This part of the story happens during the period of late 1992 to early 1993. This time is really the deciding factor to whether or not Citrix is going to survive. About the time that this was written by EdJ was also about the time management announced that there might not be enough funding left to cover wages. It was that close.
There are three more parts to go after this one.
(part three) (10.FEB.93)
Work proceeded on boat 2.01. They proudly painted the name
MULTIUSER on the front of the boat just as they had before.
In an effort to increase ticket sales, one of the
sub-subcaptains assigned to help figure out how to help the
ticket sellers sell more tickets (one who had his spine
removed surgically around that time) talked to some Novell
fishermen and got them to give Citr!x some fishing nets
(Nets! Where?) so that they
could try to catch some customers with their nets.
This was a good idea, everyone agreed, and it did help
somewhat. As a result they decided to rename the boat. In
the beginning the boat had many names, depending on what the
person buying the tickets was interested in and wanted, but
this became too confusing for the ticket sellers, so the
boat was renamed the A+. The rowers worked hard to change
the boat, replacing MULTIUSER with A+ on all the trimmings
and appurtenances, and installing various hooks and
mountings for the nets. This also involved changing all the
waybills and other printed materials, which turned out to be
a very big job.
At the same time, Two-Hats also wanted
large Windows added to the boat for other people who liked
Windows on their boats. This was also a good idea, so good
that the rowers worked very hard to let the boat have lots
of Windows. All this work strained people to the point that
a few of the rowers left. The rower who was prone to
strange rashes and other maladies moved to the mountains, as
far from the sea as he could get. Another of the rowers left
but couldn’t bring himself to go away forever. He had a
shadowy, after-hours existence while working for someone who
placed him as a crewman on a very huge ship (of which more
later). Two other rowers decided to sign on directly as
able-bodied seamen on a huge ship they had worked on before.
On their first day of work, they climbed the gangplank and
saluted the welcoming captain. “Welcome to the TitanIBMic,”
the captain said. One of the new rowers looked over the
captain’s shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir, but is that an iceberg I see on the
horizon?”
The captain took a cursory glance at it.
“Why, there’s nothing to worry about! There’s Acres of
Big Blue Iron to protect us. You’ll never feel a thing…”
A few of the rowers from the TitanIBMic decided to jump ship
to Citr!x at the same time. They were welcomed and put
right to work.
(to be continued)
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