David Pickett
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David Pickett
Then, 1969, I started in with computers at Honeywell in Brighton Mass as a Test Engineer, debugging raw assembled computer gear into a shippable product. Not enjoying NYC that much, I went to Philadelphia area, living in Southern NJ and servicing the computers at Philadelphia Electric (PECO) and later others all over the Delaware Valley from Atlantic City to Trenton to Valley Forge. After a divorce, I decided to go back to college at Drexel, nights, on very full tuition refund, and in 1989 got a BS in EE with a Taking a voluntary layoff with extra severance, I found a job consult tech writing and programming at AT&T in Parsippany on Calling Card provisioning, where I later became an employee. However, the AT&T career track was a bit slow for me, so I took a consult as IBM in Research Triangle Park, NC, on their AIX UNIX Internet firewall product, programming and doing tier III and IV support. However, NC was too far from family, so I found a consult at Lucent in Allentown, and moved to the Lehigh Valley. After a few years consulting in one Lucent/Agere division, I got laid off but hired as an employee in a sibling group. A few years later, they had layoffs again, and I did a short consult at Capital One in Glen Allen, VA, but did not find much else. As the Lehigh Valley was overflowing with similar resumes for people with deep roots and connections there, I returned my wife to her home town, Vineland, NJ, and looked for work in that area. I consulted to BankOne as they merged with JPMorganChase for a few months, then consulted to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) for a few years, became an employee for a few years, got bought up to be part of NASDAQ, and got laid off again. I consulted for Bank of America on Cedit Card Balance Transfer systems for about 16 months and got laid off with their recent financial difficulties. Now, I write and test supercomputer software for E T International in Newark, DE. They wrote a whole operating and development system for an IBM supercomputer, Cyclops64, used by the NSA. I am back at TEK/Bank of America, working 100% from home from now on. |
I was 8 in 1957 when I started, and went every year, as I recall, but often just one month, until I was a second year UL, and was voted to NOT be a counselor. Later, I was a photography counselor at a really low-budget local Y camp, with a cabin of campers and starting a really dead photography program -- no campers died in my care. However, I was making more after camp ended in a local cardboard box factory. For two summers I was a Connecticut State Park Lifeguard, while flunking out of Union College. Factory life was OK but layoffs too big a threat, so after a couple years, I migrated to Field Service in NYC, for a couple of years tending Associated Hospital Services now Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield computers. 
Computer Design specialization, and then a new wife.