Can you imagine
The other day I was driving home an old way I have not gone a much in the past few years. My life has taken other directions and I had no reason to pass by the oldnplace I used to work. This place was a one story manufacturing building which housed the company I worked for by the name of UMI. For 10 years of my earlier life I used to drive this way every day to go to work at a company which was part pof the now defunct Bell&Howell, UMI or University Microfilms International where a vast amount of my professional life and personal development as a library professional happened. Where there used to be a proud white sign on the bricks of the wall at the entry way there was now nothing to indicate the fact thousands of people had worked here providing something to the learning community we all could be proud of. Instead of cars parked by the hundreds in the parking lot, there was now a huge sign denoting the place was for sale. My heart dropped down in my throat as I realized the very proof of part of my existence on tis earth was now no longer in existence anymore. It seems the older I getnthe more and more I come face to face with my own mortality on a daily basis. It seemed as I drove past the deserted and lonely looking property, I could almost see the faces of the many wonderful people and recalled the proud company which used to stand there as a beacon to assist the learning process.
UMI was the worlds leading producer of microfilm, actually taking written works and making them available on something one put into a reader to see and print if necessary. The ideas for the compamy started with Eugene Powers as he found a need for publishing the worlds doctoral dissertations and a way for libraries to save vast amounts of space by converting paper holdings into something James Bond would have used. Mr. Powers sold the company to Xerox who eventually sold it to Bell & Howell, and I started there just as the company was trying to figure out the role the electronic delivery of information would play on Microfilm. The company was a cash cow and the average tenure of an employee was over 15 years.
UMI was actually my second career, I came from the retail business and decided when my family ended up in Michigan, I would pursue a career in computers. I had never completed college atnthis point, but I understood one unique system the company was interested in. I was interviewed and called every day until the hiring manager relented and gave me the job.
The day I started I was excited and had no idea as to what I was doing. I grabbed every manual I could and started memorizing everything I could. But what I learned at the company is a company is really the people who are working for it. UMI had some fantastic people working for it as well as it's own share of nimrods working there as well. I had never worked for corporate America and never realized the unwritten as well as the written rules. I learned fast but I was never good at playing the game.
The first years were a blur of learning and just trying to figure out how to put together and phone support the computers necessary to sell the emerging technology of CD-ROM. I worked in a small room with another guy and quickly learned to assemble the computers, we became the 4th largest integrator in Michigan, because the libraries had to purchase the computers from us to run the disks to search and print out information. The IDS 2000 was a work of art put together from off-the-shelf components, it had a printer accellerator and printed massive documents at 8 pages per minute becuase we put $10,000.00 worth of hardware into it. It was far ahead of its time, and I was the lucky stiff who got to design the manufacturing process and reconditioning process for the trial returns. (One VP, who was an idiot got mad at me because I said the company was involved in Spaghetti marketing - they threw so much against the wall to see what stuck.)
This company was always far ahead of the understanding of the market and for many years I just loved working for them. My love affair for the company existed because they seemed to really care for the people working there and I was having the time of my life. I got to work on helping to desig things customers actually used and I gave that company 200% every day. I had good things and horrible things happen to me, I stayed there at one point just because I felt I had to prove the things a former manager said about me were false. He got fired, I got promoted. I ran the first ever stockholder meeting live over the Internet (and was given a $10 camera in appreciation). I installed delivery systems in the state of Utah and Ohio which users had unheard of instant access to actual articles. Today this is nothing, but the Internet as we know it did not exist.
My love affair stopped the day the executives succeeded in taking Bell & Howell public. I saw within one day the company go from one that focused on the customer to each and every executive having the stock ticker of the stock on their desk. My love affair for the company stopped when they hired a president who sat one door away from my cubicle, and the first time I talked to him was when I was in London on business. But I learned a lot of things NOT to do in business that served me later in life.
When my boss left I asked for his job and they told me I did not have the experience, so I called him and he said he would give me the his old job at the new company, so I left after 10 years of valuable lessons and suceeded quite well at my next company.
I kept track of a few people and some came where i worked and others went to what was now called ProQuest. (I saved them from t naming their new online product Apogee, I swore the marketing firm simply stole the logo from the company that made a computer game called Duke Nukem.)
I watched in horror as a good friend experienced a personal witch hunt and elimination of his job, and watched this happen again as the same nimrod took over my last position. I think he will eventually discover that what goes around, comes around.
I made such good friends like my best friend Paul, another best friend in Lisbon Julio, Jonathon from England and so many others in Japan and Asia as well as the Middle East. Tim Smart, Sue Orchard, Sung Tinnie, Lee Pit Tong, so many hours logged on airplanes, so much time spent in hotels that looked just alike.
ProQuest went bankrupt due to the dishonest dealings of the executives who were over reporting income and making the company look more attractive to the stockholders. The SEC could not unravel the mess. Both the chairman and the president denied all knowledge and were fined a small amount of money compared to the lives and reputations they ruined. The head accountant took the fall for the situation, too bad he felt he had to resort to this approach. Again I hope what comes around goes around. Some company bought the remnants of the electronic business, another the microfilming of periodicals and they took over the old building Eugene Powers started so many years ago. UMI is just a brand now, ProQuest has seemingly recovered some of the glory days, but the building holding so much hope for so many sits like an empty husk of itself.
Somewhere in the building is a map showing the set up of the place. The owner recycled before it was in vogue. Water was reused and cleaned in concrete ponds in front of the building. The map inside showed drawings of sheep as the original owner planned on them keeping the grass and weeds down. There was lots of land, each year a picnic happened with pony rides, clowns, food, ice cream, cotton candy, and so many other things my family loved.
I guess that is what my sadness and melancholy was a about this day. Besides losing the place I spent so much time in, I guess I was sad about losing a family I was a part of. Even though I was the dysfunctional "loose cannon" I was accepted as part od the UMI family which now only exists in the minds of those of us who were part of that family. There is a famous quote about not being able to go home, but as I closed my eyes I could see all of the faces of the people who worked there and we were all surrounded by sunshine and happiness. And I guess that is what almost all of life comes down to is the memories we carry in our hearts and minds.
