History

Alternate Steves: Conference Call

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

More on Alternate Histories through the eyes of Alternate Me’s. This comes from some past speculations on the internet, useful technologies, and vital functionality. In this case I wonder how conference calls/party lines could have been more widespread, giving us casual group chat long before Zoom, Teams, and so on.

Let’s meet an Alternate Steve who remembers the Conference Call Boom of the 80s and 90s . . . even if he missed the start.

I’m going to confess – I missed out on the Party Line/Conference Line craze when I was younger. Yes, I know, this is me, I’m the guy that has set up conferences. But Back In The Day it just didn’t register for me until I graduated college.

So anyway, let’s talk me in the 1990s. I’ve graduated from college and pending getting into graduate school, ended up working as an admin in an anthropology department. Pretty good gig and I figured I’d eventually go back to school to get into that PHD program. As you know I didn’t (even if I did get two more degrees).

One of the things people were talking about is Conference Calls, though everyone kept calling them Party Lines, an older name for shared phone lines. I think it honestly stuck because the term also got used by sex lines and so on. Boy did I work to call it “Conference Call,” and boy did people embarrass themselves throughout the early 90s.

Anyway at the time, I vaguely knew about Conference Calls and we all know the drill – people call one number or someone calls them and you all chat at once. It’s very standard now, but it exploded in the 80s and 90s – in ways that made perfect sense when you look back.

And in 1990 boy did I have to look back. I’m there in the office, suddenly having to catch up on all of this stuff that passed me by as I was A) in the dorms, and B) a computer guy.. I still remember sitting out a weekend with some of my co-workers to understand what was going on. And how I missed it.

You have to remember the 80s saw a lot of changes in communication. The Bell system got broken up. Compuserve and AOL were becoming noticeable. People met on internet forums in academic areas. And what happens when you’re a suddenly-regional phone company after a big breakup and you have a vision or just want money?

People are using computers to talk. But you are used to phones. So by pushing conference lines you sell phones, sell services, and get a leap on these growing services. Also some bigwigs use conference calls and you see them in movies. It was kind of a slam dunk, moreso in the business-obsessed 80s.

A lot of people claim to be the brains behind the Conference Call revolution, but I think it was more a thing of the time – everything came together. Certainly it did for us there in the office as we had PHDs and scientists who were MORE and more interested in figuring how to chat with each other without having to travel. I mean trust me, they wanted to travel (I had to do some of the billing), but you can’t rush back to the lab or something then.

Anyway all that happened while I was busy getting my degree and I only paid attention when I had to. I mean it moved slower than people make it sound because there was a lot of technical stuff, but to me it seemed fast. It had changed over four years.

So I kept learning.

Of course the Conference Call thing began creeping into many aspects of life and nerds like me were there on top of it. Sure they got pitched to business, then families, but I remember when TTRPG (Table Top RPG) was jokingly called Telephone Time RPG. Then there were writer’s roundtables, etc. Or the time I attended the Atlanta Fantasy Fair and someone did a panel by conference line, and that’s when things were definitely in full swing.

Am I saying that Conference Calls exploded even more because of enormous nerdery? Honestly, I kind of am.

I ended up staying on top of it way more than most because I worked in admin and I was a nerd. Despite missing all of it at the start, it became a pretty integral part of my life. When I moved to Berkley in the mid-90s, it was even more prominent there. People forget how cable companies and other infrastructure companies got in on the deal and how vital it was to academia.

Which, come to think of it, was also a huge bunch of nerds. Seriously, by the late 90’s I knew professors who “had to suddenly” give a class by Conference Call.

I think in a weird way the Conference Call revolution both drove and delayed the adoption of the Internet. You could do a whole lot with a line, and the fancy specialized phones that companies sold (at a big markup) that maybe you didn’t need the internet. At the same time the growing infrastructure changes led to interests in other changes. I wonder if videoconferencing like Ringer would have come about as quickly – or were they accelerated?

It’s funny now how we still use these lines. But they afford security, they’re easy to use, and they’re familiar. I get it, even if I didn’t at first.

The 80s and 90s was a time of weird technical and cultural ferment, and I could see Conference Calls getting a big boost. Certainly I knew the various zine groups and geeks I went to, cons I went to, were filled with people who’d have taken advantage of it. Considering how phone companies broke up and consolidated, I see it as a potential business opportunity.

