Started working for Applebee’s

The work for SLU was great, but the pay was terrible. I looked to replace SJI with something more lucrative, and via a classified ad found a flexible part-time job with Apple Partners, which held the franchise for Applebee’s restaurants in St. Louis and Portland.

I was hired to handle IT busy work and keep the backoffice computers running. I ws able to also make improvements to their homegrown ERP and communications system, which used Lotus 1-2-3 for the client UI and a bunch of shell scripts on a NeXTstep server.

I didn’t visit the restaurants often, but when I did it was a little power trip to be from “corporate” and walk through the kitchen to the manager’s “office” closet.