Meet Tim Griffin - Special Farewell Edition

Career Reflection

You've been with the company for over 20 years—can you take us back to the beginning? What brought you here?

I originally joined the Department of Posts & Telegraphs in 1978. This was converted to a semi-state company called Telecom Eireann in 1984.

My career started as a Telecomms technician. I predominantly worked on switching. It was electro-mechanical switching back in those days - digital switching was just being introduced. As well as switching being electro-mechanical, so was metering for call charges. During a call, a physical meter increments at predefined periods depending on the route of the call, e.g. local, national, international. At billing time, the previous meter reading was subtracted from the current meter reading to determine the charge for the billing period.

With the onset of computers throughout the industry, the telecoms industry was no different. An initiative was introduced in Telecom Eireann to deliver “Detailed Billing” to telecomms customers so that they could see the details of their calls (to what number, what duration, the rate that was charged, etc…) on their bills. 

IBM PC-XT computers were installed in each electromechanical switching exchange (each exchange typically servicing between 10,000q to 50,000 telephones) to capture the call data. To put these machines in perspective, they were state of the art at the time with a whopping 40Mb hard disk and 128Mb RAM - Wow!! Check your current mobile phone specs against this. 😊

I joined a new multi-disciplinary team in the mid-1980s that was tasked with building the software to capture these call detail records (CDR), to validate them, to price them and to bill them. The parallels to what we are doing today with aiEazyFuel^® can easily be seen.

In the late 1990’s Y2K fever infected the entire world. Many computer systems were written using two digits to store the year in any dates that were being stored. Y2K fever was the realisation that the turn of the century (from 1999 to 2000) was going to have the potential to either overwrite the existing data, as there was no century identifier, or worse still, to overwrite adjoining memory as a memory leak.

This caused a panic in the software industry as organisations needed to undertake huge initiatives of software rewrites and/or testing to ensure that their computer systems were Y2K compliant. The result of this panic is that companies tried to lock in their software developers for the duration of the Y2K projects.

In my case, even though our software was written with 4-digit years, it still had to go through the due diligence phase and an initiative to lock in skilled staff with personal employment contracts and loyalty bonuses was introduced. Having never been employed on a personal contract previously (it was set pay scales) and now needing to negotiate a personal contract, I had to get an independent valuation of my worth. The only option was to test myself in the job market. So, I sent out some CVs …………. And the rest is history.

What was your first role at the company, and how has it evolved over the years?

I moved from Telecom Eireann to ICL (part of the Fujitsu Group) as a Senior Software Engineer in 1998, where I worked on various projects, such as the Oyster Card project for the London Underground. 

I transitioned into a project management role and worked with the team responsible for a product called SmartCity. SmartCity was a multi-application smartcard management product that was used by customers in many different verticals, such as higher education, banking and also in the fuel card market.

The Fujitsu Group reorganised itself into a consulting arm and a services arm in the early 2000’s. The SmartCity product did not fit into this model, and accordingly, the SmartCity team transitioned into a startup company called SmartCentric Technologies.

My project/programme management role in Fujitsu was still required, so I continued in this role until 2006, rolling out pan-European ERP system replacements. In 2006, the now-established SmartCentric Technologies was ready to move the SmartCity product to a new level, and I rejoined my old friends/colleagues as Head of Development.

I continued in this role as, firstly, the second-generation SmartCity product was built and then subsequently the aiEazyFuel^® product, focused on the fuel card market, was developed (based on the new SmartCity platform).

In 2017, The ai Corporation acquired SmartCentric Technologies, and I transitioned across to the new organisation, where I have operated in several roles during the formation of the product team, supporting the ongoing design/development/deployment of the product. In recent years, I have been operating as the aiEazyFuel^® Product SME (Subject Matter Expert), responsible for customer consultancy, requirements analysis, feature design and pre-sales support.

What are some of the biggest changes you've witnessed in the company during your time here?

Changing from being part of a large, global organisation (ICL/Fujitsu) to a small team, when the team working on the product was moved to a start-up (Smart Centric Technologies), and then back to a mid-size company (The ai Corporation) following an acquisition. The work dynamics vary greatly depending on the size of an organisation. 

Looking back, what accomplishments or moments are you most proud of?

I’m not individually proud of any one thing. I am really proud to have been part of the teams that developed the product to its current mature state and the teams that have rolled out this product to large, multi-national customers.

