Even after 20 years at the store I still find it hard to believe that I’ve been here twenty years. Two decades, 5 summer olympics, 5 presidental terms. That is a long time. I guess that is why they honor that kind of persistence with things like watches at most companies. I got mine, and it is a doozie. I am wearing arm candy (not the kind that gets you into the posh nightclubs, or out of marriages). I was honored by Bruce Pallman and the company he keeps with a very nice Citizen Titanium Eco-Drive alarm/chronograph/perpetual calander number in a royal blue. This arm candy always has the time for me.
The ceremony (pre-opening meeting) was a couple of weeks ago, and got me thinking about time and the industry, and co-workers and waxing poetic about age and technology. Here is some of the things I have found out about life in a camera store. It moves pretty fast even when it is moving slow.
When I started they expanded the payroll to nine employees. I  worked in the relatively new camera department in a store that was 30% jewelry and clocks, 50% catalog showroom (remember those?), 15% cameras, tripods, albums and frames (mostly albums and frames) and 5% video and miscellaneous (anybody need a rotating 8-track tape rack? It holds twenty 8 tracks).  Today we have 30 employees at our main store which is 85% camera and video products, with the balance being jewelry, clocks and that miscellaneous stuff (call and reserve your 8 track rack today they are going fast!).
About two years before I started at Roberts I was selling cameras at a major retailer. That is when I was introduced to the new ‘Auto Focus’ cameras from Minolta. By the time I started here Nikon and Canon both had Auto Focus cameras too. In the time since then film cameras themselves have all but disappeared, digital cameras of all styles makes and sizes have taken over the imagination of the imaging inclined, and technology marches on.
The first point and shoot digital cameras from Olympus, Kodak and Casio were about the size of a brick and sported between 160 x120mb resolution to 320×240 mb pixel resolution (or thumbnail to 1/4 screen size on the computers of that day).  Today you can buy an Olympus Stylus digital, Panasonic Lumix digital, Nikon Coolpix camera or Canon Powershot digital cameras that are about the size of a deck of cards and have 10 or more mega-pixels of imaging resolution (32 to 64 times the resolution of those oldies). The first compact flash memory cards came in 2,  4,  6 and 8 mb sizes, Olympus’ “SmartMedia,” (no longer available) maxed out at 64mb.
Today Sandisk Card come in SD, CF, xD, Memory Stick and many other formats for electronic devices, and go up top 16gb in many of those formats. Kingston and Lexar offer the SD and CF cards too, and all are at fractions of the cost of the first digital memory cards.
On my trip down memory lane I found out something interesting about Roberts itself. Of our 30 person staff here at the main store the average years on the job is 8.3, I think that is amazing. I think that is a staff with experience and answers, if you need them.