An Oral History Interview with Saba Hocek, Part 3 of 3

Listen to Hocek Interview, Part 3

Saba Hocek: (continued): It's about 1:00 in the morning. They lived in a house of a bunch of college students, whatever, so the main door was open. So I walked in. I found somebody, asked for Adi and Ali and they told me which room I could find them in and I walked in. I woke up my brother and I think he thought he was seeing ghosts.

They hadn't heard from us for months. They had no clue on what had happened.

So then after that, I went to New York. I'm from New York, you know. But New York just seemed, it was too big and crowded. I felt very lost as a 19-year-old. Where do I begin? It was just too vast for me.

And then I went down to Colorado Springs. Saw my friend. She was at university there. And then I realized I wasn't ready for college. Even from a social part of it, it just wasn't my cup of tea at the time.

So I decided I was going to take the job in Germany. So I moved to Germany. I worked there for about a year. Basically, the guy who took me in was doing a favor. Obviously, I'm a 19-year-old with a high school diploma. Okay, fine. I'm hard working, but there's lot's of hard working 19 year olds.

He was doing a favor to his business contact in Iran, who did a lot of sales for him. They were in the lighting business and of course during the good times, the financially prosperous times of Iran, these companies did extremely well. Then after that year, when it became obvious that this was not going back to the good old days, so he decided he really didn't care to have me anymore. He wasn't a very pleasant person, let's just say.

His own sister worked at the company. She got treated far worse than I did. It definitely wasn't anything personal.

But I will interject just one little story here. And that's that there was somebody who worked at the company and my financial resources were very, very limited. I walked away from Iran with a small amount of money in my pocket. I didn't know how to manage money. Usually, most people have this transition between going to college or living at home or something like that. I went from high school to working at home for a short period of time, and earning some money, to the real world of finding an apartment. Thankfully I spoke German but it wasn't completely fluent at the time.

Having to deal with just various day to day issues. So there you got paid once a month. Well I didn't manage my money well. I ran out of money and of course my pride would not allow me to say anything to anybody. I wasn't going to write to my parents, who were now in southern Turkey. And this woman at the company couldn't understand why I was still now, the weather was starting to get rather warm and pleasant and I was still walking around with turtlenecks on.

She said, "Aren't you warm?" I said, "No, no. This feels great" Of course I left Iran with one suitcase. I could only take what I needed. And I had no money to buy new clothes. So a while goes by, a couple of days. And she comes in one day with two huge shopping bags. She said, "A bunch of old stuff. If you want to take it." Some of them had the label on them. I couldn't believe it. She'd drive me home a lot of times. So on the way home, she'd stop by the house and say, "Just wait in the car." She never let me come out of the car. And she'd tell me, "My mother had all this leftover stuff. Do you mind taking it home?" And it would be boxes of crackers. "They're not going to go bad. Ah, she doesn't want them any more." This and that and whatever.

Finally, as the months went on, she allowed me into her life. Her father was a fireman. Her mother was a cleaning woman. And she had six little brothers and sisters. These people were by no means wealthy, but the most generous people there are. It was one of the most beautiful things that you come across when you're traveling is that you do also find people like this. And one of her younger sisters would walk this...they were walking one day, her and her girlfriend, and they see this dog and this old man. They say, "Can I walk this dog?" He said, "Sure." This became a routine for them. Then one day they go inside and they see his house is a mess, so they started cleaning up the house. They wash his dishes. They were 8 or 9 years old.

So they now make this a routine. And one day they come home, we went home, Carola and I, my girlfriend and I. And there's these two bicycles in front of the house, brand new, very expensive bicycles, top of the line. The mother is in a total panic. So the man gave these bicycles to the girls. And so the mother says, "You've got to go speak to the man. I can't have my daughters taking anything from anybody."

The story ends up being that the man had two children who after his wife died basically disowned him. That was it. They never called. They never visited him. His wife was well off. So he wanted to give this as a gift.

Then one day we come home and the younger sister is in a panic this time. He opened a bank account for these two girls, giving them what was equivalent to $1,000 a month, until they were 18. After they were 18, they could withdraw the money. And he left all his life savings for those kids.

Tony Candela: Wow, the Jewish people would say the mitzvah was returned. That is a beautiful story.