Steven Savage

Alternate Steves: Ohio High Speed Rail

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

My speculation on how different economic and cultural trends could have affected us continues. I’m taking a look at how things may have been different for all of us, using my life as a lens.Today, a fave of mine, the Ohio High Speed rail, which had been speculated on for decades. I wonder what would have happened if it had come to be in the 90s, when I first heard of it. Continuing infrastructure issues were one of my turnoffs living in Ohio.

Let’s check in on another Steve, who watched his home state evolve with high speed rail. What’s he blogging about in alternate 2025?

In college I remember applying for graduate schools, and only one was in Ohio. Turns out I was never going to leave, and I honestly credit the High Speed Rail. Yes, there was a time it didn’t exist, stop making me feel old. At one point we’d killed our rail system.

But anyway here’s my personal take on the Ohio High Speed Rail.

So there I was in the early 90s, guy with a degree, no real plans past that, and living in Ohio. There were a lot of us, judging by the overload of business majors that graduated during my time. You saw some disillusioned people pile up that was for sure.

My idea was to take my psych major and maybe work in city, county, or state services. While I applied for that I made ends meet by temping, which a lot of my friends did. In senior year I’d fallen in with some folks from the college radio station and we’d gotten a place and by place I mean “apartment that was nerd barracks.”

It wasn’t the greatest of course. But somewhere in 92 or 3 I think the High Speed Rail got approved. I hadn’t even heard of it, but I wasn’t as political then.

The High Speed Rail getting approved was both a miracle and obvious. It was a miracle as I’d never felt Ohio was as big on public works as some places, and this was linking Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. It was obvious because most of Ohio is flat and we didn’t have much of an economic identity in my humble, resident opinion.

How it got pulled off was a miracle and there’s a reason there’s multiple books and that one indie comedy film about it. It was several disparate interests coming together, a small amount of bribery and double-dealing, and a grassroots campaign that was wildly entertaining in its own way. It felt a bit out of control, which was really why it worked.

Different elements and different interests didn’t so much conflict as amplify each other. There were businesses who wanted a piece of the rail system. Small towns on the way to the major cities wanted a stop in their city (more on that later). Politicians wanted to look good and of course make Ohio about something as the last time it made history was Neil Armstrong. There was certainly more enthusiasm for it than, say, the Big Dig.

Sorry Boston, no one made a Big Dig comedy. The Big Dig was a comedy.

The economy started changing as soon as things began moving on the rail, and me and my crew, temping away, figured that this was good for us. But also I realized that temping aside, I didn’t want to bounce around from assignment to assignment even if there were more options coming up. So since I foresaw things getting better, despite my limited knowledge, I made a move in my career.

I decided to get out of the field temping and aim at being a recruiter. The way I figured is that Ohio was actually stepping up it’s game and there were going to be opportunities. Why be the guy taking the temp assignments and contracts when I could set them up? Also that was a portable skillset in case I decided to head out of the state.

Also to be honest, government looked less and less interesting. Yeah, we got the High Speed Rail, but as that was going to dominate things for a decade. I’d temped at enough construction companies I knew that wasn’t for me. Also Ohio government may have pulled off the Rail, but uh, it had it’s moments.

So as things spun up to build the High Speed rail, that was my pitch to the agencies I contracted through. “I’ll temp now, but yeah, I want to get into the office,” and just kept learning and pestering people until things worked out and I got an in-office job. I was the guy placing people in positions, which really meant interviewing people, schmoozing, and record-keeping, but I was good at all of those.

Meanwhile around me Ohio was changing. The rail project brought in interest and money, and business – especially tech. It started slow at first, but around the time the Mansfield and Jefferson hookups happened, you could feel things catch fire. It took seven years from start to finish, but things were definitely changing around the three or four year mark.

Me, I happily kept doing recruiting and, pre-emptively, started doing work further and further outside of the Columbus area (it was still called that back then). Why not spend a few days in Cincinnati? Why not do a week in Cleveland? Why not manage some phone interviews. Ohio was getting smaller in a big way.

I also have to shout-out to my very understanding wife who put up with a few times I wasn’t around for a week.

When the rail was working, then things shifted a lot more. Because Ohio had some real advantages but the big one was it was cheap.

You’ve got a state that has connected its major cities and it’s also incredibly low-cost to live in. Land is flat, there’s plenty of it empty, and you can get a house cheaper than you can on the coasts. Sure you put up with snow and maybe not quite the culture you wanted, but if you lived in Columbus, you had options. Plus on the weekends you can travel to other cities to indulge, I dunno, whatever you wanted to indulge.

