Friday, January 04, 2008
Life's Too Short
I got an email from a former colleague late yesterday telling me that my old boss at CLA had passed away. He was only 58. It was a heart attack.
My husband says this is not a good thing to say, but he was the worst boss I had at CLA. I was never able to establish a successful working relationship with him even though I reported to him in three different roles. The first was as a VTAM system programmer for just over ten years. When new upper management came in, I asked for an opportunity to work with PCs. One person told me this move saved my old boss's job. The second time was as a PC mainframe communications software specialist. This lasted about three years before the team was taken away from him, ostensibly due to a Token Ring Network meltdown. The third and last time was as an AIX system administrator for less than a year. The team I had been on got dismantled, and he told me I had to become a project manager and/or a Windows system administrator, that there wasn't a place for me on his team as an AIX sysadmin. I asked our VP for a transfer to the Middleware team that was being created.
Otherwise, he was a pretty good guy and played a mean game of pool (the result of a misspent youth in Creemore). He liked buying and restoring old cars. His daughter made him a grandfather in the past year or so. I can't make the funeral on Monday due to work commitments, but I will try to get to the viewing on Sunday.
D.
My husband says this is not a good thing to say, but he was the worst boss I had at CLA. I was never able to establish a successful working relationship with him even though I reported to him in three different roles. The first was as a VTAM system programmer for just over ten years. When new upper management came in, I asked for an opportunity to work with PCs. One person told me this move saved my old boss's job. The second time was as a PC mainframe communications software specialist. This lasted about three years before the team was taken away from him, ostensibly due to a Token Ring Network meltdown. The third and last time was as an AIX system administrator for less than a year. The team I had been on got dismantled, and he told me I had to become a project manager and/or a Windows system administrator, that there wasn't a place for me on his team as an AIX sysadmin. I asked our VP for a transfer to the Middleware team that was being created.
Otherwise, he was a pretty good guy and played a mean game of pool (the result of a misspent youth in Creemore). He liked buying and restoring old cars. His daughter made him a grandfather in the past year or so. I can't make the funeral on Monday due to work commitments, but I will try to get to the viewing on Sunday.
D.
