The answer to a good question...

We recently had breakfast with some friends here in Albuquerque, and one of them asked me how I got into Cisco Systems in the first place. I gave her my now pat answer: "I got into Cisco Systems because a guy hit on my girlfriend." They both looked at me, and I smiled and said, "It's a pretty good story." 

When I was in school in Phoenix, 1984 to 1988, we lived in an apartment complex about two blocks from school. It was a new complex and we both liked it. One day Row and I were cooking on one of the complex's outdoor grills and she had just come back from checking things; she told me she'd met one of the residents. He was a guy name of Jeff from California, who worked at Intel in Phoenix, and his balcony was right above the grills. I asked her how he seemed, and she told me he had seen her, had come down, and introduced himself. He flirted with her a little (this was years before he and his wife, Maggie, met), and Row told him her boyfriend was a student at DeVry University. He told Row he'd like to meet me. 

A couple of weeks later we invited him for dinner and we chatted about college, Intel, and Silicon Valley, where we were planning to go after my graduation. Jeff told us he could show us around as that was where he grew up. We stayed in touch with Jeff, and when we moved to Mountain View, CA, we met Jeff's mom and dad, Adelaide and Bob, two of the dearest, sweetest people to ever live, and spent time with them all. Jeff told me several times that if the situation ever presented itself to get in touch and he could maybe help me find something. 

I was recruited by Perkin-Elmer right out of college as a field-service engineer, and had been there for about 18 months when the stress and almost constant traveling and driving (sometimes hundreds of miles a day) finally got to me and I suffered what my doctor said was probably a transient ischemic attack (TIA), based on the symptoms I had described to her. During our appointment in her office she asked me about about my job and what I did, day to day. After a good 20 minutes of this she took out her script pad, wrote on it, tore off the page, and handed it to me. 

It said, "Michael... find a new job!" 

So, I went home and talked to Row and she reminded me what Jeff had said so many times. I called him the next day. A couple of weeks before he had just started working for a then-tiny start-up called Cisco Systems, whose IPO had happened only a few months before that, and although I was nervously hesitant to go the start-up route, as even back then Mountain View and the Silicon Valley were expensive places to live, I took my doctor's advice, took a chance, and took my résumé to Cisco, then on O'Brien Drive in East Menlo Park. 

As luck would have it, and with, no doubt, some good words from Jeff, I got an interview with Sandy Lerner. That was July of 1990, and I was with Cisco until November of 1999. Now, well over 22 years after my doctor's "prescription," I smile every time someone asks me, "So, how did you get into Cisco Systems anyway?" 

I know I've thanked him before now, but... thank you again, Jeff, more than I can ever express. I am so glad you decided to flirt with Row that day.