Saba Hocek: It's like a fairy tale to me.

Tony Candela: And you're right. Traveling and going to other places gets you exposed to things like that.

Saba Hocek: I left Germany after a year. I went to Turkey because it was the only place I could go at that point. So basically, I didn't really do anything. I was there for about four months or so.

My father meanwhile was trying to get back to the States through Hilton. That finally came through. We came back to the States. My brothers were in England at the time. So, they eventually came back as well, but later on. All within about six months.

When my parents came back, my parents came back to the States before me, about a month before. And they had some friends, way back from Turkey, when my mother was a young girl. And kept in touch with these friends and we'd go to Turkey every summer and see them then, and so forth.

In any case, my mother calls them up to say, "We're here," and so forth and they're delighted. So many people don't even know what happened to us, so they're delighted to know that we're well and alive. And they say, "Where are you staying?" "We're staying at the Hilton right now, but we need to find someplace to live."

So she calls up her friend, who just got separated from her husband, and they're living in different apartments and they're in walking distance, a couple of blocks apart. And this is in Secaucus, New Jersey.

They're under friendly terms. It's not like a bitter separation, or anything like that. She's from Columbia. He is from Czechoslovakia. The friend is Turkish and his wife is Hungarian. You got the whole mix here.

And when the friend said to this Columbian woman, the story about my parents, she said, "Now wait. My door is open. They have to come stay with me." And so we did. We stayed there for about a month and a half. So, it happens everywhere.

Tony Candela: There's generosity everywhere.

Saba Hocek: Yeah. Most immigrants have gone through some difficulty and also support.

Tony Candela: What led to you deciding to go to college, finally?

Saba Hocek: Well, I came here and right away I got some very boring job, stuffing envelopes. I didn't drive or anything so everything had to be within walking distance. Sounds like one of those stories, "When I was a child." But this was so when I was 19 or 20, it was about a mile or so I'd walk to this company where I'd stuff envelopes all day long. And I have to say, it wins the prize in boring.

And during this time, everybody was pestering me. "So what are you going to do with your life?" "I don't know yet." It's like I'm not ready to make that decision. I'm in this new country. Although I'd been born there, I hadn't been back since I was 10. It's totally different when you're 20.

So this Czech guy gave me a computer one day and a book, in Basic, Basic Language Programming, and said, "Well, why don't you at least play with this."

Tony Candela: This would be around 1980?

Saba Hocek: This was 1980.

Tony Candela: So he gave you a computer. What was it?

Saba Hocek: It was called an N-65. I think it was used more so in engineering labs and stuff like that. It was actually sort of cool. It was about the size of a typewriter, except thinner. It wasn't so heavy. It was very light, as a matter of fact. It was the size of a typewriter.

It had a little LCD display, and you could hook up a tape recorder to it. And that was your storage device. And that was it. And you could program in Basic in it. So I started programming on this. It was the first time I ever saw a computer. I thought this programming was just the neatest thing on earth. I took to it right away. It came real easy. [There have not been] too many things that have come easy to me. This was easy.

So I said, "You know what? I'm going to drop my job down to part time. I'm going to work day and night on this and give me a month and a half and I'm going to get a job as a programmer."

And the Czech guy started laughing. He said, "You know, I love your determination and inspiration, but I'm sorry. You can't work a month and a half in Basic and get a job." I said, "I can't stuff another envelope. I am getting a job." And I did.

In a month and a half, I found a company that was doing...Have you ever hear of Peachtree Accounting?

Tony Candela: Yes.

Saba Hocek: Well, in those days, now this is pre-DOS. This is CPM systems. DOS hadn't even come out yet. In Peachtree Accounting they had like a financial package. They had real estate as well and stuff like that. But it was so convoluted that they sold you the code and then you would go in and actually change their code around to make it customizable for the client. And so that's what I did.

So this company was located in Manhattan would get jobs in order to modify the Peachtree package. So I did that for about a year. I remember I was earning $11,000. But I realized that I couldn't move up from there.

When I inquired about other jobs, I had hit the ceiling. Because I didn't have the educational background. So then I said, "If I combined hardware and software, and knew more about hardware, maybe I could be a much more marketable person.

