Techno -Phobe or -Phile

I take life as a series of puzzles.

I have been working with computers since the 1970s when I keypunched my data and program statements, took the cards to the computer center, waited a day, and hoped there was no missing semicolon.

In the 1980s I used PCs hooked up to a remote terminal and my analyses came back much faster. When working with my first DOS operating system, I was able to write simple batch files and worked with EDLIN. (Everybody should experience EDLIN). I started doing word processing and was amazed to be able to center and justify.

At that time a friend of mine applied for a clerical job after being out of the work force for a number of years. She was terrified. Nobody made typing errors. All the typed documents had no erasures. She thought she couldn't rise to that standard.

In the 1990s Windows was the operating environment now, and work was done with GUI and WYSIWYG. The Internet reared its head and the rest is history . . . everything became I-this or I-that.

I've been fortunate in starting from the bottom, so to speak. I've been able to build on applications when they were simpler and basic. I do some programming now, but with third generation language. To me this is not programming, but writing English.

My real job, the one that pays the bills, gives me a lot of opportunities to solve puzzles. I like the work as long as the peripherals don't get in the way. My library job is my fun job. This pays for Broadway. I still get to solve puzzles -- literally and figuratively, but around really creative and imaginative people.