It began one day at a little place I used to work at, just after I had gotten into the computer consulting business. It was a small shop with about ten people that did typical office work, mostly typing. A woman named Margaret managed it for a guy who let her run things pretty much however she wanted as long as she kept costs to a minimum. That meant hiring mostly young girls, whom she could pay peanuts, to crank out the paperwork along with a couple of men to do the real work – like operating and maintaining the computers.

I had increased the efficiency of the place tenfold by installing a microcomputer network to handle their wordprocessing chores. I set 'em up with a 386 clone and a 100 meg hard disk as the server running the ever-popular N network with about half a dozen XTs as stations. Margaret was both thrilled and thankful for my effort.

After the installation of the hard and soft wares I was called back only for repairs, program updating and new employee training.

The girls were very computer illiterate, as most women are, and I really had my hands full training them. I could almost hear their disk heads grinding against the platters every time one of them began randomly pushing keys in panic.

Still, due to my expertise, Margaret had a nice, tight little operation going. Two girls, Lisa and Linda, labored full-time and her two daughters, Diane and Daphne, worked part-time. There was also one full-time male computer operator, Jeff. And that was it.

I went on consulting status and Margaret was able to save money by using me only when she needed support, which was on a fairly spotty basis, but pretty often. I still don't know whether to thank God or Satan that she needed me that day. Maybe I should thank them both.

Here is a brief description of the employees.

LISA – Nineteen years old, just out of high school and with no intention of going any further, she was the stuff of men's dreams.