WARNING: Spoilers ahead — again!
They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.
– Last words of Union Major-General John Sedgwick just before he was killed by a sharpshooter at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 9th 1864.
As you know, unless you’ve been under a rock for the past ten years, the latest Marvel Universe movie called Avengers: Infinity War opened last weekend.
It was literally the biggest opening in history. It did over $650M worldwide and did $250M in the US alone. Previews were everywhere. Marvel has been building up to it for the past 10 years. People were speculating not just if an Avenger might die, but how many.
Marvel gave us plenty of teasers, right? Why wasn’t Hawkeye in the poster? (Turns out it was because he’s not in the movie. Neither is Antman, Wasp, or Hulk. Seriously, that was awesome!) We’ve been treated to peaks at Thanos, the movie’s villian for years. We finally get to meet him.
From the trailers we also know that Thanos wants to collect all the infinity stones and use them to wipe out half the universe. That’s one of the biggest threats the Avengers or the Guardians of the Galaxy have ever faced.
I don’t mind spoilers. Really, I don’t. I will even sometimes read the spoilers before seeing a movie. I do it so that know if I want to take my kids. But, in the case of Avengers: Infinity War, I decided to refrain. It opened on Thursday, my family was going to see it on Saturday morning.
Friday, I admit I didn’t spend a long time on my post here on this site. I was travelling back from Shreveport, I was tired. I didn’t feel like I had a topic worth ten minutes of your time. But, I also didn’t want to completely avoid posting.
I posted a sort of “throw away” post. Here’s what it said:
INFINITY WAR SPOILER ALERT
What if the big spoiler from “Avengers: Infinity War” is that Thanos aquires all six infinity stones, kills the Avengers and destroys half the universe?
That would be a shocker!
(Seeing it tomorrow)
Imagine my surprise when the big spoiler from “Avengers: Infinity War” turned out to be that Thanos aquired all six infinity stones, killed the Avengers and destroyed half the universe.
Like General Sedgwick said, “I couldn’t hit an elephant from this distance.” I could not have written a more succinct spoiler post if I’d tried. And it was completely unintentional.
After I saw the movie, I had a dilemma. What do I do? Do I remove the post? Do I disavow it? Do I insist that this isn’t what happens?
What would you do? (You probably wouldn’t have phoned in the psot from Friday and thereby avoided the whole issue.)
Finally, I decided to double down. I lied. I posted a follow up comment.
To be clear, I have NOT seen the movie. This is a joke.
I don’t intend to review Avengers: Infinity War. I’ll leave that to my friend Howard of Schlock Mercenary fame. He regularly reviews movies. I will say that I enjoyed the movie. And I really liked the ending. It’s almost Shakespearian in that nearly everyone dies.
It’s what I enjoy about Schlock Mercenary. Howard is also willing to kill off characters.
Marvel certainly showed they are willing to do that.
BTW, sorry again, for spoiling the movie. Honestly, I had no idea what I was talking about.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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What if the big spoiler from “Avengers: Infinity War” is that Thanos aquires all six infinity stones, kills the Avengers and destroys half the universe?
That would be a shocker!
(Seeing it tomorrow)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2018 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I’m in Shreveport Louisianna and it’s Spring. That’s significant because I love crawfish. I wouldn’t have expected to love crawfish. I’m not generally fond of spicy food. And crawfish, or crawdaddys or mudbugs when cooked cajun style, are spicy.
And it’s significant that it’s Spring because crawfish have a season. Last time I was here it was a few months ago and the crawfish were not in season.
They are now. And they are really good.
But, there’s another thing Springtime in Louisianna is known for. It’s muddy. It rains. . .a lot. On the radio on the way to work this morning I heard a commercial that cautioned people from driving across their lawns. . .because they will get stuck. And then, at work, one of the engineers talked about a series of tornadoes that came through a couple of months ago.
The engineer went around his neighborhood collecting firewood. But, there was one house where he wasn’t able to get the stack of wood. It was stacked neatly on a section of concrete that was surrounded by the homeowners lawn.
“I couldn’t get my truck close enough to the concreate slab to load the wood.”
Rain in Louisanna is a necessary evil. The houses don’t have basements, it’s too wet. The land is swampy and marshy.
It’s hard for me to watch. Seriously, I can hardly stand it. You see, water isn’t a nuisance to me. Even as I walk through the rain. Even as I work to keep my shoes clear of mud. I just can’t adopt the locals view of rain.
