My Dad was a career Safeway employee. 45 years with the same company. Started as a buyer and ended up as an HR manager and international president of the Safeway Employee Association. During his years with Safeway he is also credited with starting the Safeway Credit Union. Most of his later career, he commuted to Oakland from our house in Daly City. This was before BART and when bridge toll at the Bay Bridge was a quarter. Dad was the last of the old breed of management. Worked his way up through the ranks along with everyone else. No college degree, just common sense and good judgement. I know the cost of living was low back then but Dad sure didn’t make the big bucks. I saw some of his W2 forms after he passed away and he wasn’t making much. When he finally retired, the “new” breed was beginning to take over. The kids with college degrees were moving in and moving up. These are the guys that started making the big bucks. Peter Magowan, Part Owner of the San Francisco Giants was working for Safeway when Dad retired. Peter eventually became CEO of Safeway at the time when upper management of large corporations were starting to make large salaries and wage disparity started to grow. Dad is lucky he got out when he did. You don’t see many 45 year employees at any company these days. Fortunately for him, mom and us, He saved his money. He started doing a new fangled thing called payroll deduction. Rather than give you a paycheck, they put it right in the bank for you! He also invested. In Safeway, in stocks, and even in limited partnerships. When going through his things after he passed, he was buying limited partnerships in Embassy Suites back in the day! Whatever he did, it worked. For a guy that never made over 35k a year, he was able to save and invest to where he and mom had a net worth of over one million dollars at retirement.
Dad also invested in us. His kids. Nobody is perfect and neither was dad. But he and mom loved us probably more than we can ever know. Growing up we had what seemed like a good life. Like everyone, we can see in retrospect that it wasn’t all good all the time. We had ups and downs and problems that most families have. The saying, “be kind, for everyone you know is fighting a great battle”, is so true. And true for everyone. Two things come to mind about dad as I write about riding the wave. Work ethic and saving. Dad showed by example and had a 45 year career to show for it. Get up every morning, shower and shave and put that suit on and commute and then work work work. Repeat for 16,425 days. Perhaps his great advise was to use that payroll deduction. “You don’t see the money so you don’t miss it”
I think I’ve written about this before, but when I got out of the Army in 1981, my childhood friend handed me a stack of applications that he had picked up while job hunting in what was the new Silicon Valley. Since I was a military policeman in the Army, I was looking for corporate security jobs. The applications I submitted resulted in a few interviews but the one I got a call back for was at Avantek Inc. My interview there was ok. The lady asked me if I knew was a semiconductor was. No. But I got a job offer anyway! I had been living at mom and dad’s house in Rohnert Park for the couple of months I had been out of the Army, but when I landed the job in Santa Clara, my sissy let me live with them in Palo Alto for a while until I could get on my feet.
Avantek security was ok. I started on midnight shift and was trained by Carl Devoll. A great guy that taught me a lot about the job specifics. On the graveyard shift there was plenty of time to talk in between security rounds. I eventually worked all shifts and all positions and was working my way up. I worked in the command center and had 4 security guards that I supervised. It was during this time that I not only met my future wife, but also some of my closest and life long friends.
Barb was a computer operator on the 2nd floor of building three. I was on the first floor of building one. But lucky for me one of the many security cameras that I had to monitor was in the computer room so I got to watch Barb (and her coworkers) whenever I wanted. Coincidentally it was the same time that the Police released the song I’ll be watching you”, so I used to joke with her about that all the time. The Command center was also a little bit of a hang out for employees. Everyone in the building had to pass the command center to leave building one, so I got to know almost everyone eventually. Linda Yan was one of those that would always stop by to chat. Her boyfriend Tim Lobert worked in B-3 and we became and continue to be great friends. By the time I wore Barb down enough to have her agree to go on a date with me, Tim and I were room mates living the 80’s dream in a two bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale.
Barb and I and Tim and Linda became great friends. Like the Gatsbys!! Parties after work and all weekend long. So many great memories were made and so many we cant remember! Tim and Linda stories reserved for another post!
After a year or so in Security I got a job in MIS ( what is now called information technology) as a computer operator. Barb was my boss!! Well, my dotted line boss anyway. But it was the real beginning of my IT career. Working on a Unisys 2200/400 mainframe computer. Disk drives, tape drives, huge printers. The computer room was a large space. Today all that technology can fit on a desktop, but back then it was state of the art. Again. I worked all shifts, weekend and holidays too, and was promoted up. At some point I left computer operations and became a network technician, setting up modems, and data lines between buildings and facilities. Avantek at the time had locations in Santa Clara, Milpitas, Folsom and Newark. I had a good job, married my sweetheart, and was working with good people. Life was good!
Right after my 10th anniversary with Avantek, BOMBSHELL! Avantek was purchased by Hewlett Packard!! Nothing changed at first. Still had the same immediate management chain with some new HP folks up top, but HP had bought us for its technology so not too much was going to change. At this point in time HP was a great company to work for. The founders were retired but still on the board and still active in the overall management of the company. I was lucky enough to be able to work at the Newark facility which was 5 minutes from home.
