Flashback to the days when this now-longtime IT pilot fish is about to graduate from college -- and, naturally, he's in serious job-search mode."I was working part-time in a programming job for a small consulting firm," says fish.

"It looked like I'd be getting a full-time offer, but I wasn't confident of their future -- I had seen some of their financials."Which puts the company in fish's fallback spot -- his "until something better comes along" option.So he interviews with a company across town that sounds a lot more interesting.

It provides banking software and computing services to small banks and credit unions, through terminals at the banks connected to the company's PDP-11 computers.