Chapter 2

SANDY - June 1959

Don got on my nerves enough when I visited them in Ithaca to make me cut my stay short. On Thursday I left and drove on to Poughkeepsie to my mother's house. Near the end of the trip, I found myself driving over a mountain and through the Mohonk preserve and, as I went through a fierce downhill switchback, got my first view of the Hudson Valley. This was to be my home for the foreseeable future.

I drove across the bridge, and followed my mother's directions to her small but comfortable house just south of the city. Mom must have heard the engine of my little car; she came out of the house and gave me a big welcoming hug.

"Sandy! Come on in and get rested. Aren't you a bit earlier than you had planned"?

"Yes," I replied, "I didn't feel comfortable with Mary and Don. He seems to have his own agenda and interests, and Mary meekly goes along. I hope she eventually gets back to work - she loves that job"!

"Well, I'm not too worried yet. Let's see how it goes for a while."

I brought in my suitcases and put them in the bedroom where my mother had already put the boxes that I had shipped.

"Let's have dinner, and then I'll show you some of Poughkeepsie. I'll arrange to take tomorrow off, so we can go out to dinner and see more of the area."

"OK, Mom, that sounds good," I replied, realizing that I was quite hungry since I had only had a light meal at a diner on the road.

The next few days, we explored the area. I was pleased to learn that there were several areas with good hiking trails, and that the Schawangunk Ridge - the mountain I had driven over - was a renowned rock climbers paradise, better known as "the Gunks."

Early Monday morning, I drove down Route 9 to the IBM building where I had been told to report. Fortunately, they had sent a map with my paperwork; otherwise I would have really gotten lost in the midst of the huge IBM complex. I was feeling good about myself since I knew that I had the makings of becoming an excellent engineer. I was determined to make my impact on the course of computer development.

Orientation was an eye-opener for me. There were twelve new professional hires that were starting work that day. I noticed that there were two other women, but, as I suspected, they were headed for programming jobs; I was the only female engineer in the group.

Once the paperwork was done, we were photographed and given our ID cards and badges. They told us to learn our six digit employee serial number because it would be used on almost all paperwork. We should not be surprised to hear it referred to as a "man number" - the old term had been replaced recently in view of the growing number of women employees. We were handed expense account forms to be filled in, signed by our manager, and submitted for the expenses of moving to Poughkeepsie - I would get some mileage money and what I had paid for shipping my boxes of books and clothes.

We were exposed to a brief overview of the corporation, its history and, the different product lines. We were surprised to learn about the many plant and lab locations across the country and even those in a few foreign countries. We were told about the IBM benefits program - medical, pension, and group life insurance, and the stock purchase plan, for which I would be eligible after a full year on the payroll.

Finally we were loaded into a bus and, after a tour through the IBM country club grounds (open to all employees and their families), were driven to a three story brick building with a courtyard, where we were told, "This is the 701 building, which is currently housing the research group. There's also an excellent technical library and a good cafeteria, where we will have lunch before we hand you over to your new departments."

The cafeteria food was good, certainly better than anything at Syracuse University, and the setting was pleasant. Soon we left and returned to the conference room where we had started. Waiting for us were our new managers. I found that I was working for Paul Napoli, a short thirtyish rotund man with a pleasant manner.

"Our lab is in another building - did you drive here today?" he asked me.

When I said that I had, he gave me another map, and told me to follow his blue Ford station wagon. We drove through the IBM complex, and ended up in a parking lot outside a large one-story building that was considerably less impressive than the 701 building where we had lunched.

On the walk in from the parking lot, Paul told me that the building was actually an old supermarket that had been expanded after IBM had bought it. We went in and Paul led the way through a maze of corridors populated by many small offices with one or two desks, a few larger offices with many desks, and a few labs... We ended up at Paul's office, no larger than any of the others, but with just one gray metal desk, a small table, a bookcase, and a four-drawer file cabinet.

"Welcome to the Stretch project. My group is one of several working on the Variable Field Length instruction execution unit - the VFL unit. Rather than try to explain this to you, I have a few things for you to read," Paul said as he handed me a ten-inch high pile of documents and a few drawings. "My door is almost always open, and when you have some questions, please come ask me. I'll introduce you to the rest of the group tomorrow."

Paul led me out of the office and down the hall to another office, the same size, but with two gray metal desks. "This is your office, which you will be sharing with another new hire. He will be arriving in another week. There's an internal phone book here; if you need to make a local call outside of IBM, just dial 9 first. Oh, by the way, you'll be going to classes next week to learn about the procedures we use for logic design here at IBM."