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(old logo, circa 70's - 80's)

Here's where I've spent by far the majority of my working life... I've worked for NCR on and off for a total of about 20 years, in two locations (Columbia and San Diego), spanning two careers and three layoffs... The saga follows:

 
  as usual, a timeline

 
1982
 As a college student, I began working part-time as an intern for NCR E&M Columbia as a draftsman in the Microcomputer Unit Development group (MUD). Was hired by and reported to Bill Eisenman, who later became a vice president at NCR World Headquarters in Dayton, OH. (Bill would later say that I was NCR-Columbia's first ever intern.)

1983
Was getting bored with school and doubtful about my major (Engineering), so took time off from school to work fulltime at NCR. (I was thinking at the time that this would be short-term, but....read on!)

  

  old NCR ID   
 badges of mine


 

1985
Went on 'loan' to the Advanced Systems offsite development group at "Yellow Rock" reporting to John Peeples. Began using AutoCAD in addition to hand drafting. Also had my first UNIX account, and was thereby granted my initial membership in cyberspace, being newly introduced to e-mail and Usenet. Also started doing some mechanical design in addition to drafting while working on the Tower 200 a.k.a. "Amphibian" project.

1988
Finally relocated from Yellow Rock back into the main plant. Mostly doing Mechanical Design at this point but also carried the title of "Lead Draftsperson" (and/or "AutoCAD Lead"). Reported to Bill Johnson for most of this period. Life was good.

1991
Sometime in late '91 AT&T made a bid to acquire NCR, even threatening a hostile takeover. AT&T eventually prevailed, and suddenly the 100-year-old NCR Corporation was a fully-owned subsidiary of AT&T... Kinda weird getting used to that!

  


  The AT&T Years
 From 1991 to 1996,
NCR was a fully-owned subsidiary of AT&T. Officially our name was AT&T Global Information Solutions (AT&T GIS for short).

  

1994
Rumors were that all Unit Development (which included Mechanical Engineering) would gradually be phased out. Indeed, NCR eventually sold this portion of the business to Intel. I was back in school part-time, taking a lot of writing classes (even considering majoring in English), so I took a chance on a career change... I interviewed up the hall with the Tech Pubs group, and got hired as a Technical Writer. My first duty was maintaining the Hardware Service Manual for the 3450/3500 products—units I was well-acquainted with from having been involved with them as a mechanical designer. Life was good.

1995
Layoff #1! Less than a year into my new career I found myself potentially out of a job... My position was being eliminated and no other groups in Columbia were hiring. To stay with NCR would mean somehow leaving town, provided I could even get a job at a different NCR location. Well, considering I had 13 years with NCR so far, I wanted to keep it going... I interviewed with NCR in Dayton and in San Diego (being the only two NCR divisions which were hiring tech writers at the moment).

Got the San Diego job, and AT&T/NCR moved me lock, stock, and barrel to California with a very decent relocation package. I began working as a Tech Writer in the relatively new Rancho Bernardo facility. Life was good.

  
 

1996
In a giant "trivestiture" AT&T breaks itself up into three companies, spinning off NCR and Lucent. NCR is once again a publicly traded company. I happen to get my picture in the paper during the company celebration at the Rancho Bernardo campus.

  

 


1998-99 (BEA Systems)
Layoff #2! Well, sort of... What happened is that NCR "sold" me off to BEA Systems, a Silicon Valley company which acquired the TOP END product and all those associated with it... i.e. for about thirty-five of us, our choice was to have a job with BEA, or not have a job. Turns out BEA was actually a good gig; I would've gotten kinda rich on the stock options I'd been given. But, after only about 7 months (and before my options had vested) BEA pulled the plug on its San Diego operations. Me, out of a job! Only saving grace was a decent severance package (which for me amounted to about a $5000 lump sum plus continuance of regular paycheck for about 5 months). Not too shabby, and furthermore it was the glory days of the bull market (high flying tech stocks) so I didn't worry (much) about finding something else.

  
 
1999
After being out of work several months (and while still getting BEA severance pay) happened to hear of a job opening back at good ol' NCR... Got hired as a Tech Writer for the Teradata Applications group. Life was good.
  

      

 
2000-2001 (side note)
Seems that NCR is taking great pains to separate out Teradata (the Data Warehouse division) from NCR proper. In Rancho Bernardo they actually began answering the phone "Teradata, a division of NCR," and likewise started a separate website. Rumors abounded of a divestiture or acquisition of Teradata—which still hasn't happened...
  
 
Nov. 2001
Layoff #3! To add insult to injury of 9/11/01, I was also out of a job two months after the WTC attack. Again a decent severance package (roughly another $5000 lump sum plus another 5 months of continuing paychecks), but this time in the face of a gloomier economy. (The Tech bubble had burst, not to mention the economic fallout from 9/11.) I was unemployed for about 4 months before getting a job next door at HP. Not too bad in hindsight, but a scary 4 months nonetheless...

  

 
2002 - 2004 (HP)
Worked at Hewlett-Packard for exactly 2 years... In Rancho Bernardo, HP is right down the street from NCR. And in fact, my cube at HP was in the building which used to be the old NCR E&M facility! HP only leases that particular building (I believe), and it may even still belong to the NCR Retirement Fund (although I've also heard that Lucent may have acquired that property as part of the AT&T trivestiture—see above). So, in a very odd way, being at HP was kinda like still being at NCR! (I was certain that the old beige cubicle walls and furniture in that building went back to the NCR days i.e. were simply inherited by HP.)

 		 

    NCR Volleyball

    Mechanical
       Design

    Me in the
        newspaper

 

  
Dec. 2003
Never say never. After almost exactly a two-year absence, started back at NCR again, again in the Teradata Applications group, although as a contractor this time around. And so the story continues, one chapter at a time...



 
  

 

 www.paulfidler.com

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