A MICROSOFT BALOON RIDE
Right now
you’re reading a story, I’ve written, as told to me by a woman by the name of
Dona (Cookie) Miller, a pleasant lady, in my own words near as I can remember.
HER: When I finished my finals
in Computer Science at Weber State, Microsoft hired me aboard. The date was
June 3, 1993. I was in an excited state of mind, and within a few days of being
hired, I jumped out of bed before the crack of dawn. I drove my car hastily to
the Weber State University football field. I unloaded my car in preparation for
my balloon trip to Seattle. I drove back to my apartment, parked my car in the
back yard. I woke up my teenage son, Raskel, called a taxi and was driven back
to the Weber State University football field. The sun was peeking over Mount Ogden.
We placed our
belongings in the gondola and climbed aboard. A quick blast of propane (100
million British Thermal Units), and the balloon launched upward. ‘Midnight Blue’ extended herself eight
stories top to bottom, and began silently moving west North West toward our
destination Micro-Soft Seattle. As the ground grew farther away, two excited
individuals were having their first long trip balloon experience. After many
difficult wind changes and a problem with a fan prop-blade in Boise, we arrived
in Seattle. two weeks later We landed on Microsoft Corporation .publics
entrance lawn.
For all
intents and purposes, I was in the wonderful world of the famous alpha geek entrepreneur,
Bill Gates. I first met Gates in his plainly decorated office located outside of
Seattle. He is known as the 38 year old youthful wonder boy of the computer
industry. As we visited, he rocked up and down in a metal fame chair. His
sentences were filled with words like stuff, things, and neat. There were some
signs of middle age and a bit of fading of his trademark red hair, undoubtedly
caused by the problems the Justice Department was causing. After two weeks of
indoctrination, I was given a job description of Chief Executive Facilitator
and Public Relations Director. My office was two doors down from Bill’s office.
Microsoft was having a serious problem with the United States Justice
Department. This was before Microsoft spent bazillions of money lobbying. That
came later.
The so called
Justice Department claimed Microsoft had a monopoly, better known by the Geek
Squad, as a beta-mixer. You see, on the worldwide internet millions of people
paid $19.99 a month to use the Microsoft windows operating system. And in the
year of 1992, Bill was subpoenaed to a Justice Department hearing. The Justice
Department’s lawyer chief Prosecutor Robert Sharp, who was the same person that
lied and produced false evidence at President Clinton’s impeachment Monica
Lewinski sex scandal hearings. He was later discredited by Clinton and Gates.
No one has heard from him since. President Clinton said, “He’s the only person
I have ever disliked.”
Back to my
story: There were Congressmen who raked Bill over the coals. You had to see it
to believe it. The questions were asked one after another, after another
shotgun style. The hot air that was blowing around the hearing room was like
than a Texas tornado. Tech revolution of that era definitely had its share of
mud-slinging. Bob Sharp had made up his
mind prior to the hearing to break up M.S. split it down the middle so to speak
into two companies. In years gone by the Justice Department had managed to split
up giants like AT&T, and Standard Oil.
AT&T and Standard Oil wasn’t Bill
Gates. Bill made no plans for recapitulation.
Was there
much sympathy for Microsoft? The answer is not much. Most politicians, lawyers,
and competitors considered Bill and his windows operating system (DOS) a bad
thing. They thought of Bill as another John D. or worse. Some were even heard
to say, Bill had outright stolen Windows, when he slipped out the back door at
IBM, his former employer.
It was winner
take all! It was full reconnaissance, take no prisoners. On Bill’s behalf, I
told the media and everyone else, the unabridged truth that the Justice’s thing
is totally unfair-burro racism, and a serious case of political extortion. The
blankityblank J.D. isn’t just, that is as certain as night follows day.
In the while,
my life was a bed of roses. Yours would be too. Suddenly a multimillionaire.
Profits were doubling each year, money, money, commissions, stock options,
golden parachutes, bonuses, up, going up like a balloon.
Long gone were
my Ogden days begging for food stamps, welfare handouts, oppressive duns,
hiding behind knocks on my door. Real money was coming in. The boom times were
rolling, $100s, $1,000s, not the $20s that spew out of ATMS into the hands of
the rank and file, real money, good whiskey; no more working under the table at
the “Co-co-mo.” Bar on Two Bit Street.
I was posing
as a “Tree War Writer” A tree war writer writes dancing baloney and useless
Animations that are used simply to impress clients. Tree war writers live in a
rarefied organizational layer. We are high above blue color. For example, I did
dancing baloney for Lucent’s Tech Division in the advertising manuals department,
located on the Eastern Rim headquartered in Peking. And get this a Cadillac I
bought I thought was American, but when I called State Farm to get it towed,
because of a flat tire, I found out it was built in Mexico by a company owned
by a company in Europe with a warehouse full of parts from China. When I
complained about the long wait for the tow truck, I was transferred to a call
center in India.
To be continued tomorrow...
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more of my writings go to: w.w.w.karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
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