All was going on smoothly, my job enabled me to pick up Kelly and Kate from School everyday and the flexible hours meant I went on almost every field trip while they were in grammer school. It was great. I was working hard and getting good pay. Overtime on the weekends whenever I wanted it. At this point I was the IT guy for the Newark facility. Then in 1999, BOMBSHELL. Newly appointed HP CEO Carly Fiorina decided to “spin-off” the semiconductor, test and measurement and anything else not PC/ Printer or storage related. Agilent technologies was created and I was part of the deal. I became an Agilent employee (but still held onto my time of service and all). I was a little upset that I was no longer an HP employee but the job remained the same so I was good. Then a few years later, BOMBSHELL. Agilent was outsourcing its IT services back to HP. HP had just started a new business. IT service management. You worry about your core business and let HP worry about your IT needs. My head was spinning but bottom line I was going back to HP and supporting Agilent. Still same desk, hours, but now a different management chain. I just put my head down, did my job and rode the wave. On the bad side of things, Carly Fiorina was a huge fan of low overhead. Save money by getting rid of people or by shifting American jobs overseas. So that meant many of my friends, colleagues and pears were “work force managed”. A fancy term for laid off, canned, let go. Better and smarter people than I were let go without as much as a “thank you for your 25 years of service”. This is the dawn of the era where all sorts of jobs left for India, China, and all points not the USA. From here on out, the constant threat of losing your job loomed out there like an executioners axe just waiting to fall. Every month end, quarter end or year end press release would say that the only way for the company to do what’s right for its stockholders is to reduce costs. And the best and easiest way to do that was to reduce headcount or move your job to a “low cost country”
By this time, I was a Vendor Manager, and for whatever reason, that was one of the few positions that they chose to keep local. Soon after I started working from home full time. I was doing it part time for a while but with all the confusion and management musical chairs that was going on, I was frustrated. When they sent out a form to ask where I worked I put “Work from home”. From then on I was classified as such and spent the next 12 years doing just that. Working from home.
The bombshells were dropping on a regular basis in the years after, and always with the constant threat of lay off. Eventually, Agilent went looking for a better outsourcing deal and HP lost the contract. In the last days, I sent out an email to all my HP and Agilent contacts letting them know the situation and that I was looking for work. Thats when Will Mawhiney saved the day. I had never met Will face to face. I had talked to him on the phone and been on many conference calls with him over the years. He worked in Colorado Springs and was the guy in charge of the call centers. I dealt with him because I was in charge of the voice and data cabling installers for all facilities in the USA. I sent out my “I’m looking for work” email and a couple days later he responded “I’m shopping you around”
Turns out Will had left the Agilent account and was working on the newly acquired and HUGE Proctor and Gamble account. HP had bought Ross Perot’s EDS and one of their outsourcing accounts was Proctor and Gamble. P&G is one of the largest companies in the world so you can imagine that their voice and data needs are great. Will was recently brought onto the P&G team because HP had just won back the voice business that they had lost a few years earlier. Its confusing but whatever. Will was looking for a configuration manager (whatever the hell that is). Well, whatever it was, I was Will’s man. He got to choose and he chose me. I learned to be a configuration manager and did so for the next 5 years. HP in their wisdom decided to focus on PCs and Printers only so they did a spinoff. I went to the newly formed HPE ( Hewlett Packard Enterprise ) and continued to work on the P&G account. HPE in their great wisdom determined that they did not want to be a “services” company any longer so they did a “spin-merge” with Computer Science Corporation and form a new company called DXC Technologies where I continued to work on the P&G account. For some reason, when we became DXC, I thought it was a good thing. We were the new “pure services” company and had the huge P&G account. I thought I might be set to ride the wave into retirement just like dear old dad!
DXC had different ideas. Will had always been honest about what he knew was going on with headcounts and WFM and what management was deciding about human resources. He told me my name had come up as a possible layoff candidate and that he had fought to keep me. It worked for a while. Last year, in mid July, after 5 years on the P&G account, the writing was on the wall. Will said that its only a matter of time. My job was being outsourced to Germany. He also said they are not even giving two week notices anymore, so you can expect a call and be expected to be out that day or that week. So on Monday August 7th last year Will gave me the heads up to expect a call. Later that morning I got a call from my “manager” (who I had never spoken to until this day) telling me that he is sorry and bla bla bla, yadda yadda yadda, your last day is Friday. Since I knew this was coming I was fortunate enough to be able to prepare some choice words for my manager that I had never met nor spoken to, who was laying off a 35 year employee with 4 days notice. August 11th was my last day and my first day. The last day riding the wave. That wave anyway. But it was also the first day of paddling out to catch the next wave. The wave that brought me and Barb to Florida and the precious time that we get to spend with our grandson.
Thank God dad’s talk about payroll deduction stuck with me. Lots of things happened over those 35 years. Married Barb. Had two great kids in Kelly and Kate. Bought a house and made friends and memories that last a lifetime. Made some good and bad financial decisions. But thanks to Dad, I did put some money away every paycheck..
I never had a do a resume in my life up until late last year. Even though my work experience looks somewhat diverse by working for Avantek, HP, Agilent, HPE and DXC, in actuality, I really never left my desk! Because of the mergers, spinoffs, aquistions, spin mergers, and all I never lost my years of service. Not that it did me any good in the end, its just weird.
The last year has been the next wave. When I woke up on Saturday august 12 2017 I was unemployed for the first time since March 1982. Things changed but they were about to change even more!
