Page "Thomas J. Watson" Paragraph 3

Watson then spent a very brief period selling sewing machines for Wheeler and Wilcox.

According to Tom Watson, Jr., in his autobiography: One day my dad went into a roadside saloon to celebrate a sale and had too much to drink.

When the bar closed, he found that his entire rig — horse, buggy, and samples — had been stolen.

Wheeler and Wilcox fired him and dunned him for the lost property.

Word got around, of course, and it took Dad more than a year to find another steady job.

Watson would later enforce strict rules at IBM against alcohol consumption, even off the job.

According to Tom Jr .: This anecdote never made it into IBM lore, which is too bad, because it would have helped explain Father to the tens of thousands of people who had to follow his rules.