People moved in because it didn’t cost a lot and you had all the things you need. Also, as an Ohioan, I always felt my state was unappreciated.

One thing that was not foreseen was the “small town/big city” boom. As the lines were building out, smaller towns became a lot more accessible to the big cities. When the rail was done, you could save even more money by not living in the big cities. Mansfield itself, between Columbus (now Armstrong) and Cleveland, was the place for many people. Lebanon made out really well, even if it was more touristy.

I mean I won’t lie, multiple mall towns were happy with the rail, but not all were happy after the rail. But it worked out on average.

At some point the access, the good rep as we actually did the thing, and the low cost had a multiplicative effect. Me, that was the peak, since I got paid more the more people I placed, and I racked up quite a lot of money.

I also burnt out past a certain point. It took about 20 years, but there I was in my 40’s and I had the year but also it was a year. It was time to change, so I slowed down, took a break, and lept to plain-old HR. Ended up at OSU of all places, more set hours, more paperwork over schmoozing, senior recruiting and benefits.

Still in Ohio, which had changed far beyond the economics.

It was demographic. I would not have believed thirty years ago that someone would get the state to change the name of the capitol. But the whole “honor the local son by changing it to Armstrong” campaign worked. I admit “named after murderous lost guy” and “name after first guy on the moon” seemed to be an easy decision, but even I had my doubts.

It was reputational. Ohio wasn’t the place you expected innovation and there we were, being role models. You know multiple rail projects were based on ours? People don’t talk the Bay Area, they talk Ohio, when they talk rail projects. Remember the Canada conference, with the Saskatoon attendees?

Sometimes I wonder what Ohio would be like if it hadn’t happened. But by now it’s hard, I just can’t imagine Ohio without its high-speed rail lines. I can’t imagine not being able to bop over to Blue Ash on Friday to hit the restaurants. Even if I had a tough few years before my break, I can’t imagine not running around between the cities.

But somewhere out there, there’s a Steve who probably left Ohio as not much was happening. He didn’t have a High Speed Rail, and I feel kinda bad for that guy.

Steven Savage

Alternate Steves: Work From Home

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I wrote earlier about the idea of thinking about my different choices in the past, and how my life may have gone if economic, political, and technical trends had been different. I’m using this idea to explore how work from home may have become prominent well before COVID, with a Steve-that-could have been as a viewpoint.

Work from home has been around longer than many people realize (indeed I was in a pilot in 2005 to do two days at home a week). But what could have happened to make it a real thing much earlier? Let’s check in on an Alternate Steve in a world where Work From Home became a big thing in the 90s.

One thing that makes me feel old in 2025 is how many people who don’t get that working from home wasn’t normal at one point. OK, I’m not exactly young and it’s been “a thing” for 30 years, but I remember. Of course I was also there when things changed, and as dull as “we worked from home more” sounds, it was pretty wild when it became normal.

OK, so flash back to the very early 90s. I just graduated from college, failed to get into graduate school, and was debating how to pursue my coveted academic career. A friend of mine gave me some of the best advice they’d given me by taking me aside, telling me I was being stupid, and to take a year to get an actual job. I could still live and work near campus, I might take courses, but seriously, he suggested I take a break.

So I actually sat down, thought it over, and realized I had a solution – temping.

Temping made pretty good money in the 90s if you had skills with computers and clerical works, and I was a huge nerd who’d just graduated college. I typed fast, knew how things worked, and was game for anything, so I went to a temp agency and a week later started a six month assignment to cover someone on maternity leave, while getting paid the most I ever had been.

(It also helped that me and some of my fellow graduates got a place with a bunch of tiny “bedrooms” and low rent.)

One great thing about temping is that it gives you opportunities to show off and find new things to do. People don’t want to ditch a temp that learns things and it’s not hard to become very vital – you fill in gaps other people weren’t. Around about 1991 or so the start of the Work From Home trend started, and I found myself a gap to fill.

The early 90s were a strange time after the equally strange 80s. There was cynicism from the economic ups and downs of the 80s mixed in with remaining go-go enthusiasm. We had more and more prominent technologies like PCs and (then comical-looking) mobile phones. There was business-worship as seen by books by folks like Iococa. That was all you needed – ironically – for Work from Home to take off.

