I Love Technology

When I was a little girl, my aunt visited often. I don’t remember the exact day, but recall taking one look at my homemaker mother schlepping around in carpet slippers, a frumpy robe, no makeup, and damage-cropped hair brushed back simply to keep her head from looking like a fronded pineapple. Then I looked at my aunt who stood slim and tall in her heels, tailored suit, lipstick highlighting a subtly made-up face, topped with a wide-brimmed hat, a self-fabric flower tucked off-center in the band. It was no contest; I wanted to be my aunt. She was a workingwoman. And not just an undistinguished secretary either, she was a private secretary. My first typing lesson began in the fifth grade under Mr. Rappaport, a very old (over 40?), very humorless, and very strict instructor. He didn’t rap knuckles for typing the wrong keys on those precious Remingtons (manual, back then), but my fingertips ached just as painfully from his consistent and repetitive metronome drilling: “A . . . S . . . D . . . F . . . Semi . . . L . . .K . . . J . . .” At Central Commercial High School, I was taught shorthand. At 14, with working papers in hand: my first secretarial job the summer of 1961. Upon graduation: employed as a clerk stenographer – technically, a secretary – for a couple of directors at the Board of Education. Two months into the job, at the ripe old age of 16, I looked at my surroundings, and my potential financial and career future, and asked myself: “Is this all there is?” Another five years and a few secretarial positions later, I met a woman who headed up the computing department in a company I’d just joined. A woman! The computers were huge mainframes, standing within a temperature-controlled, glassed-in room as sentinels against us outsiders. A staff and the mysterious language of computing were at her command. She revealed to me that she made an excellent salary, more than some of the managers in the other departments – and she didn’t even have a degree. Sold America!!! Once the window of opportunity opened some years later, I flew through it like a hawk spotting prey. I attacked the knowledge head on – but hadn’t a clue what I was doing. Plus, I wasn’t impressed with writing unfathomable code and juggling hundreds of 80-character punch cards. It wasn’t until personal computers, or PCs, came about, until I could see on a monitor what I was doing and the miracle of the results of my inputs, that I found my thrill, my skill, and the way up and out. I never managed a staff or a computing department. But I unlocked the key to the computing vault of secret languages that crunched numbers and sorted bits of data. My earnings skyrocketed and afforded me a measure of control over my financial destiny. Social Security will NOT be my sole source of retirement income. So I’ll retire to wherever the heck I want. I have e-mail addresses created for unique interests, accept direct deposit to my bank accounts, receive and pay my bills online with my laptop, keep appointments and contacts on my PDA, and communicate through my cell phone. Hey, I figure I’m free to live and enjoy most anywhere I please in North, Central, or South America. I simply love technology.