See, I’m from Utah. The land of the greatest snow on earth, and Zion’s National park. . .oh yeah, and a desert that is suffering through another drought year. Last year was a good water year. This year has not been.
In the desert, water is life. It occupies our thoughts. It’s never far from our minds. We watch the snows in January and February and we see water for our lawns in August and September. We dam our streams and rivers to prevent this precious liquid gold from racing into the Great Salt Lake to be wasted.
We build basements into our houses, but typically let them sit unfinished. We grumble about shoveling our driveways and 300′ of sidewalk, but remind our children that “We can certainly use the moisture.” In sunday services, we thank God for the sunshine, but more often petition him for the rains.
I stand outside here in Shreveport and watch the rain showered down on those who don’t appreciate it. It’s funny how the rains falls on teh grateful and the ungrateful, but what is one man’s burden is another’s bounty. What one man has too much of, another not enough.
As the rains fall this Springtime, may they spare the South and bless the Mountain West.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Which would you rather, to be first or last?
Like many things, the answer is “It depends.”
There are plenty of examples of the benefit of being first. Yesterday my son ran the mile race in the district finals. He’s a freshman in high school. He’s very good, but he’s new to track. He finished eighth. Of course he wanted to finish first. I’m sure there are a lot of firsts in his future.
The NFL draft is this week. The number one pick will make a lot of money. The higher a player is in the draft, the better the player’s contract will be. In fact, the last player drafted gets a special title, “Mr Irrelevant.” So, being first is best and being last is bad.
But, first isn’t always best. I have a lot of friends who are comedians. Comedians do a lot of shows. You’re probably familiar wtih a headliner. Comics like the late Robin Williams, or Eddie Murphy, or Tina Fey, or Steve Hofstetter are called headliners. But, if you attend a comedy show, you’ll notice that the headliner doesn’t come out at first. First is the opener. He’ll do 5-7 minutes. Next is the feature. If you’ve seen comedy posters that say, “Featuring. . .” that’s the guy who will typically come out second. He’ll do 10-15 minutes.
The one that comes last is the headliner. He’ll do an hour or so. In comedy, no one really wants to go first. Even at an Open Mic, the first guy up typically has the hardest time getting the crowd.
Speaking of comedy, the baseball season is in full swing. Of course, every team wants to be in first place. But, even in baseball there are times when it pays to be last.
Baseball is 9 innings. Each inning has a two halves. One of the unbreakable rules of baseball is that the home team always bats last. In fact, if the home team is ahead going into the 9th inning, and the visitors fail to gain the lead during their half of the 9th, the game ends.
I’m not sure there’s an important point. Just that being first or last is really just a matter of perspective.
Whether you are coming in first or taking your “last ups” keep moving forward.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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If you check in at this site on a regular basis, you have no doubt heard me complain about my job. Well, not really complain. It’s more one of those things I like to talk about and am not above painting myself as the reluctant victim.
But, honestly, I love my job. I have a great team. I have a super supportive boss. I get to do interesting and exciting projects. And at the end of the day, I know I’m providing a valuable service not only to our client, but to the end users/customers/members/whatever you want to call them.
But, there are moments when it seems my job is conspiring against me. As if maybe it doesn’t like me as much as I love it.
Last Friday night, I went camping with the scouts. (Okay, I Lied And I’m Not Sorry.) I thought I would be out of cell phone range, so I arranged for a backup. One of the most important tasks I have is to monitor outage calls. It’s also one of the most time consuming.
Our systems are actually very robust. But, they are also very complex. And with the level of complexity we have a certain amount of outages are expected. Of course, we don’t want the outages and we also cannot predict when they will occur.
We’ve had a particularly busy April, so I was worried about the time I would be unavailable. I figured I would be out of touch 4:00pm on Friday until 4:00pm on Saturday. I was building in a slight buffer, but not much. The canyon we went to was about 90 minutes away. We were leaving at 4:00pm on Friday and expected to be back around 2:00pm on Saturday.
As I was putting my gear together on Friday afternoon, my phone rang.
Uh oh.
Yup. There was a system problem. I used my headset to work the outage while I continued to gather sleeping bags, backpack and walking stick.
Melissa was my designated backup. I added her to our outage call.
