Honest, that's easier than talking to her
- TAGS:IBM, invoices, punch cards
- IT TOPICS:Applications, Hardware, Management
Flashback to the mid-1970s, when this pilot fish is hired by a small family-owned auto parts distributor.
"Many of us held multiple positions," says fish. "I was one of the few employees that were not related to the owner/boss.
"I punched in cards on an old IBM 129, verified the data and ran it through a card reader, which sent the data to a company where invoices were printed."
When she's not doing that, fish works on accounts receivable with another employee. The task: manually matching up punch cards with payments, so they too can be sent to the off-site computer for processing.
But one day, fish notices something odd: Her co-worker is throwing away many of the punch cards.
On closer inspection, fish figures out that the woman is tossing all the cards that don't have printing on the top -- whether they're punched or not.
"When I mentioned that those cards still contain data, she ignored me," fish says.
"After a while, I mentioned this to the boss, hoping that he could talk to his sister, since she was literally throwing money away.
"I was fired."
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