Canadian Tire

Canadian Tire is a large Canadian chain store that sells much more than tires (in fact "More than just tires" used to be their marketing slogan).

I worked a G.W. Line Canadian Tire in Burlington, Ontario starting when I was 16. I began working the first year the Commodore 64 hit general merchants, and was the store's "computer guy" through the Christmas season. I sold a whole big bunch of Commodore 64s and VIC 20s. I also sold auto fiberglass, as the body repair section was beside the computer section.

The following summer I moved upstairs to the store office, where I used an original IBM-PC and the first version of Lotus 1-2-3 to create spreadsheets to allow the Comptroller to analyze and report on many of the store's metrics (worker productivity, store sales, mechanic throughput, etc.). I worked at this, off and on, for several years.