Jurassic niche

They say in business that you have to have your niche. Thanks be to the pioneering company where I spent close to six years of my life (post salad days eaten away), I can say I do have a niche in conducting the same subjects I went back to that firm for. That was post Y2K years, and still, there was a demand for Cobol programmers. The yeare 2001 was the year the WTC was bombed, and it nearly retrenched me. Good thing the dreaded thing didn't happen and I still was employed.

The company I worked for could have been the pioneers of Philippine BPO, now that that term is so much in vogue. The group that started it was the group that resigned from its mother company to follow their feel that offering services outside the company will surely boom. Sad thing the mom co. didn't heed so the opportunity was seized by the rebel group. They had their niche - offering consultancy services to US companies that needed a more cost-effective way of computer systems development and maintenance, mainly in the "jurassic" mainframe world. In short, they outsourced a part of that to Philippine hands. That was their niche.

Working for them also put me in the niche of training greenhorns the ever needed subjects of Cobol, CICS, JCL, and DB2. I wholely thank the company for giving me the rare opportunity of training rare subjects. This is the reason why I am now where I am, teaching CICS. Providence also guided me to email an inquiry to the school. Within two hours I had an answer. They were in need of an instructor like me.