After Purdue, I made the big move to California with Hewlett-Packard. I started there in 1979 in a sales support group at the Cupertino factory. A lot of us who started there together became very good friends. A few of them are still my best friends. After a year, I was invited into the international sales support subgroup. Wow! Not only did I have the best boss I ever had, I boogied. One month out of three, I was out of the country. Another year, and I became head of this group, then the same function with sales support for a couple of U.S. regions. The U.S. regions were politically more important, but not as much fun as international. In February, 1984, I transferred to HP in Boeblingen, Germany. One and a half years later, I transferred again to l'Isle d'Abeau, France. I stayed in HP France three years, but in three different jobs. I left HP in 1988 to work for myself.
I probably learned more at HP than during me studies at Purdue: public speaking, teaching skills, multitasking, implementing quality control, preparing a business plan, managing a group of people, conflict negotiation, adaptation to new environments, foreign languages, and much, much more. I was always learning something!
The best thing about HP was the people. At the time, computer sales were booming, and we each had a lot to do. There were seriously motived, intelligent and FUN people. A few of them are rather pissed off that I don't stay in contact, but I am very bad about that. Besides the people, HP is (was?) a very human-oriented company. And the salary wasn't bad, either.
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