I’ll run this one, but if it goes too long you might need to take over.
No problem. Let me know.
The problem was one that the client needed to resolve. We were mostly waiting for them to ask us to validate when they fixed the issue. The clock continued to tick into the afternoon. I placed my call on hold to load my gear into the car.
I then drove to the church parking lot that we were leaving from and put them on hold again to transfer my gear to the trucks. Where we were going my car wouldn’t have made it. Meanwhile, Melissa hung out on the call waiting to take control if I needed her to.
The client just called me on my other line and said they think they’ve resolved it. Unless we have anyone still broken I think we can close down the call. Anyone? Okay, call back if it reoccurs.
Yep, it wasn’t surprising that I was going to work an outage call right up until the last minute. I hung up and looked forward to the next 24 hours of being “on vacation.”
Saturday afteroon, I checked back in. I had some email waiting, but there had been no outages. Nice.
Saturday night at 11:30pm I got a call. Yes, something else was broken and since we are a 24×7 shop, I needed to work it. Three hours later, I finally got to go to sleep.
Sunday morning is typically a pretty lazy time for our family. Our church meetings don’t start utnil 1:00pm. And with no little kids at home, there’s no one that we have to get up and ready for the day.
Of course, on this Sunday morning there was another work issue that I needed to deal with. It pushed right up until the start of church before it was resolved. I got to church a little late, but I was there. . .and then an hour later something else broke and I had to leave church early. It took much of the afternoon.
Again, I’m not complaining too much. It’s my job. But, really? Four outages during a 48 hour period and not even one of them was during the 24 hours I was disconnected?
That just doesn’t seem fair.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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This was our view Friday evening.
And here it was on Saturday morning.
Those pictures are a lie. Well, they represent me lying. I didn’t mean to, but I’m not really sorry I lied.
What you are looking at is a view from the mouth of Maple Cayon in central Utah. That’s the towns of Fairview and Mt Pleasant out there in that valley. Behind us is the San Pitch Mountains, a range within the larger Rocky Mountains.
I took the scouts out on a campout on Friday. Maple Canyon is world famous as a great canyon to climb in. We saw an amazing array of anchors up and down the steep canyon walls.
We weren’t there to climb. Oh sure, the boys scrambled up a few of the easier routes. But, we took the boys up to see a natural rock arch.
We also hiked a slot canyon.
This canyon is about 90 minutes from our town of Pleasant Grove, Utah. We emphasize to the boys that they are blessed to live in this part of the country. We live in a part of the country that people pay thousands of dollars to travel to; whether it’s our world class ski resorts in the Winter, or our canyons and Alpine forests during the other months of the year.
I’ve been all over the United States and I can’t think of a place I would rather live as someone who enjoys the outdoors.
We were only away from home for about 24 hours, but it really feels like an entire vacation squeezed into a single day.
And that’s where my lie comes in. My job requires me to be oncall 24×7. It’s fine. Normally, I don’t mind. I enjoy what I do. I work with a fantastic team and, hey, I get paid for it. So, that’s a pretty good tradeoff.
However, occasionally I’m unavailable. We camped in Maple Canyon last April as well. Last year, instead of camping at the mouth of the canyon, we actually drove back into the canyon for about 3 miles and camped on top of a mountain.
Three miles of slot canyon means no cell service. I knew I wouldn’t be available. Well, I thought I wouldn’t be available. So, I arranged for a backup.
It’s actually not a simple process. I’m the point of contact not only for outages that happen in my own company, but I’m the primary communication venue for information from our client’s IT organization. So, if I’m not available, I have to inform the client’s IT team. (About six people.) And I also have to inform my team. Well, teams. All together it’s about 60 people.
I get a little self conscious every time I sent out a notice to five dozen people that “Hey, thought I’d let y’all know that I’m going camping. . for 24 hours.”
And on Friday, as we pulled off the main road and started pitching our tents, I looked at my phone. Four bars. I had excellent coverage.
I briefly wondered if I should tell anyone? Nah, it’s probably better to just live with the lie.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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On Sunday, baseball fields all across America looked like a weird scene from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guild To The Galaxy. Every player, coach and manager was wearing the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
That’s right. Everyone on every baseball team was wearing number 42. But, the super computer Deep Thought, probably never spared a thought for baseball. The players were wearing 42 for a much more important reason. April 15 marks the day that Jackie Robinson, 70 years ago became the first black man in the modern era to play major league baseball.