Companies doing Work From Home got attention in some business mags, spawning what was a small trend. You could save money and not need as much space with work from home! New technologies made it easier! You weren’t limited by geography! You had a competitive advantage! It seems the more it got talked about, the more people tried it.

Also for some reason almost every owner or C-level expert of those companies was some dude with feathered blonde hair.

I was intrigued because of the technology, but had to admit the cultural element was sort of a good laugh. The same feather-haired interchangeable guy might say how he saved money one interview, and talk about Family Values Of Dad Being Home the next. Yes it was hype. Yes, none of the companies I heard of survived past 2000. But it got everyone thinking then doing, and I was intrigued because this was an entire realignment of work and culture.

I liked a challenge I could have an impact, and it was like a puzzle to solve.

So in my temp assignment I decided to “help” with a work from home project. Oh, not me, I had to be in the office (for now)! But other people like execs and my manager and the senior artist. I knew tech, I knew admin, I could help them.

That turned my six month contract into eighteen, and by that time the writing was on the wall – Work From Home went from fad to trend. So with a fleshed-out resume and a sales pitch, I got myself hired at a consulting company that helped companies set up Work From Home. My boss also didn’t have the hair I’d come to be suspicious of – he kinda looked like Oliver Hardy.

Honestly it was wild. I moved to Chicago (along with one of my roommates and a friend looking for a change), and started helping people not have to travel to Chicago. Which was weird, especially considering where I lived in Chicago, but folks wanted our help.

And that meant I traveled everywhere. I met people, coached them, set stuff up, showed them cool things. I did not work from home as much as most of my clients, but I had fun. I didn’t work from home as much as the clients – hell, I usually did a kind of three day/half-day thing. But my hypocrisy aside, it was an adventure.

It was great. It was wonderful. There’s plenty we’re used to now but back then the Work From Home trend had magic:

  • Business Cybernetics got a minor revival in discussing how to organize offices and time. That’s one of the reason you saw “mail vans” picking up company correspondence before email got even bigger.
  • “Work From Home PCs” reshaped some of the market. Light enough to carry (but not a laptop), powerful enough to run basic office software. There was some real precise engineering there.
  • Time of work changed. 9 to 5 had been long dying or dead anyway, but Work From Home really shifted people’s schedules around.
  • Phone companies made bank and were ready to “set your home up for work” and of course charge your employer.
  • OfficeStar actually started in the 90s with their famous Supply Trucks that you see to this day. SNL did MULTIPLE skits about the Supply Trucks being the Home Bureaucrat’s equivalent of the Ice Cream Truck. But hey you need your pens and paper pads.
  • Kinkos created their newly branded Office Centers. These were really just Kinkos, but they had supplies, desks, etc. I don’t think they could have acquired those other companies without this success.
  • Bragging about work from home and competitive advantage was The Thing for various C-levels trying to impress people.

That was the obvious stuff. What I don’t think got or gets discussed enough is how much things changed outside of work. I watched public transport schedules shift and questions of funding come up. Office real estate declined in value, so people moved back to cities. There was a small panic in the early 2000s about the effect on construction companies. None of this was as radical as breathless news made it sound, but it added up.

And I wonder what might happen if it hadn’t? A few feather-haired guys in mags might never have gotten interviewed then what? We keep hauling an hour into work each day?

This is where I’d talk about how things ended, but it didn’t – but what did end was the Work From Home consulting company. I stuck with my employer for a decade, but past a certain point everyone who needs help from people like you got it, and more importantly, companies knew how to do it themselves.

I knew it was over at some point around year nine. We all did. When I got an offer to be a Technology Manager for the city, I don’t even know if my boss and I said out loud what was going on. That was over twenty years ago. Funny, I really only worked at two paces in my career, and the city is as big on Work from Home as anyone.

Now? Now Work From Home is so normal. It’s expected. Almost anyone I know with an office or creative type job is only in the office like two or three days. Being in the office full time gets you more money (you’d be surprised how many states have laws on that). It’s all so normal.

But I remember those wild times, getting off the bus in Chicago with a backpack full of paperwork, or me and Charlie parking the van so we could unload computers. I remember having to fly out to New York on short notice because of a new client engagement. I remember something new every day in our little world of the Work From Home People. I remember offices getting more and more uninhabited.

It’s all standard now. And I think that’s good, if a bit less exciting than when I was young.

Steven Savage