How you got started in the Industry?

Being out of work in 1980, and in need of a job, I answered an Ad for a Copy Machine Training School that was being conudcted by PIC (Private Industry Council).

I was interviewed by Karl MacIntosh (Copy Machine Specialists). A few questions were asked and I had to take an written test. I thought I did ok.

A few weeks passed and I heard nothing, and then one morning I had a call around 8:00AM asking if I wanted to attend class that day, as a matter of fact I had to come right over. I thought about it and had nothing better to do that day, I said yes and was on my way to making $3.75 and hour to be taught how to repair copy machines.

A few months passed and I landed a job as a technician, it was only then that I found out that I was not picked to be in the class from the first interview. Apparently, there was only one woman in the class of 12 people. After the first day she quit, I heard she was not comfortable as being the only women in the group. I was the alternate...........my how things work out!

Anyone out there?

Nothing interesting to tell...I was selling Life Insurance to a guy that owned a copier company. He asked if I was interested in something that was 8:00-5:00, I said yes.

I had been working on computer periferals (keypunch, verifiers, etc) for IBM and had a falling out with my manager about their conservative dress code and IBM rah, rah.
Couldnt take my jacket off in a customers office, even if you were pulling a greasy shaft out of a collator, white long sleeve shirts.
so anyway it was 1969 and I applied to a now extinct company called Copystatics and the service manager hired me and explained how the copier worked and I took to it like I always new it.It just made perfect sense. In a month I was teaching copier theory and basic electronis classes to new techs and ones that had been there for a while.
In 1972 I came to work for my present employer and that was just about the time that plain paper copiers were popping up all over the place. The rest is history.

I had been in the insurance business for 20 years....owned my own agency in Northern Indiana when one day I woke up and thought to myself that I couldn't stand the thought of being in the insurance business for another 20 yrs. so...I sold the agency, bummed around for 6 months or so and then started to look at something to do. Friends of mine had worked for Adams Remco and seemed to enjoy it and made a decent living so I applied. That was in '95 and I've gone from slammin' boxes to a provider of solutions in that short time period and loving every munite of it.

I was a toppless dancer! when one day this girl came in one day and asked if I would be intrested in selling Copiers, well how could I pass that up! 16 years later I have my own Copier Company in Florida.

Sam the man

HA HA HA just kidding about the topless dancing but I do have a copier Company!

I started when i was 17, just after leaving school on a training programme for a year.

Started with the company my dad worked for and have moved a few times since

Answered a want ad in 1977 for a receptionist. While working in a secretarial capacity for this copier dealership, I worked closely with a sales rep who left and started his own company in 1979. After establishing his business, I went to work for him and developed his aftermarket sales and support departments. It is now 25+ years later I am his senior VP. Very small world indeed.

does nayone have any funny stories to add?

Funny you should ask! I've collected a few.

Years ago, a new rep asked for help running a comparison in BLI. She had already found our machine in BLI, but was unable to find the customer's current machine in the database.

I looked at her notes and found the machine she was looking for was the "Bodankor 2000". I told her I'd never heard of that manufacturer... was she sure that she had the name right?

She replied "yes, that's exactly what the customer said, "I just want to get rid of that old "Boat Anchor"."

lol, nice

Back in the days before email, I had designed a spreadsheet that did a long series of very complex calculations for our remote offices.

One of our offices called in to say their spreadsheet wasn't working. I tried to walk them through some things but it wasn't working. I wanted them to send them a new disk, but they already had all their data programmed into it.

I told her to just make a copy of the disk and send it to me so I could fix it and return it to them.

Two days later, I got an envelope in the mail. I opened it and found a single piece of paper. When I unfolded the paper, I saw a "copy" of the disk. The user had placed the disk on a copier and made a copy for me.


This story actually happened to me, it is not a retelling of someone else's story that may or may not have happened, it is true.

Jason....I was dumbfounded but then realize you were from Tennessee.....

I had a demo in downtown Princeton, NJ back in the early Eighties. I had a Nissan Hatchback (remember we all had to have station wagons), well after the demo I loaded the copier and gurney back into the car and left for my next appointment. Stopping at the first traffic light, and then I took off fast, not realizing that I did not close the hatchback properly. Well, the gurney and machine came out the back and the car in back of me crushed the gurney and the copier.

I ad some explaining to do when I got back to the office that day.

I had left the Air Force in 1989, and moved back to Kentucky. I worked for a river company for several years, started an Amway business and thought I would strike it rich. Amway took my money but never made me rich, so I became a waiter at a restaurant. I spilled too many drinks on the customers, so I was at a BBQ one day, and met a cousin who was one of the partners of Modern Business Systems, who had sold out to Alco Standard. He bought a small typewriter company in Paducah, and turned it into a Ricoh dealership. He asked if I had any sales experience, which of course was a NO. He said, I'll give you a $1000 and you go out and try to sell copiers. Straight commission is a hard way to go when you are new, but 16 years later, I have to admit I have made a good living at it.

Art mentioned a demo he did back in the Eighties. I had posted a funny story here several years ago, that I had to post again for the folks that never read it.
I installed and trained an Aficio 3035 yesterday to a Sheriff's Office. One of the ladies (who is a true blonde) was asking questions on the yellow key. I instructed her that before you make copies, to press the button to first clear any job that was previously run. I thought she understood that. When I was following up today, I was told by one of the other clerks that what she understood, was that you press the yellow button after every copy made!! She was trying to run 25 stapled sets of a 10 page file, and was pressing the yellow button every time it made a copy. They said it took her about 3 hours to run the job, and someone finally told her that the only time you press the button is before you start to make copies, not during. I thought you guys would enjoy a "blonde moment."

It gets funnier everytime I read it!!

Here's another, again back in the eighties.

Got a call from a person that ran a business out of their home. I secured the demonstration for the date and time. Loaded the copier and my partner in the car and we were off! We got there and knocked on the door, then rang the doorbell, nothing.....figured we would go around back and knock on the backdoor. We opened the gate and found a woman nude sun bathing in the back yard! She saw us, screamed and went indoors...... we had the wrong address.

Ah the eighties!