Tag: career
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Part 10 – Fidelity Ends – The Transition and a Break from Technology
Fidelity Ends – The Transition and a Break from Technology Losing a job you love at 43, especially without knowing the reason, is tough. You start to question everything, even when the company was doing well, and my reviews were positive. I had been promoted two years earlier, was a respected team manager, and had…
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Part 9 – Fidelity Boston to Fidelity Merrimack, New Hampshire
Fidelity Boston to Fidelity Merrimack, New Hampshire I spent two years working at Fidelity in Boston, and it turned out to be a great experience. At first, I was concerned about the long commute, city traffic, and having to wear a suit every day. Things improved when the company switched to business casual, but it…
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AI Impact – What’s Next Part 2
Ok, so AI is here, what are you going to do about it? This is a follow-up to my previous post. Part 1 – What is AI AI is here, and it is not waiting for anyone to feel ready. The question is not whether it will affect your life; it already is. The question…
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It Is Just A Job – Keep Perspective
The Business Contract: Career and Retirement Advice I’m writing to share the career and retirement advice I gave my three adult children and anyone else interested, based on my own experiences transitioning to retirement. I also want to address issues discussed in psychology articles about handling career changes and retirement challenges, and I’ll do so…
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Weekly News Letter – Week Of 16-March-2026
Being Kevin: Weekly Newsletter from Rio Tech, books, musings, Retirement, and Life in Brazil A Note from the 19th Floor I’m Kevin, a retired tech pro now living my best life in Rio de Janeiro. Whether I’m driving my wife crazy, working from the 19th floor, or stopping at a beach bar for a drink,…
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Weekly News Letter – Week Of 09-March-2026
Being Kevin: Weekly Newsletter from Rio Tech, books, musings, Retirement, and Life in Brazil A Note from the 19th Floor I’m Kevin, a retired tech pro now living my best life in Rio de Janeiro. Whether I’m driving my wife crazy, working from the 19th floor, or stopping at a beach bar for a drink,…
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My Next Career Move On The Journey
After spending a few years at Fidelity Investments in Boston, I was getting a bit worn down from the drive. Technically, it is not far by distance. It was only about 35 miles from southern New Hampshire into the city, but the traffic was unbelievable. It took me 6 hours sometimes to get home in…
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My Job Takes Me To Boston – Technology Meets Finance
The whole contract work was not for me. It felt too detached, and it was back to where I started. That never feels like progress. DEC was slowly going out of business, and I now had over 10 years of experience. It was time for a big move to see what I can do and…
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What Experience In Life Helped You Grow The Most?
This would be 2006 when I got laid off from a job I loved. It was not for performance; I had been promoted, received work awards, a high bonus, and extra yearly incentives. The company was doing great and hiring. This was strictly a reorg, which happens, and nobody really knew what the team did…
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Week Five – The Rise and Fall of a Giant: Why DEC Mattered.
To understand why working in VMS Engineering was such a big deal, you have to understand what Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was. In the 70s and 80s, DEC wasn’t just a computer company; it was the alternative to the “Big Blue” monopoly of IBM. The Mill in Maynard Founded in 1957 by Ken Olsen and…
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Week Four: The First Move To A New Position – The Engineering Word Of DEC
From Tape Loader to the Heart of VMS Engineering At this point, I had been working in computer operations across both third and second shifts. I was learning a ton, but I had no idea how my skills stacked up against those of others doing similar work in DEC. I guess it was time to…
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Week Three: From the Training Class to the Computer Room
The Night Shift: Tapes, Silence, and the Motherload The sixteen weeks of computer training were a total blast. In the early ’80s, there were no PCs, Windows, or Microsoft Word. We lived at the Local> prompt on a DEC VT100 terminal. We were busy learning the guts of the machine: disk drives, tape reels, memory…
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A Retired Perspective on AI
Image generated by Gemini The Irony of the Machine I have had a career in technology. For decades, my world was defined by a single, unwavering North Star: Efficiency. We were the builders. We were the ones who took a messy human process, digitized it, trimmed the fat, and turned a tidy profit for the…
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My First Computer
DailyPrompt:Write about your first computer Let’s get in the time machine and go back to the beginning. This daily prompt works well with my weekly series on how I went from working on the shipping dock to retiring from a tech career. Before The Resume In 1982–1983, my computer was the Atari 800XL. I had…