I hadn’t completely jumped without a net. I had interviewed at Bell Mobility a week earlier. I thought the interview went well but there was no guarantee of the employment. One of the friends I had made at IBM got hired on at Bell Mobility and was putting a team together to work on a unique project.
While I drove home I was both relieved and uneasy. I felt bad about the way I had left. I felt privileged to work at IBM (even though I really didn’t). They gave me a shot. Maybe I should have stayed on until the end.
Fast forward to today … I feel different. Working at IBM was a great opportunity but it was only a contract position. Not long after my contract would have ended the call centre closed. Everyone there was let go. Even if I had stayed on I’d have been looking for a job. Many had moved on to positions with ATI technologies. Unfortunately they also closed months later after being taken over by AMD.
Well a few nervous days later I got the call from Bell that I had been hired. I was to report to the Bell Mobility offices after the Thanksgiving holiday 2000. I wasn’t really sure what I would be doing but it was full time work and payed well.
I’m going to try and summarize my time at Bell in a few paragraphs. I have worked in a small number of roles there for the last 18 years. My work has focused around “Device Certification” which in the simplest of terms means that “I play with mobile phones all day.” I have been in the wireless business through all of its ups the last 18 years. I’ve seen the rise and fall of Motorola, Nokia, BlackBerry. I’ve seen Apple go from a company on the verge of Bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world. Samsung a company no one in North America even heard of to one of largest tech companies on the planet.
People can be hard on Bell and in some cases it can be justified. I find myself of two minds about the company. That’s a topic for another day…
For now I will say that I believe no other company cares more about delivering technology to Canadians than Bell does. Bell’s people are some of the best I have ever known.
NoShade's 