I work at the complex pictured above. I'm in the tall building on the right. It's located in Concord, about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. I've worked there since March, 1997. I also worked there from April, 1992, to June, 1996.

I started working at Bank of America in 1979. I worked in the bank's personal trust department for the first six years, handling estates and trusts. In 1985, I transferred into the corporate trust department. Corporate trust departments manage municipal and corporate bond issues. In 1992, I transferred from the business side to the technical side, and have been an application developer (computer programmer) ever since.

Bank of America sold off its corporate trust division in 1996. As a result, I was laid off. Fortunately, the bank announced its intention to sell about a year and a half before the sale was actually finalized, so I had a good long time to thing about what I wanted to do. I decided to panic. After a while, I reconsidered, and decided that I was too scared to look for a job. After all, I hadn't faced the job market in 18 years. Finally, I decided to take my severance package and take a trip across the U.S. while I decided what to do next.

Amazingly, 5-1/2 months into my 6-month trip, I got a lead on a job at the bank doing the very thing I'd been doing before I was laid off. I went through a couple telephone interviews and was hired shortly after I returned. I now work in a department which supports back-office operations. I support the applications which perform those functions.