Is there a particular project or milestone that stands out as a career highlight?

I guess being part of the team that replaced a legacy/incumbent system, with our flagship product aiEazyFuel^®, for a large, multi-national oil company within six months from contract signing was quite an accomplishment. The teamwork involved in that was phenomenal. The company went live in 6 months and rolled out to three countries.

Impact & Legacy

You've seen the company grow, and you’ve been a big part of that growth—what do you think has been your biggest contribution?

Probably keeping out of the way of the people who really do the work in this company and allowing them to do their valuable work undisturbed.

How would you describe your experience working with the team over the years?

Enlightening – every day has been a learning experience. I have met and worked with some really, really intelligent people, and I have learned so much. I have also worked with some people who really understand the meaning of team – it has been an absolute pleasure working with them.

What do you hope your legacy will be here?

My approach, when solving a problem or introducing something new, has always been to look beyond the immediate issue. I like to think about other scenarios, other customers, industry trends, bear the future in mind – if not actually immediately implementing for the future, simply making sure that the solution is flexible enough that future functionality/features would be easy to introduce. 

I have also always encouraged people to look beyond the boundaries of our own product. If you can understand more about the other systems in the typical aiEazyFuel^® landscape, then you can design a better aiEazyFuel^® solution.

Above all else, I believe that you get the best results by working as a team, listening to each other and working collaboratively with each other.

So, I would hope that my legacy would be a continuation of this ethos across The ai Corporation team.

Are there any lessons or values you hope to leave behind for the next generation of employees?

The next generation of employees is well placed to drive this organisation forward.

Memories & People

Do you have a favourite memory from your time here?

I have many, many good memories. I have been blessed to work with some really good colleagues, who I would really consider friends now, rather than just colleagues. I have also been blessed to work with some marvellous customers. Working with people of this calibre on a daily basis means that I have loads of very happy memories. I can say that I always looked forward to work each morning.

I guess one highlight that will remain with me forever was a work trip to Cape Town, South Africa. There were two standout moments on that trip. The first one was when the lovely, local customer personnel that I was visiting introduced me to the “Gatsby” – wow, what a sandwich. The second one was when, on my last day, they insisted that I visit Table Mountain. We squeezed in a trip on the cable car just before I left for the airport. We reached the peak, and it was spectacular. The view up there is phenomenal – then I understood the insistence. I can still picture that view in my mind.

What’s something funny, surprising, or memorable that happened at work that you'll never forget?

Aha – perhaps the time that one of my colleagues compiled the executable code on the production system mainframe onto the source code, thereby obliterating the entire source code repository. That was many years ago, but we all learned valuable lessons that day about resilience and backups. Yeah, that was memorable, alright.

Who have been some of the most influential people during your time here, and why?

There have been too many to start listing them out here, and I would really hate to inadvertently omit somebody special.

Advice for the Team

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received during your career?

I think it should have been “Tim, you should think about retiring”.

Funnily enough, it was “Don’t knock yourself – there are enough people out there already waiting to do that”. I didn’t interpret that to mean that you shouldn’t self-criticise - I think you should look at what you have done wrong in order to grow and improve. I took it to mean that if you are trying your best, then be comfortable with that. We all make mistakes. Once we learn from them, continue on and don’t beat yourself up over it.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out at the company?

Enjoy your work – you will spend a lot of your adult life doing it.

Also, I would say don’t be afraid to give bad news earlier rather than later, because then something can be done to address it earlier rather than later. Of course, if you can suggest a remedy for the problem at the same time as delivering the news, that would be perfect.

If you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of career advice, what would it be?

Invest in Microsoft, invest in Apple, invest in Amazon, and get into Bitcoin when you first hear about it.

Looking Ahead

How does it feel to be retiring after such a long and successful career?

It’s good. I have really enjoyed working, but I am ready now to put focus on other things.

Do you have any personal plans, hobbies, or dreams you're excited to explore in this next chapter? How are you planning to celebrate your retirement?

I plan to play more golf (badly), finish all the jobs around the house that I haven’t had time to tackle, probably travel a bit (although I’ve done enough of that for work) and spend more time with the grandkids.

If you had to sum up your time at the company in one word, what would it be?

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Just because it is the longest word that I could find in the dictionary, and it will make some people look it up. But seriously, one word – Happy.