WYSIWYG and Lotus 123

Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?

Yes I write fiction for a hobby but I possess the ability to geek with the best of them.

WYSIWYG was a feature in some software programs. The acronym stands for, What you see is what you get. For a while I was an accountant and finance person. This feature was mostly in a spreadsheet program called Lotus 123. I have nothing against the current day Xcel and I’m pretty damn good at it but Lotus 123 was ahead of his time.

An Antidote of Sorts

I was working in the finance department of computer science corporation. I was a go between between computer science and accounting. There was a girl named Kim who worked with me. She may have been one of the more privileged people I have met. She wore short dresses into the accounting department hoping to impress. In my opinion her liabilities exceeded her assets.

I used to sit at my desk and listen to music at a very low level before the days of headphones and computers. I was listening to a piece by Mozart called Variations on a Theme. She walked over to my desk and towered over me and asked me how many times I would play Twinkle Twinkle Little star. That is the underlying rhythm of the Mozart peace. I turned, and the sun hit her face at a not an acute angle, and I noticed she seemed to be growing a beard.

I asked her if she was a fan of Mozart. Her reply was.”Who The F”c* was that.”:

I decided to write my résumé that day. I actually wrote my résumé on a spreadsheet using WYSIWYG. it was a fantastic way to put together a résumé because it was exactly that, What you see is what you get.

I sent off my résumé that day, and about six weeks later I went to work for the biggest database company in the United States.

On a side note when I went to work for Oracle, they had this complicated system for tracking vacations. It was a whiteboard with blue magic markers.. I guess it was an older version of WYSIWYG.