Question of the Day!

Long ago I was asked to take over the regional HP user's group. Before I agreed I went to a meeting and found that the guy who had been heading it up for years was not really into it anymore. At that first meeting there were 4 guys taking the afternoon off. I said yes, started a newsletter, HP provided a mailing list as this was well before we even heard of that inter-web thing, and we had 40-60 people at every meeting the next few years. Myself and others lined up speakers each month. They were good info-sharing meetings.

However, the honeymoon period ended quickly. Not longer after attendance and interest in the newsletter grew, the manager of one of the largest and most respected shops called and said there was a head hunter recruiting people at the meetings and he would no longer be allowing his staff to attend. The head hunter refused to stop so I asked that manager and a couple others to write a letter to be published in the newsletter, he did, I published them. It was a little bit of a mess but the meetings continued to be successful and the head hunter stopped coming because it was hurting him. He called me a couple years later saying he was moving. It was a good call, he was apologetic, we had both learned some things.

So, what I thought would be a kind of fun, no pressure and good for the career ended up being far more involved (and occasionally difficult) than I ever would have guessed.

Nothing like landing a helicopter in a war zone....