The tribute started because Ken Griffey Jr, one of the greatest to ever play the game, wanted to reverse his own number 24 to honor the great pioneer. The league thought it was such a good idea, they had everyone do it.
There’s a line in the movie “42” about Jackie’s life, where the Dodgers team captain, Pee Wee Reese says to Jackie, “Maybe tomorrow, we’ll all wear 42 and then they won’t be able to tell us apart.”
The tribute is even more memorable when you consider that MLB also decreed that every team would retire number 42. Never again will a Major League Baseball player wear number 42. . .except every April 15 when everyone will.
Baseball season has been going for a few weeks now. My favorite team, the Seattle Mariners are punching above their weight. They are in 3rd place in the highly competitive American League West Division. Most fans assume they will fade down the stretch. They always do.
Seattle is the only major league city to never send a team to the World Series. And this is probably not going to be their year.
A friend lamented that baseball is broken. There are only a certain number of teams that have any shot at winning the World Series. The rest of the teams are playing out a 162 games to see who finishes less than last.
But, I don’t see it that way. Sure, the Mariners aren’t going to the Series this year. But, it’s not just about who will win the last series of the season. Baseball is like fishing. It’s slow and then fast. It’s relaxing. It’s best enjoyed under the sunshine on a Saturday. And when the day is over, it doesn’t matter if you caught your limit or went 0-4 on the day.
The game is exciting for its own sake. For example, two days ago, the Mariners were playing the defending World Champion Houston Astros. The Astros were taking it to the M’s pretty good. And then, in the middle of the 4th inning an amazing thing happened.
With two men on base and no outs, the Houston player hit a soft grounder to third. Kyle Seager, the M’s 3rd baseman picked up the ball and stepped on third base for out number one. Then, he fired a bullet to 2nd base where they beat the running from first for the 2nd out. Meanwhile the hitter had lost track of the number of outs. Although he was safely on first base, he started to walk off the diamond. The Mariners quickly tagged him.
It was a triple play. One of the rarest gems in all of baseball. It’s those little joys that make me keep watching the games even when all hope of a victory is lost.
It really is about how the game is played.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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The walls at the mouth were 50 feet apart and 80 feet high. There was literally nowhere to walk except in the Virgin river. We’d gotten off the bus at the last stop The Temple of Sinawava. From there it was a mile hike to the start of the slot canyon.
We were in Zion’s National Park. We do the hike every year as the last hike of the summer. It can easily climb into the triple digits outside the park, but as soon as you walk into the perpetual shadow that is the canyon, the temperature easily drops 25-30 degrees.
Today was a moderate day. Eighties in Southern Utah, mid to upper 60s in the canyon. We had a different worry than the heat. The sky was overcast as we drove into the park.
Utah’s great outdoors is not without its risks. As boy scout leaders we do our best to mitigate those risks. But, we cannot eliminate them. Flash floods are serious concern in the desert. Add a slot canyon into the mix and things can become very dangerous very quickly.
The weather wasn’t calling for rain in our immediate area, but that’s the thing about flash floods. It might rain miles away and that water is going to eventually find its way to you.
We always explain the dangers to the boys. Even though they are 12 adn 13 years old, it’s important that they understand to take safety seriously. Our job is to keep them safe, but more importantly to teach them to keep themselves safe.
As we headed up the canyon, the boys were mostly interested in splashing each other and stealing glances at the bikini-clad college students out enjoying the river. As leaders we watched the boys, and kept an eye on the ribbon of sky above our heads. Still nothing but grey clouds.
This section of the Virgin River is called the Narrows. And it quickly lives up to its name. The higher we hiked upstream, the closer the walls closed in. After a couple of miles, the college girls were gone as were the majority of the hikers. The walls were significantly closer. Maybe 20 feet apart at the widest. They were still at least 80 feet high.
We took the turn to go up Orderville canyon and the hiking definitely became more challenging. We were now scrambling over rocks. Helping each other up the steeper sections. The walls were also a mere 5 feet apart at this point. We knew we were about a half mile from the end. Not the end of the river, of course, but having come this way before we knew that we would soon come to an impassable obstacle. One group of scouts several years ago came with climbing gear and scaled it, but for us that was always the end.
As we paused for a break, the scoutmaster, who had been leading came back to where the other assitant and I were largely bringing up the rear.
