IBM....eh

I started this blog a few years ago to track my house selling process, and my move up to Scouserland. Today the blog takes on a whole new life, as indeed do I.

Tuesday 6th November is the first day of my non-working life as I formally retire from full time employment. My pension cheque landed in my bank account, I have bought a car and booked a holiday. What more else is there to do?

Well, I think I should document the past 40 years (almost) that I have been working for IBM in the UK.

I got kicked out of college in March 1973. It was one of those Polytechnic places which the labour government were quick to change into new age universities. Ted Heath was Prime Minister, and the World Trade Centre in New York was officially opened. Watergate spelt the end of President Nixon in the USA.  After hunting around for a while, I was offered a job with IBM and started on 23rd March. the next day Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon. I was hoping to stay with IBM until 24th March 2013 to get my 40 years in, but unfortunately they had other plans so here I am in leisure land.

So what did I do, and where?  I started in the Croydon location as a computer operator, a job I would not get today unless I had 11 A* at GCSE, 4 A's or better at A level, and a 2.1 degree in anything other than Information Technology!! So for me with my 6 'O' levels and two grade E A levels it was a case of right place right time. Indeed had I graduated in 1975 it is likely I would have struggled to get a job in the computer industry, and with Maggie Thatcher becoming Prime Minister the whole environment was about to be a whole lot tougher. A fellow operator, referred to only as 'Figs' to protect his identity,  is still a regular drinking mate as is his wife Marian who was also a Croydonian.

Anyway, I pushed on through the ranks as an operator and with another great friend of mine, Mike McBride, we became the pioneers of problem and change management systems and subsequently were at the forefront of service management and ITIL evolution, something which today is a seriously recognised IT qualification.

I then moved to Sudbury Towers to become a lecturer in service management operations and disaster recovery planning, and still have my PA Joyce as a chum to this day. I remember going to her 21st birthday party in The Rising Sun, and she and I went to Hyde Park the night before Charles and Di got married, for the free pop concert.

I then moved to the City of London and Basinghall Street where I was a systems engineering specialist, wow! I transferred with the job when it moved to the spanking new South Bank building next to the Festival Hall  in 1985.

It was soon after that that I had the type of move everybody can only dream of. I moved into the Chiswick office, right across the road from where I lived. Oh, the joy of running home to get the washing in when it started to rain!!

When Chiswick closed the staff were moved to Bedfont Lakes, another new location. Michael Heseltine opened it 1995. I remember being there the evening they filmed a scene from Tomorrow Never Dies. I, however went on to manage a group of UNIX nutters in Welwyn Garden City for a number of years, a job I was offered on the beach in Lisbon. If we had only had the vision, E-Bay, Lastminute and Expedia could have all been ours. Trouble was they were so focused on being techie's, growing their beards and comparing sandals, that the opportunity was lost.  They were good times in Welwyn, and I must have done something right as one day I was summons to Bedfont.

That summons resulted in a chance to manage the systems management consulting group, a group which included some of the sharpest minds in the Country, and who almost without fail, enjoyed a drink. They have elevated themselves to the high points of the Company, and many remain in regular contact. Our Manchester Christmas party is still one of the highlights of the year.

At the beginning of the 2000's IBM started to rationalise its real estate portfolio, and diminish the community spirit office work generated. I was luck enough, however,  to be posted to Knutsford near Manchester, now as a project manager, for a three year project which maintained that community spirit for a bit longer, and also qualified me for the Global Golden Circle award in 2001, an award which took me and SWMBO to Bali for a few days on the Company. That was a real experience.

That project followed on from a stint working for Logica on IBM's behalf and saw me work on-site at GCHQ for 18 months. Other projects took me to Saudi, Turkey and Brazil during a time when it was becoming evident that IBM and I had run our course. That feeling was cemented when a project in Scotland , involving travel to Chicago, went  a bit pear shaped and saw me relieved of duties earlier than planned.

I did manage to find a role in the business recovery division at Samspon House, back on South Bank, which got me to where I am today, the irony being that the business director was one of the team I recruited all those years ago in Bedfont Lakes. He did me a good deal and allowed for an honourable exit. After nearly 40 years one would hope for nothing less, but times change and some of my colleagues have not been treated with the dignity they deserved, when they were shown the door.

Undoubtedly the first ten years were the best, parties, after shift booze-up's, 5am tee off times on the golf course after night shift, page 3 girl's and the Youngs 135 Club. The next twenty years can tell a few stories too. Family dinners were riotous, the Christmas dinners were legendary and the work was pretty good too. As for the last ten years, well best forgotten really, after Bali it all went down hill. Remote working, travel restrictions, expense clampdowns and the pension debacle have all lead to the Company being absorbed into the pack. When I first joined it was the leader, and by some way.