Got an email:

Subject: Gui tcl/tk programmer position in Campbell

I have sent you an email before if you recall, I am a recruiter who found you on the net and I am wondering if you might be interested in this position at a pre-IPO software company in Campbell?  What is your salary expectation?  Could you send me a Word version of your resume?

Thank you

A few things:

• I don’t have a previous email from this person, but I was not really good at archiving email before 1999, so I did not recall.
• I do not like it when they don’t tell me the company name.
• I do not like it when they don’t have a full job description.
• By this time, I was (foolishly) only considering management positions.
• It would have taken an really good offer to get me away from Cygnus. (Of course, that changed a few months later…)
• I really hated the “Word version” of a resume; at the time, my resume was online, and people could just look at it. (I actually had one admin ask for a fax of my resume. I told her that it was at the URL it was at. She said, “Great! Could you fax us a copy?” I said, “You are looking at it in your browser right now?” She said, “Yes”. I said, “You could print it and give it to who needs it easier than I can find a fax machine.” I never heard from her again…)

I apparently sent this person a “not what I am looking for” response, because a few months later, I got this:

I talked to you a month or so ago and I remember you saying that this position is not what you are looking for.  Could you help me and let me know if there is anyone that you know of that does GUI tcl/tk programming in C under unix? I would really appreciate any info, a name, an email address, I won’t mention your name if you don’t want me to.

Now that we have more an internet, and we have LinkedIn, I don’t get asked for other names all that often. But this was pretty standard 20 years ago.

I somehow doubt whatever company this was lived passed 2001.