by wernst » Thu May 25, 2006 2:42 pm
Sorry for the tardy reply.
In 1988 I was a college student at UC San Diego, and looking over the job board at the career center. Posted on the wall was a card for "Apple II Technical Support. Apple II experience required. Will train. Part time." I was already a die-hard 8-bit Apple II user for 3 years, and was shocked and astonished to learn that the company was Beagle Bros. I was already a huge fan, and my father had even corresponded with Bert Kersey after reading Bert was using the then-new laser printer with AppleWriter to typeset certain things in the Beagle Bros catalogs.
A month of interviews later, and I was hired for part-time technical support, meaning I answered the tech support phone 8 hours a day, two or three days a week. I also answered mail. We were responsible for the entire TimeOut series, as well as all the Classics, and the new BeagleWrite/Draw stuff. For a few years there, I was basicaly a walking encyclopedia of all things Apple II, hardware and software.
I was there for almost three years, outlasting two owners, three company presidents, and four immediate bosses. For a while I was the *only* part timer at the company. I was laid off just a few months before Beagle closed its doors in 1991, I believe.
My life really changed as a result of that job at Beagle Bros. Though I graduated with a degree in Political Science, my first job out of college was doing tech support for a modem software company, which I turned into a technical writing job before leaving. Now I'm a professional computer consultant, writer for PC Magazine and CPU magazine, and I do documentation for a major printer company.
I still have my original Apple //e I bought used 1987 to take to college, with money earned from fixing bikes for a summer job. The family still has our first //e purchased new in 1985. I booted it up last Christmas. It works fine.
-Warr