<%= [html_header "Work"] %>

Work

I work for Supply Technology, Inc. A national remarketer of telecommunications equipment. I really don't have much to do with the business side of things. I spend most of my time developing custom applications for internal use and providing technical support on a variety of issues. At first I did most of my work in ObjectPAL, an event driven, object oriented language native to Paradox. Paradox is a relational database system for Wintel machines. ObjectPAL is a neat "language", easy to learn yet quite powerful. If you need to do some complex manipulations on a data set, you can whip out an ObjectPAL script in about 10 minutes. Since ObjectPAL is not a true application development environment(you can't compile into an executable, no access to the OS API) I found myself doing some work in C. One problem: C sucks. Don't believe me? How about this little code snippet :

for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=C;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("|"+(*u/4) %2);

That code will actually compile with no errors! Anyway I've never taken the time to get a really thorough understanding of C and it's not really the most appropriate language for what I want to do. Thusly(yes that is a real word) I have moved on to Borland's Delphi. Delphi is basically Visual Pascal. Here is some (bad)code. Pascal was originally developed as a teaching tool used to introduce students to programming. It turned out to be such a powerful language that it was adopted as a real development language. With the release of Borland's Turbo Pascal compiler in the mid eighties Pascal became one of the most solidly implemented languages for the x86 platform(although this was not its original platform.) It really is a joy to develop an outstanding application without reinventing the wheel each time. Being strongly typed and well structured has led some critics to refer to Pascal as a language for weak minds. The implication being that one needs to lean on the compiler to write proper code. This is more an issue of ego and testosterone. The greatest lesson I ever learned about programming I learned from the story of Mel, perhaps the critics, and you, can benefit as well.
The Goat Hill TavernA lot of people I know say the same thing: "I hate my job." I can't really understand this. I have never has a job that I didn't like. Even when I was doing ridiculous things in the Marine Corps I could always find something to enjoy. I've had some pretty stupid jobs too, things like guarding empty buildings in the middle of a base at 0300 with an empty rifle or sweeping the dirt off a dirt road!?. I guess it's just because I take pride in my work no matter what it is. It also helps to be easily entertained. Fortunately I don't have to try very hard to enjoy working for Supply Technology. This is definitely a unique company. There is an atmosphere of openness and trust. The company operates more like a large extended family working collaboratively twords a goal than a sterile, faceless corporate entintiy. The corporate policy seems to be "make this as little like work as possible and still get the job done." Of course frequent trips to Henry `n Harry's Goat Hill Tavern, a world class bar, helps considerably.

Update November 99

Things have changed quite a bit in the 2 years since I wrote this. Supply Tech has gone from a small friendly company to a medium sized, impersonal company. We no longer make frequent trips to the goat as the company is concerned with "liability" now. The corporate policy now appears to be a bit less friendly. Oh well. I can still wear jeans to work and there are no cubicles in sight. There are some enlightened people in management who I deal with on a daily basis. There are tons of other perks( such as the space, hardware & time to host this website and play with Linux). This place is still better than 80% of companies out there. I still like the technical aspects of what I do & I really think that this attitude is just a phase. If not... I get 2-3 offers a month for 20%-30% more than I make here.


Joe@supply.com