The Life and Death of a HiTech Patriot
by
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Everybody writes books about everybody else. And it's always about celebrities. If it's the celebrity itself writing it or it is his/her nominee doing it following or contrary to the celebrity's request - is irrelevant. Irrelevant is as well the kind of celebrity involved - art, politics, being someone else's wife or gaining the notoriety of being just a famous chain murderer - is all as good. As long as there is mass interest in the issue the auto or non-auto biography has market value and will sell. And the publishing houses will get fat, and will get happy, and will get plenty. So why not break this wonderful chain by biographizing one of those unknown millions of boring, dull living, daily waking up and nightly bedding down unawful yet unwonderful and on top of all anonymous (no ful here) people, and prove that there is a place on the sellers' stands also for their story? And if so why not try it myself? And if so why not try it about myself, about my company - Scitex? And if so - let's do it. Once the decision taken I had three difficult choices to make: a) - what will I include in the book so that your reading will not be as dull as my living, b) - what title should I give it so I'll at least cover my costs by catching your browsing eye and curiosity streak, and c) - what poor publisher house will I force myself upon to share my high risk and doubtful success? I hope I got it all right, and if you'll encourage me (buy, buy, buy!!!) I'll write a second one, at least as dull as this one but much more expensive. So, and don't ask why, starting with the second decision I had to make, the title mind you - I was no short of choice: "ET Buys Out Scitex" seemed the obvious choice for getting within parts of a second to the No.1 on the International Bestsellers list, but I was reluctantly and gently persuaded out of it. Copyright and stuff, you know. Then came "The Best Troubleshooter Scitex Ever Had" - true but boasty, "From Rags to Scitex" - rags OK but Scitex... Riches... hmmm... doubtful at most, "My Love for Scitex" - sweet enough to make you sick, and then followed in a row "Sex in Scitex" (would develop into a one paragraph book), "Planning and Strategy in Scitex" (would develop into a comics book), "Me and Matilda" (no Matilda in Scitex), "Beauty and the Beast" (guess who's the beast) and "The Long Life and Slower Death of a Scitex Service Engineer" (no much sense and too long but sounds almost right). So I trimmedand twisted it to what you've seen - "The Life and Death of a Hightech Troubleshooter" ('cause who the hell - sorry - would buy a book about... "what, Scitex, what the hell is that?... "). And probably the right name too. (I know, I know, a bit of patience pleeease...) As for the first decision, the contents - I decided to center it around my 'communications' life in Scitex. I so happened to be at the receiving end of the full range of a modern bureaucrat's arsenal paraphernalia - lettters/memos/faxes/phonecalls/stink-bombs and jinx threats, and other much less descriptive and much more efficient messages such as face slaps and shin kicks and the likes - during my long stay with this company, and I provided the concurrent parties with even more of the same. Depending on how you prefer to present your opinions to your communicatees - it surely can be as much a pain as it can be a pleasure. This is no school therefore this is no school textbook on how to communicate to and with others, and I do not preach that anybody uses the style presented here in his efforts to push forward any kind of idea. However, it surely adds a certain haloey glow to the dubious pleasure of complaining about things, and it makes the other party more willing to listen and act. And in my job as Service Engineer/Troubleshooter, believe me I had plenty of reasons for things of the kind. So this is the contents of the book - memos and letters that I wrote and sent, or wrote and didn't send, or wrote and was persuaded (only rarely by others) that it is in my best selfish and cowardly interest to burn before sending; all intended to sell the story and entertain the other party while cutting its throat. And believe me it worked. This way, life can be enjoyed even with the dullest of factual reports, and not one of the receiving parties hated me - they all did. And they still do. And all the rest of the copyees to the letters enjoyed it as hell as well; that is, until they suddenly found themselves at the sharp end of my pen under a renewed status as addressees. Life can be fun, you know. Ah, yes, I almost forgot - what is this "memography" thing I call my book by? Well, for those of you with a twisted mind - there's really nothing biological to it, believe it or not. It just looks like the right definition to a book telling your life not in 'bio'logical terms and language but rather in 'memo'logical terms and contents. Got it? I hope you did 'cause I didn't. If I'm popular today within my dear Scitex company? Doubtful. But I had ooone (emphasis on a long aaaa...) hell of a ride. And as for the which publisher decision - please, don't ask me about it, they still chase me with uncovered checks and long due IOUs.
