Work with Me ... in the 1990s

“Would you like to be in the R&D hiring brochure we’re creating?” -Epic Manager (probably Carl).

While I’m terrible at “self-promotion” and this request was out of my comfort zone, I asked a few questions and thought it sounded like fun and agreed.

I’m not exactly sure when the brochure was created — I think it was mid 1996. It was an unusual experience for me as the only professional photographers that had taken my picture were for a) school photos and b) family photos.

I was asked to wear my college/university sweatshirt and have something on my computer monitors that was interesting looking but not confidential. This was before the era of multiple monitors, but I had two development PCs and a test PC at the time so I was able to oblige by having a several Visual Basic IDEs open during the photo shoot. The photos were so small and the quality of images so grainy that it’s a wonder that we spent any real time on what would be visible on the monitors.

The photographer showed up on multiple days and used a Polaroid camera during the first visit to grab a handful of photos with different angles and backgrounds. I know I had a few I didn’t care for and whomever else was involved also had their preferences (I wish I still had the Polaroids, but I know I threw them out when I left Epic as they were faded very badly). Having the photos taken wasn’t hard in any way — it was working on the little “blurbs” about me that was more challenging to complete as they were my words but edited/approved as well.

I know we collectively worked on the “favorite vacation” question’s response the most as my original response had a slight more edgy tone to it:

“they forced me to take a vacation last year.”

Back in 1996, I really did enjoy working and didn’t have anyone I went on vacations with, so … vacations weren’t a thing for me. I’d been told to take time off or lose it the prior year, so it was a sincere/honest answer.

It was a fun experience and I’m glad I did it. Looking at the brochure today with fresh eyes:

• The content still is very similar to how Epic advertises positions today.
• The list of technologies for 1996 was honest but exaggerated, much like has been done for decades. (Visual C++ was maybe used a few times and nothing for broad production use).
• The text body baseline alignment is abysmal and inconsistent when switching to the bold red typeface. (I really wonder what software was used back then—I’m not sure if it was done in house or not).
• The negative space around the images is also … poor.
• My desk was very neat and tidy (which is not common).

FYI: I obscured the other developer’s full name from the brochure — I wanted to ping him on LinkedIn (or elsewhere), but couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere.

Hope you enjoyed seeing this little bit of history.