Transformation is a normal process

Adapting common human business practice to XML development

Before I put my job into a computer I took a job as a sales assistant at a computer-book publisher, only to discover the romance of repetitive typing. Different book-buyers had slightly different needs, but most of the information (also used internally) was duplicated.
While I was putting my job into a computer I was unlucky not to have any systems I could reuse, but fortunate in that no one cared how I built my database. I got to build my own structures, using relevant portions of ISBNs as keys, connecting a variety of different structures in ways that met my needs (and my boss's needs), never mind everyone else's problems.
What I gained by putting my job into a computer Even though it was under more or less continual development, and taught me never to rely on Microsoft Office for critical information processing, I was able to take information from all over the company, feed it into my structures, and output the structures I needed to give other people - Excel, a wide variety paper printouts, or simple text I could send out via email.