Just a week after Bertini finished the course, his own IBM PC arrived at his office. Man and machine were still new to each other, and data-processing people were ready to help overcome the normal start-up glitches, but Bertini faced other problems. Would he have time during the normal work day to perfect his computer skills? Nearly thirty people reported to him, and now the machine, too, would be vying for his attention. He also worried some about his image as he groped around on the computer. “Hell,” he candidly said, “we all have our degrees of vanity.”

Once again, however, United had a solution, a routine one in the training program. It allowed Bertini to take the IBM home. “Let’s face it,” he said, “the course taught you the basics, how to get on the machine, how to do some relatively simple, basic things with it. To learn other stuff that makes it the tool it really is took eighty or ninety hours or whatever I spent with the thing at home.” Even after Bertini mastered the IBM, he still used it at home for chores like checkbook balancing—and for work, too; especially work. “My wife,” he joked, “decided that the reason this thing was going to be a big productivity improvement for the corporation was that I’d put in that extra eight hours at home and give them a sixteen-hour day.” He also found himself working later some days at the office.

But Bertini emerged a believer in both the training program and the machine. As chief fiscal officer at the 1,200-employee research center, he helped preside over much of United’s research and development budget—then $800 million a year. His life was a series of what ifs. What about that $4-million mainframe computer; should United buy or lease it? What about taxes, depreciation, interest rates? What about a number of what abouts? Traditionally, Bertini had waited around for answers from his staffers, which could take hours or days; but now he had his own computer and electronic spreadsheet and could consider more options faster. The IBM was also handy for confidential tasks like salary analyses. “As far as merit increases for my people were concerned,” said Bertini, “I had access to it, and they didn’t. And that’s the way I wanted it to be.” He also wrote letters and memos on the computer. “Would you believe, twenty years ago in college I took a typing course?” he said. When Bertini wrote to Harry Gray—United’s chairman—the center controller’s secretary redid the letters on a typewriter. But the little dot-matrix printer worked well for memos zipped out to Bertini’s staffers. The communications part of Context MBA was also a joy, for Bertini could send electronic mail and tap United’s mainframe for facts that previously had been filtered through subordinates. Some staffers resented his new ability to bypass them. It was a reversal of normal roles. The boss had a personal computer before they did and was now better plugged in to United’s information network. “As far as I’m concerned,” Bertini said, defending his new system, “the boss’s job is to second-guess you.” But the worried might find some solace: Bertini was planning to bring in a second IBM for the people below.

Training (Continued):
The Dahlonega Answer

For a bucket of fried chicken, Hugh Hunt, a son of H. L. Hunt, the late oilman, gave me some lessons on how to run my Kaypro.

An Anderson Jacobson salesman had offered my name to Hunt after he couldn’t get his Kaypros working quite right with his AJ printers and the Select word-processing program. I passed on the number of someone who might actually solve the problem.

Hunt, having tinkered with computers for several years, gave me some quick tutoring on my Kaypro.

“Well,” I said, “I’m still not really familiar with the basics of CP/M.”

“Come on over,” he told this stranger, who was wise enough to own the same brands of computer and printer as he did.

“No consultant’s fee?” I joked.