My first salaried job was as a programmer. Before that, I had completed a placement at BANKCASHIERS, analysing a business-intelligence project to evaluate SPANISHOIL’s website. Now I was on the payroll.
Every morning I put on a suit and tie for the hour-and-a-half journey from home to San Sebastián de los Reyes. I did it happily, despite the traffic. A suit can make you feel like a different person. My mother used to say that people treat you according to how you dress.
The company soon noticed my interest in research and development and assigned me to an innovative project. In six months, we had to reproduce the functionality of a multimedia mobile phone on a desktop computer. This was 2003. We could request the resources we needed: laptops, PCMCIA cards, SIMs and software, including a Java implementation of the WAP protocol stack.
I will not bury the story in technical detail. We met the objective, although the final demonstration provided the customary moment of terror. On the day we presented the solution at TELECOMBASIC, it stopped working. The manager called me over to fix it, and the demonstration eventually went ahead successfully. We had not anticipated the particular coverage conditions in the room. The so-called demo effect had made its appearance.
My time at Telco Group was happy. Colleagues and managers treated me well. I even helped some friends join the company, without collecting a recruitment fee. Yet the industrial building where we worked began to feel too small for my ambitions. If I was going to wear a suit every day, surely I ought to be pursuing some grander purpose. An old family joke about technocrats and larks somehow came to mind. Something had to change.
I went back to COMPANY-006. This time my aims were more concrete: grow technically, shorten the commute and lose the suit. I was aware that I was still very young for certain positions.
It did not take long to find a new role in the city centre. I left Telco Group on good terms, grateful for an intense and enjoyable beginning. Another adventure was waiting.
