Malibu California Memory

As I watched the reporting of the wildfires in California, they showed images of Malibu, and a memory from the past came back. Until just a few years ago, the Toyota Motor Sales of America headquarters was in Torrance California. During the 1974-78 years, I was the Director of IT at Gulf States Toyota in Houston Texas. GST is the privately owned distributor of Toyota automobiles and parts for the five-state region that includes Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

I had many week-long project meetings in the Torrance office during those years. I had been in Los Angeles in 1960 while on a family trip to Seattle Washington, but we did not spend much time in LA that trip. The IRS rules regarding business meals were different back then, so many nights, we dinned with other department heads of TMS, including some from Japan. I remember one of those meals on my first trip there was at a restaurant in Malibu, with a view looking out on the Pacific Ocean watching the sunset. The food was wonderful, and it was the first time I had lobster.

I had the opportunity to eat at several very nice restaurants during my business trips in LA; however, that night stands out the most because it was when I realized that I was not just a very good programmer. People in powerful positions wanted to hear my ideas and plans about how to make them a reality. No one cared about what part of Houston I grew up in, only my thoughts about better solutions. They were not used to having conversations with people with actual experience developing systems, rather they were used to meeting with management staff who were at one or two levels above the employees doing the work.

Each night as I see more of the images of huge areas burnt to the ground, it amazes me that so much money is spent to manage government bureaucracy that cannot do what they exist to do. Something I learned early in my career was the flatter the ORG chart is, the better the production is. California is a beautiful state that has been harmed by unqualified people with zero common sense. Only time will tell if the voters realize they must elect better people to turn things around.