I haven’t done any woodworking in what seems like ages… not since I finished remodeling the house we sold in Moses Lake.
But, perhaps with one or two of these and a weekend’s effort, I’ll see about finding a purpose for the Purpleheart and Lignum Vitae that I’ve had stashed away for a few years.
Never push loyal people to the point where they don’t give a damn.
Peter Drucker, 1909 – 2005
Thinking back, there were signs of a somewhat lessening interest in Pearson in particular and in Computer Science in general somewhere around about October, 2017. That was right about the time that one of the greatest champions of the team announced his departure.
People move on.
That year, after a business trip to Austin for KubeCon in early December, I was feeling quite burned out. We were planning another trip to Noida to transition a team in February, 2018, but I’d settled that after Christmas (of 2017), it’ll be time to start seeking in earnest opportunities elsewhere.
And The Universe said, “Oh, you have plans, do you? Here, try some gravity…” And the fall and TBI happened.
Strike one.
In the coming months, while struggling with rewiring my brain and body, the entirety of the team who’d pioneered the evolution within the company from the long-standing Mode 1 hardware model into a Mode 2 infrastructure model — which, by design, would slash spend dramatically across from the company — would disperse.
And The Universe said, “Ah, while you’re in the prolonged recovery, here’s some innocuous bacteria…” Then the infection.
Strike two.
Clearly, I’d end up being more dependent upon modern healthcare and needed to relocate to larger city. Moses Lake wasn’t nearly as connected to technologies as I’d have hoped. So, we’d planned on moving to Spokane — not only because it was a large city, but also because it wasn’t nearly as expensive as the Seattle metro area was.
And The Universe said, “Oh, you’re still coming up with ideas, are you? How about this…” Then the layoff and all of its psychological stressors.
Strike three.
My confidence in Computer Science at that moment was not only shaken… it was shattered. I doubted everything related to computer-anything. Programming, development, design, experimentation — I stopped caring about everything: the pursuit of work, life, self.
I would spend the next several months seeking desperately a reason to continue — a reason to do. What I needed most was sense of purpose.
Alright, Universe… what else you got?
Locusts? Ha!
Pandemic? Please.
Earthquakes? Hey, we all get a bit wobbly with age.
Riots? Amateurs.
Wildfires? Bah!
So, bring it on.
See also, The Toolbox Fallacy.
I find that I often speak in metaphors. It’s not intentional, necessarily. Sometimes metaphor or a reference to a scene in a movie or a verse in a song or a story conveys meaning far better than a ten thousand words of my own.
Sometimes, just one borrowed line conveys appropriate meaning:
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Not Theodore Roosevelt
As another had remarked, it summarizes and strips away every excuse you have for not doing something.
So, why did I begin this with Adjusting the Sails?
I’ve found that when the wind isn’t going the direction I’d expected, hoped, or planned. It’s time to adjust the sails to weather the continuous metaphorical storms.
I’m adjusting my sails quite significantly and changing my course. I need a sense of meaning… a sense of purpose.
With shaken and shattered confidence in my career field, it’s time to pursue an alternate career.
Names have been changed to protect the identity of our protagonist.
Mary is a tech with our Internal Support department. IS has a great deal of power and responsibility to support the organization’s desktop users.
Lois is a member of our HR department. And, of course, HR also has a great deal of power and responsibility to support the company’s people assets.
I had worked with both Mary and Lois for several years. I had trained Mary back in 2005 or 2006 when she began at our customer-facing help desk.
Lois joined the company around the same time as I recall.
Mary would occasionally have need to contact HR to obtain some needed detail about a new-hire with the company. Rather expected in the course of business.
Mary rang Lois (with HR) to see if she could help.
Lois was busy at that particular moment, so the call went to voicemail.
Mary left a message. At the end of the message, while she was hanging up the phone, she made a, satto voce remark to the effect of: “…never mind, you’re an idiot. No idea why I’m…[click]”.
The mic is always hot.
Sigh.
The best thing to do would have been to simply not utter such an absurd remark to begin with. But, there it was. It was said.
The next best thing to do would be to promptly ring Lois back — leave another voicemail if needed — and apologize profusely for the gross lapse in judgement.
Didn’t happen, of course.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Instead, Mary decided to leverage her Internal Support powers…
Wrongly.
She proceeded to…
By this time, Lois had, of course, listened to her voicemail. A bit put-off by the somewhat meaningless comment at the end, she was going to just have a chat with Mary. Perhaps she was having a bad day.
Then she wanted to get the particulars of the original purpose for the call and listened to it again and… but it was gone.
That escalated quickly.
A series of poor decisions over the past many years had led to the afternoon that Mary hastily boxed up her desk and was escorted out of the building by another HR team member.
Note: All of the voicemail system access had been locked down rather tightly since then. Because of this.
I had started purging everything just a few minutes after I received report yesterday morning.
It’s honestly rather liberating to clean out fifteen years’ of bookmarks, credentials, emails, accounts, logins, and apps for every realed, ecollege, eclg, pearson, and prsn domain and realm that I’ve worked in.
Clean up the old domain references and make way for whatever is new.
the rest of me 