OK. When you were curious and got to this part, you have a right to know more about me. So let me introduce myself.
My name is Erwin. I was born in 1958, so at the time of writing this I'm 62 (and will be 63 next year when I go to Africa).
I was born in Amsterdam in The Netherlands, which I still consider my home. Despite the fact that my parents left Amsterdam with me and my brother when I was only 10 years old. And despite the fact that I never lived in Amsterdam since
My name is Erwin. I was born in 1958, so at the time of writing this I'm 62 (and will be 63 next year when I go to Africa).
I was born in Amsterdam in The Netherlands, which I still consider my home. Despite the fact that my parents left Amsterdam with me and my brother when I was only 10 years old. And despite the fact that I never lived in Amsterdam since
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When I was young, there were a few things I wanted to do. Of course I wanted to be a pilot, like all the other kids on the block. But in case that wouldn't work out, I wanted to be a game ranger in Africa.
Why? Don't know, really. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my parents considered migration (first to Australia, later to Africa) when I was about 6 or 7, but they never did it because they thought my brother and me would have better schooling and better chances in Holland.
Anyway, there was one thing I was absolutely certain about. I would never ever work in an office.
So I went to elementary school in Amsterdam and later in Apeldoorn, and to high school in Apeldoorn. And just when I was sort of making up plans for my life, like study zoology and then move to Africa, I discovered how much fun it is to party, chase women and drive cool cars or a motorcycle. Needless to say that school didn't quite work out the way I had planned it and I ruined my chances to be admitted to any university.
So what next?
I'll admit that I was too lazy to be a success in school. But I was never one to do nothing and live on unemployment. And I never felt too good to do simple jobs.
So I became a cleaner. I worked for a company where I would pick up the cleaning staff in the morning, drive them to a military base and drop them off, then do my own part cleaning a couple of buildings, and later pick the ladies up again and drive them home. It wasn't anything fancy, but I had a job and an income.
But of course, it wasn't very satisfying, and I started to look for something else.
My father was working for an insurance company. And they had moved from Amsterdam to Apeldoorn (which was the reason why we moved there) where they had built an entirely new type of office building. It was a totally open structure without rooms and doors and separations, but with lots of plants and work "islands" and balconies where you could look at people working on other floors. It was, in those days, a sensation and a masterpiece of architecture with busloads of people from all over the world coming to visit the building.
To me, it became clear that if ever I was going to work in an office, it would be here. Simply because it didn't feel like an office.
And because I had always been pretty good in mathematics, I got a job here working as a pension fund contract administrator, which led to my career in IT.
I had a colleague in those days who liked computers. He could even program in BASIC. For those of you who only know about programming Apps, this is the time when we had no cellphones and we were amazed by the fact that you could put a piece of paper in a fax machine at one location and a copy of it would come out of a fax machine in another location. So he was kind of a nerd.
We had a larger project coming up, and he suggested to do it with the support of a program he would write. He was given green light, I was assigned to help him and thus, my first introduction to IT was a fact.
And when I got to know some of the people in the IT department who were programming big computers in COBOL (look it up), my decision was made. These guys did magic and were paid bloody good to do it, so I wanted to become a programmer.
And so I became a programmer. First for the insurance company, later for an IT company and from 1986 on as a freelancer. And it didn't stay with programming. I made my way through detailed designs, technical and functional designs, team lead and project manager, and I had a whole lot of different roles for a whole lot of different companies.
Privately, I moved at least a dozen times, ended up in Germany where I met my wife and where we live now. We have a wonderful daughter who is studying not too far away from where we live. We live in a nice house in a mountainous area, have two dogs, three cars and a motorcycle. I gave up driving a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley years ago, replacing them with another hobby which is going off-road with my Land Cruiser. I'm a sport shooter and every now and again I take hopeless attempts trying to play the guitar.
I did well by any standards. And for a guy who flirted with girls rather than learn a decent job, I did pretty damn good.
I'll admit that I was too lazy to be a success in school. But I was never one to do nothing and live on unemployment. And I never felt too good to do simple jobs.
So I became a cleaner. I worked for a company where I would pick up the cleaning staff in the morning, drive them to a military base and drop them off, then do my own part cleaning a couple of buildings, and later pick the ladies up again and drive them home. It wasn't anything fancy, but I had a job and an income.
But of course, it wasn't very satisfying, and I started to look for something else.
My father was working for an insurance company. And they had moved from Amsterdam to Apeldoorn (which was the reason why we moved there) where they had built an entirely new type of office building. It was a totally open structure without rooms and doors and separations, but with lots of plants and work "islands" and balconies where you could look at people working on other floors. It was, in those days, a sensation and a masterpiece of architecture with busloads of people from all over the world coming to visit the building.
To me, it became clear that if ever I was going to work in an office, it would be here. Simply because it didn't feel like an office.
And because I had always been pretty good in mathematics, I got a job here working as a pension fund contract administrator, which led to my career in IT.
I had a colleague in those days who liked computers. He could even program in BASIC. For those of you who only know about programming Apps, this is the time when we had no cellphones and we were amazed by the fact that you could put a piece of paper in a fax machine at one location and a copy of it would come out of a fax machine in another location. So he was kind of a nerd.
We had a larger project coming up, and he suggested to do it with the support of a program he would write. He was given green light, I was assigned to help him and thus, my first introduction to IT was a fact.
And when I got to know some of the people in the IT department who were programming big computers in COBOL (look it up), my decision was made. These guys did magic and were paid bloody good to do it, so I wanted to become a programmer.
And so I became a programmer. First for the insurance company, later for an IT company and from 1986 on as a freelancer. And it didn't stay with programming. I made my way through detailed designs, technical and functional designs, team lead and project manager, and I had a whole lot of different roles for a whole lot of different companies.
Privately, I moved at least a dozen times, ended up in Germany where I met my wife and where we live now. We have a wonderful daughter who is studying not too far away from where we live. We live in a nice house in a mountainous area, have two dogs, three cars and a motorcycle. I gave up driving a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley years ago, replacing them with another hobby which is going off-road with my Land Cruiser. I'm a sport shooter and every now and again I take hopeless attempts trying to play the guitar.
I did well by any standards. And for a guy who flirted with girls rather than learn a decent job, I did pretty damn good.