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About the Book
The book describes life in an organization, Scitex in this case, in a very special way – through the "eyes" of the daily internal communications of this book’s author, yours faithfully - Yossi Faybish. Company memos can be an extremely dull affair, writing a book based on these can be as interesting as writing a book based on a lifetime’s collection of grocery lists. Well, not quite. Not when they are written with the passion, compassion and fighting spirit these were written with. Actually some of them were defined as real miniature literary gems by some of their readers, and who am I to contradict such renowned and world-wide recognized connoisseurs. The beginning is soaked with enthusiasm, with passion – the passion of starting, the passion of an act of creation, the passion of turning a boring job into a work of art, contributing to a big, bright, wonderful future. Corny? – well, this passion was really there, burning and consuming this writer’s life like a thousand fires. Followed by a slower move into the next stage, of keeping all that creation alive, the daily acts of courage and/or cowardice, the numerous tug of war events, with everybody – funnily enough – tugging in the same direction, through ups and downs, but always forward. And then the final act, like in a classical Greek tragedy – with everything falling apart, internal quarrels, betrayals, desperate moves and then, inevitably, the ultimate act – murder. Wait, ho, hooo, waaait – don’t rush away, nobody really died, we’re talking allegory here, the death of something one created, the death of a dream, the death of a lifetime of passion. The book is "talking" to you, taking you by the hand from one event to another, from miracle to disaster, from disaster to miracle, from one memo to another, most of the time in a very easy going and entertaining style. And on top of it all you have numerous break-points sprinkled all over the book, with an ongoing very simple yet at times very challenging math quiz, many simple yet at times really stupefying travel jokes, and for each passing year an entertaining cartoon series representing the respective year. If you do not want to read all the text, you surely wouldn’t want to skip the cartoons. To sum it up – if you work or ever worked in an organization, especially in a services organization (technical, medical, etc) you’re going to see much of what you live through in this book. And some of it is going to happen to you EXACTLY as desccribed there. Promise.
About the Author
Hello there, all you intelligent, wise, adorable people. This is I, the author, writing about I, the author, and if the sickeningly sweet introduction sentence won’t get you to throw up all over your PC or newspaper or whatever you read it from, then it will surely get you to buy my book. And this is the whole idea of this pre-mortem eulogy. My real name is actually Ioji, and where I originally come from, the Far-East (of Europe, i.e. Romania), it’s not as uncommon as that. However, after moving on at the unripe age of 13 to the Middle-East (of Asia, i.e. Israel), some funny local official decided my name sounded too funny and re-baptised me (lucky he didn’t re-circumcise me) into the non funny sounding Joseph. Which, with the only other Joseph known me at that stage in my life being Joseph Stalin, wasn’t really funny at all in my eyes. Therefore I moved very fast into the realm of assorted nicknames and the native version of my Joseph being Yossi – so Yossi it was. I won’t bore you with stories of my childhood, my hoodloomhood, my studenthood, my lovelifehood and the rest of the hoods. I won’t even tell you about my dogs and their hoods. It just so happened that at a certain stage in my life I suddenly woke up with BSc in Electronic Engineering, a wife, two kids, and an insatiable desire for writing. But as all of you millions of seasoned readers of this note ("...optimistic the bastard, isn’t he...") out there know, it’s only the Stephen King’s of this world that have a right to quench this thirst. The rest of us have the unalienable right to queue up and wait. So I queued up and waited (I was number 223,451,093 - today there are an additional few billions following me which doesn’t bother me except for those that barge straight in the front). With absolutely no chance of reaching the ticket distribution window before I wither of old age and die – I decided for this sideways move and let’s go self-publishing. You think that the bible scribes had a publisher? And look where they are. So let’s go and self-scribe. Enough bla-bla, some less artistic facts. Well, with the university degree in my hand I could choose to go several ways – commercial, managerial, educational... It so happened that I went a completely different way – I discovered, more or less by accident, that I have an incredible sense for technical troubleshooting. A real talent. Give me a problem, any problem on any machine, if I know the machine or not it doesn’t really matter, and either by myself or by working with someone that knows the machine perfectly but doesn’t know to solve the problem I would find the solution in 100% of the cases. And this is the job I was hired to do in Scitex, the company which is the subject of my book. With actually not the company itself covered in the "story" but rather Yossi Faybish in the company, in Scitex. For those of you with a technical background it will sound more than familiar, for all of the others you could very easily imagine the cycle of events that followed; because removing the "electronics" from the system you could easily adapt it to the life cycle in any other big organization be it a hospital, a law firm or even an army unit. It always starts with a bang – enthusiasm, falling in love with the job, with the company, striving to improve. Then follows the growth period, you growing in importance, in achievement, the company growing in size, in power. Then there may be some ups and downs but nobody gives up, all united in preserving the achievements, advancing further, and further. And then one day Neron comes on the scene, lights a match, and pooof – Rome is in flames. The organization tumbles, the horses run away, and a few of the falling stones hit you on the head. And you die. Wondering with genuine incomprehension – how the hell did it come to that. Which is the long and short of my life in Scitex. And which, for the needs of the book, can be taken as a generic name. Because this is the life of many of you in whatever company, organization, or any other kind of outfit you are in. Read this book, you may be just looking in the mirror. The present? Life goes on. At a certain stage and age one just joins the stream, because there is unfortunately not enough time depth left to do it all again. Which I would if I could yet I can’t. I joined another similar company, I work in a similar job, I act in a similar way – it is all so similar. But it is only similar. It is not the same. And as I say at a certain stage in my book – Don Quixote is dead, long live Sancho Panza. If you were wondering, this ‘About the Author" thing is written in a certain style, my own. This is the style the book is written in. So if you like it... hmmm hmmm it and have fun.