Computer Man

About two weeks before my oral history report was due I interviewed an old man in his mid sixties about how computers has affected his life and the world today. [It was that one day after school my uncle took me to St. Vincent where he and my mom both work, Roman Romano was wearing a blue collared  shirt and khakis]. I was there sitting besides him uncertain of the questions I was consecutively going to ask him. Roman Romano has four children that have already graduated from college, about ten years ago he started working at St. Vincent doing business management, before that he came from Philippines working at a bank. Roman Romano grew up in Manila living in the barrio he finished high school and college but did not take a computer coarse.

I started working with computers in 1990 on my first job in America it seemed hard because I did not use computers in the Philippines. In the Philippines my first job was an accountant in a bank. I have four children that already Graduated from college, they like computers but they are not good. Computers are useful in my work, I use it in accounts receivable, parole, control of census, and just the obvious things that I need to organize my work habits and business control. I have seen the changes in computer every year since it came out. For example windows 95, 98, 2000 , XP, AOL 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 etc. My computer is not that old but not new, windows 98. Computers hold a big part in communications I use it for internet, things for company and personal information. Before I used computers when I worked in the bank I used to input numbers with paper and pen. When I first started to type it was hard but I took word processing class in college and used to type 55 words per minute. It was not hard, I don’t really type words I mostly punch in numbers for reports, parole, and reports. I use my computer at home for personal use and my other job as a real estate agent. My other computer that I use is in St Vincent. I do not know much about how computers and new gadgets has changed over the recent years. If computers were not invented I don’t know what job I would be doing but most like likely I would still be working in my same job except I would use paper and pen. I first knew about computers in the Philippines though I did not know how to use it till I my job in America required me to learn. I did not find the computer hard to use just as long as I learned the functions its not hard its depending on the first. I’m not literate in computers.

Computers has been around for about 25 years and I first knew about computers when I graduated from college in 1986, we already had courses in college but I did not take a computer course. The course that was offered in my college during the time was basic learning because computers were not fully produced and exposed in the Philippines. I Majored in accounting we did not use computers but only writing utensils, paper, books and other resources. Computers are basically a faster and easier way of learning for the advancing world today. I have seen and experienced the many changes that the computer had brought to our advantage. For example when I went to the bank after five years some of the work had already been computerized. Before that there was more jobs for people to do but now that computers are here the bank is simply more small because of the the many tasks that the computer can do. Not many but few jobs were replaced, Computers are only a tool, and/or necessity.

When I was still a teenager my hobbies were bowling, basketball and other things. We were not yet exposed to computer literate hobbies. My social life was different from a person born in the 1980’s because they live a more peaceful, easier and entertaining life. When I worked as an accountant in the Philippines we only use paper and pen. Unlike now balanced is already establishes. Organization is already computerized. For example before you could not deposit or withdraw money from different banks , you had to go to the same exact bank to deposit or with draw. Today you can do that, everything is centralized you can to anywhere in the world and deposit and withdraw from the same bank branch. I consider some cell phones a type of computer because it has some of the same features as a computer except you cant save or copy to a device. I think before computers reached America it reached the Philippines because Philippines is near Japan and Japan is very advanced in computer technology. Computer advancing is a contributing factor to a advancing world today.

Interviewed by Glenn Bergado