Tony Candela: What made you think that?

Saba Hocek: I don't know. It seemed logical.

So I went to a school that taught you how to fix computers. It was like a six-month course. I did that. I got a job and they sent me off on training, their own system training. I got back from there. I got on the job. And within, I think, two week's time, I twisted my ankle. I heard it crack. Now this was now the fifth time I'm breaking this ankle. So I know when it happens.

Oh darn. Sure enough my leg was broken, my ankle was broken. Okay, it's Wednesday. Let me wait till Friday. I'll hobble for a couple more days. And I ended up on Workmen's Comp. The best thing that ever happened to me. In a few weeks I was bored out of my mind and I said, "I can't take this any more." I signed up at the Community College.

Tony Candela: Which one?

Saba Hocek: Middlesex County College. At that point we were in East Brunswick. I started studying for Computer Engineering, was my goal. And that's when I ended up, after a year, at Middlesex County College and I applied to universities. I went to Western Michigan.

After the first semester, I realized this is really stupid. I am not engineer-minded. And programming comes so easy to me. Why am I fighting this? And that's when I switched to Computer Science.

Tony Candela: And when you entered the classes, did you find mostly men in the classes?

Saba Hocek: Most of them. Most of them actually were Middle Eastern men, Middle Eastern and Asian. Very few Americans.

Tony Candela: Any idea why?

Saba Hocek: In those days, it just simply was most Americans were going into either engineering -- engineering was also very Middle Eastern. It was only business.

And I think it had something to do with it was a State university. So I don't know how the private universities worked, but as a State university, it wasn't the scene of the job of the future as much. As opposed to today I'm sure those numbers are far different.

Tony Candela: And they've renamed the profession to Software Engineering. It probably attracted more people. It's ironic, this year they're off-shoring some jobs.

Saba Hocek: A lot.

Tony Candela: We don't know how this is going to end, but right now, that's what's happening. And that's all because the electronic communications systems allow for people to communicate their work, from one part of the world to another, easily.

Saba Hocek: We're suffering with that as well, though. Because, first of all, when you are designing software, and it does depend on what software you're designing first. But I'm talking about, if you're doing something that is a user-based software, like a database or something like that. It's important to understand the culture that you're dealing with, the people that you're dealing with.

In something that is so dry, you want to add some humor in there. Let's face it, doing any of this type of stuff, entering data into a database, is not terribly exciting. So for that person who is going to be doing that entry, you've got to bring in some humor, some ease of use. It has to be pleasant to look at. It has to be nice colors. There is that issue that you're dealing with a different cultural issue. There is a language barrier. Even if you're dealing with, let's say, India, they might speak English fluently, there's still a different dialect.

And then, of course, there's working at different paces, completely. Even East Coast vs. West Coast is a different pace. They're worlds apart. And of course there's the time problem. You're dealing with sometimes a ten, fifteen hour time difference.

So although it is definitely, at least this is the feedback I've gotten from people offshore, there is a huge price difference. But at the same time it takes four time to complete the project and it's a lot more interaction that needs to take place.

Tony Candela: And I think that that's why the word "engineering," when they do use it let's just say regarding software development, is a very appropriate word. That implies a lot more than just the building part. It requires all that interaction.

And it strikes me, you do have an interesting and probably rare perspective on all of this. Because not only the path that you took in your business life, but also the path that you took in your growing up and the different cultures you lived in, you have a perspective on all this that I don't think a whole lot of people have, especially in this country.

Maybe there's a consultancy there for you somewhere. Maybe you can help get some of the off shoring back on shore.

Saba Hocek: That would be nice.

Tony Candela: It occurs to me that we've come full circle.

Saba Hocek: Sounds like that.

Tony Candela: I think it's a great and a good high note to end on.

I want to thank you very much for hanging in here through hours of interviewing in your very lovely Upper East Side apartment. And I hope some of the New York City noises come through on the recording. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Saba Hocek: Thank you.

Tony Candela: Clearly, your habit is to work very, very hard when you're working and I have a feeling, when you're enjoying your free time, you're doing that to the hilt as well.

Saba Hocek: I do!

Tony Candela: I want you to continue to do that and again, Saba, thank you very, very much.

Saba Hocek: Thank you.