Say, that grey sky isn’t bothering you is it?
We glanced at the high water marks left from the last flash flood. the walls were still damp to a distance at least 15 feet above our heads.
Maybe a little.
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than we heard the peal of distant thunder. And two of our boys turned and started sprinting down the canyon back the way we’d come.
That was as far as we were goign today. We left one leader to gather the rest of the boys and start them down, while the other leader and I chased after our rabbits.
We were two miles up the canyon. We finally caught up to the boys about a quarter mile downstream. We waited while the rest of the troop arrived.
Is it going to flood? Can we escape if it does?
It’s not going to flood.
I hoped I sounded more reassuring than I felt. The boys were obviously frightened.
We are going to head back now, but its just a precaution.
Because you’re worried it’s going to flood?
No. I don’t think it’s going to flood.
Then, why are we headed back early?
The kid had a point. And he was scared. Was I worried about a flash flood? You bet, I was. At that point in the canyon, a flood would kill us. Later, when it opened up a little there were places you could get out of the path of a flood. But right there? Yeah, that was not the place to be if the water started rising. But, I also needed to reassure these boys and help them understand caution without giving in to fear.
Tell me, what’s the first thing you do when you get in a car?
You put your seatbelt on.
Why?
So, if you will be protected if you get in an accident.
Does that mean by putting your seatbelt on you think you’re going to get in an accident?
No. . .
Right. It’s a precaution. Just because you take a precaution, doesn’t mean you think whatever you are being careful about will happen. We are headed out now, but it’s because it’s the smart thing to do. NOT because we think there’s a flood coming.
That seemed to satisfy him. The rest of the troop had joined us and we started down the canyon in an orderly fashion. As we did, I thought about my impromptu explanation. It was pretty good. In fact, it was good enough it almost convinced me.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
That’s how the saying goes, but that’ not quite the way it worked out.
The water pump on my 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix is no longer leaking. Well, technically, it never was leaking. But, it’s also not leaking. Let me go back a couple of weeks.
My car was leaking radiator fluid and overheating. Now, if your car is overheating, there are typically three thinks to check on.
1. The thermostat: The thermostat is a device that opens and closes and lets coolant, or radiator fluid circulate just in the engine (when it’s closed) or through the radiator (when it’s open.) The problem is that because it’s a mechanical device, sometimes the thermostat can get stuck. If it gets stuck in the open position, that’s not too terrible. Your car will take A LOT longer to warm up. However, if it gets stuck in the closed position, then the coolant circulates inside the engine, and eventually gets really really hot and causes your car to overheat.
2. The Radiator cap: Believe it or not, the radiator cap is a pretty complicated piece of equipment. Long gone are the days when a radiator cap was like the lid to a pickle jar: screw it on and it seals the contents. Today’s radiator caps have pressure release valves. Ever notice that tiny hose that goes from the radiator to the overflow tank? The cap controls that. As pressure builds in your coolant system, when it gets high enough, the radiator cap allows some of that excess fluid to flow out to the overflow tank. That’s why you shouldn’t overfill your tank when it’s cool. It needs room to add more coolant when the engine heats up. Then, as your engine cools down, the pressure goes down and the cap allows the system to suck some of that coolant back out of the overflow tank. If your radiater cap is messed up, then your system can become overpressurized and bad stuff can happen: hoses burst, or temp overheat.
3. The water pump: The water pump doesn’t pump water. It used to, when your great-grandparents were roadtripping on Route 66. But, today’s engines don’t like water at all. If you do add water, it shoudl only be distilled water and then should be mixed with antifreeze. Your coolant is way better at keeping your engine cool than water would be. The water pump is a pretty simple device. It hooks up to the serpentine belt and has a fly wheel inside that pushes the coolant around the system. If your water pump fails, you typically know it pretty quickly. First, your engine overheats. Second, it drips coolant all over your driveway.
And that is why I was convinced my water pump was bad. My car was overheating and it was dripping coolant all over my driveway. I really hoped the issue would be the radiator cap or the thermostat (in that order.) Replacing a radiator cap is about the simplest fix you can make on a car. Seriously, you unscrew the old one and screw on the new one.
Replacing a thermostat can be challenging depending on the car. I have a 1996 Lexus that literally requires you to thread one of the bolts hodling the thermostat housing totally by feel, while wrapping your hand around the radiator hose. It’s not an easy task.
