The Story of My Life so Far - Part 109 - Engineers I work with on CAATS, part 2: Jessica and Vincent

vcelier (74)in #story • 6 years ago (edited)

This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France

The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 108

Jessica and Vincent

Jessica and Vincent met at their engineering school in Grenoble in France.

In 1998, I was given the curriculum vitae of 4 French students that were finishing their studies at their engineering schools. As I explain before, Hughes Aircraft was looking all over the world for software engineers that already knew Ada, and they had a program where you could get a bonus if you gave the CV of an engineer and that this engineer was later hired. Somebody in CAATS had found these 4 people.

One day, at 7AM, I called each of the phone numbers listed in the CVs, but I got no reply. So, I sent an e-mail to each of them telling them to send me a phone number where I could call them.
Fifteen minutes later, I received an e-mail from Vincent giving me a phone number that I called.
He explained that he was doing an internship at a Xerox lab in Grenoble. I interviewed him and he seems to be a good fit for CAATS.
During the phone call, I saw that I had received another e-mail.

After I hanged up, I read the e-mail and it was Jessica who was giving me the same phone number. So, I called again and this time it was Jessica who answered. And she also was a good fit for CAATS.

So, I recommended that they should both be hired. Hughes Aircraft made them a proposal and they both accepted.

It turned out that they were an item. Vincent is what I called a "professional catholic" guy, and he had converted Jessica.
Jessica's family is Chinese from Cambodia.

Both Jessica and Vincent started to work in the DVM with me. After a while, Vincent moved to another team, but Jessica stayed in my team and was responsible for the DIOB subsystem after Kim left to give birth to her first child.

We knew that Vincent and Jessica were practicing Catholics. One day, I was invited with another guy for dinner at the apartment they were sharing, and we realized that there was only one bed. So, at a company party, with around ten French engineers around, I told them jokingly that they "seemed to be living in sin".
Their priest probably told them the same thing, so soon after that, they moved in two different apartments, and only cohabited again after they were married.

Like Kim, Jessica left CAATS when she was pregnant with her first child. Vincent also left CAATS to work for another company, still in Richmond.

They bought a big house in Richmond. They are still living there with their nine children: Romain, Nathan, Déborah, Paul, Thomas, Marc, Henri, Hélène and Élisabeth.

Jessica is a full time mom. Strangely enough, Vincent is a school teacher at the French elementary school where my daughter Roseline works, and my three grandchildren, who were students at the school, know him very well. I have met him several times at the school.