in today’s students. I mean, in my day it was forgivable that I did not know there was no such thing as a spreadsheet or I had no idea what the Internet was all about. Back then it was a major operation to keep informed about the computer world. Today, there is no such excuse. Today’s dude was absolutely floored when I showed him the Arduino. He’d never even heard of Wikipedia.