The water pump is a job, no matter where it’s located. Fortunately, for my Grand Prix, the access is pretty easy. Last week, my cousin came over and helped me replace the water pump. . .and my car still leaked. So, I did it a second time. . .and it still leaked.
If at first you don’t succeed, try. . .and then take it to the mechanic.
My thinking was this. I’d done the repair twice. The second time, I had plenty of gasket sealer, but I ended up breaking a bolt. Nothing can turn a 2 hour job into a 3 day marathon like a broken bolt. I thought maybe it would still work. Because it was a small bolt. Nope. Still leaked.
On Saturday, I took it to the only mechanic I trust. He told me it would be Thursday before he could get to it. And so, I handed him my key.
Well, he got to it on Wednesday. As I went to pick it up, he told me that he didn’t replace the water pump. In fact, as far as he could tell, the water pump was fine. And it wasn’t leaking from the broken bolt. Instead, there was a $10 piece of plastic that had broken way down underneath the engine in a spot that is very difficult to get to.
- Replacing broken little plastic piece: $10
- Getting to broken little plastic piece: $235
There are times to push through adn figure it out yourself and there are times to call in expert assistance. I don’t feel bad at all that I called for help. I would probably have not found that little piece for a very long time.
As it is, my car has a new water pump (with a small broken bolt that is not leaking,) a new thermostat, a new radiator cap, and new engine mounts, just because we were into the engine already, and the power steering whine corrected, and we changed the oil. It sounds absolutely wonderful.
Oh, and it also has a new little $10 plastic piece.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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When my daughter was 12 years old, she told me that she was going to join the army and be a veterinarian. She’s now 23, in her final two years of grad school and a 1st LT in the US Army Reserves.
When I was twelve I think I wanted to be a forest ranger, or maybe an astronaut.
I didn’t pick IT as a profession when I went to college. I was studying to be an engineer. But, I ran up against Linear Algebra and despite my best effort (the second time, not the first) I just didn’t have the math chops for it.
Even then, I didn’t really choose IT, so much as I looked at what classes I had completed and picked IT as the most likely to fit my current transcript.
I actually left school to join IT. I was recently married and had a new baby. I needed more than minimum wage on campus jobs. A little computer company named WordPerfect was hiring and that’s how I decided to go into Information Technology.
Of course, at the time, it might have simply been a one time thing, but I found I had an affinity for it. I enjoyed it. It let me interact with people, but also play with computers. Later, I added trainer and program manager to my resume.
WordPerfect eventually started to fail. I managed to jump ship at just the right time to land a gig at a slightly bigger company called Microsoft. When I joined in 1993, it was the biggest, baddest computer company in the world.
After that, my path was pretty well set. After five years at WordPerfect and nearly 10 years at Microsoft, changing careers would have been very difficult. I would have had to start over, experience-wise, in a new industry.
And that would have been difficult at that point. I had ten kids by the time I left The Evil Empire. I needed a senior level salary to support them. And, like I said, IT suited me.
Today, I’m in a role that takes great advantage of the experience of a 30 year career in IT. I get to work with people, sometimes feeling like I spent most of my day on the phone.
I also get to work with computers. I’m the “IT guy” on a senior staff of account managers. They expect me to “figure out the IT side of it.” And I do. That lets me mingle with the engineers. Occasionally, I get to talk to programmers, but most of what I do is pure system admin level, and network engineering level work.
In addition, I get to be involved in really fun and exciting projects. I typically have 10 or more active projects in various stages of development.
Mostly my job makes me feel important. If I do it well, I can immediately see the results. When I do it poorly, the results are equally obvious. Fortunately, I do it well much more often than I do it poorly.
But, despite loving my job, I realize I didn’t really pick IT. If anything, it picked me. It was a convenient job when I needed one. I then was one of 500 people hired in 1993 by the world’s most prestigious software company. And from there, I just sort of went with what I know.
I look at my daughter and realize that she had her life figured out at a much younger age than I ever did. And there are people who know exactly what they are going to do from the time they are young. I’m not one of those people. I’m impressed that my daughter is. That she knew precisely what she wanted to do with her life and she told me so at a young age.
Of course, she also told me she was going to marry someone named George, so she didn’t get everything right.
Did you pick your profession? Or did it pick you?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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