Rodney M Bliss

October 23, 2015

And Sometimes It’s Just Too Much To Take

WAIT!

The ice broke off and fell down on the submarine? How did THAT happen? Ice floats.

Occasionally, movie makers get the science so increadibly wrong that it throws us out of the movie. Films and books are designed to “suspend our disbelief.” We know that it’s just a movie. We even know that our hero, despite the precarious circumstances, isn’t going to die a horrible death. After all, there’s a third installment already announced for next year.

But, we willingly let the movie makers transport us to an alternate universe and pretend that it’s not all makeup, computers and fancy lighting. In exchange for our willingness to pretend the director gives us a compelling view of our future or our past, or life on Mars, or some fantastical world on the other side of the galaxy, or beyond our imagination. And we will accept this bargain in exchange for our $8 ticket (or $4 if you go to the discount theaters in my area.)

But, what about when the film maker breaks his promise of making a compelling world? It breaks the social contract that the movies are based on. Of course, every movie has errors. IMDB.com, a popular movie site calls them “goofs.” Sometimes it’s a problem with coninuity. Wasn’t his hair wet in the last scene? Sometimes it’s anachronisms. If you look closely you can see the watches that the Zulu “warriers” were given as payment. And sometimes it’s just plain bad science. Taking the leaf higher into the air will not make the shadow bigger. The sun is 93 million miles away. It’s going to cast the same size shadow.

And it’s these last ones that I’m less forgiving of film makers for. I realize that falling ice makes the danger to your submarine seems more intense, but in no possible universe does ice “fall” in water. Being a computer guy, I tend to notice the computer mistakes a lot more than other things.

“Hackers” was a mostly forgettable film about a group of . . .well. . .hackers. But, in order to heighten the suspense, during one scene the we see the hacker staring intently at the screen. The room is dimmed and as the camera focuses on the character’s face, we see the green letters reflected from the screen moving across his face.

Huh? The monitor is SO bright that it’s actually projecting individual characters on someone face? Wow. Don’t look in the light. It’s going to be worse than those laser pointers!

My all time favorite computer moview to complain about is “The Net” with Sandra Bullock. She plays a computer security expert. She discovers a particularly nasty virus that is activated when you press the escape key.

Oookay. It would be odd for a virus writer to go to the trouble of hooking the keyboard interrupt. And there’s a lot of technical stuff that would have to happen for a virus to be activated from a single keystroke, but okay. I’ll go with it.

Then, we find out this virus works on both a MAC and a PC. Anyone who’s shelled out $150 for an application for their PC knows that you cannot install the same program on your Macbook. Still later in the movie we find out the virus also infects mainframe computers. At this point all the computer experts in teh audience were rolling our eyes. But where it went completely over the top was when the mainframe was infected, the display screen started to “disintegrate.” In other words, as the genius virus writer not only wrote a virus that can read the keyboard, and run equally well on Apple, PC and mainframes, they wrote more code to modify the screen display. It would have been funny if the director had done it on purpose, but “The Net” is a drama, not a comedy. It’s also not about computers. Not really.

October 22, 2015

Do You Care If They Get The Science Right?

Yesterday was Back To The Future day (Where’s My Flying Car?) Thousands of words (including some of mine) were written on the movie version of 2015 vs reality. And while it was all in good fun, no one actually expects a movie to be able to predict scientific advances decades in the future. We can’t even predict science a year or two out.

But, there’s no doubt that Back To The Future was entertaining and enduring. Stories are what make movies memorable, of course. But, when a movie creates a futuristic vision, do we care if the science is accurate?

No. Not if the story is good enough and it’s internally consistent.

Let’s start with the biggie: “Faster than light travel is not possible.” It’s not that we haven’t yet discovered how to go faster than light, it’s that phyics says we can’t. . .ever. You know that famous E=mc^2 formula that Einstein came up with? Here’s what it means

E = energy. The amount of energy to move an object for example

m = mass. This is how heavy the object you want to move is

c = speed of light. 186,000 miles per second. . .squared. 34,596,000,000 miles per second squared

So, do a bunch of math and you will see that the amount of energy needed to accelerate an object (even a small one) to the speed of light is greater than the energy that object could supply. So, you would literally burn up trying to accelerate to the speed of light.

Okay, science lesson over. Think about all the movies that use faster than light travel. (Star Trek, Star Wars, Galaxy Quest, Space Balls.) Those movies absolutely violate the fundamental principles of physics. Did it detract from the movie? Not a bit.

Let’s face it, our solar system is a pretty boring place. Not a lot happening in “Space war” area in our celestial neighborhood. It’s been 25 years since their launch and our satellites are only now reaching the edges of the solar system. And once Voyager leaves the solar system, it will wander for centuries before it ever comes close to our nearest galactic neighbor. We need a way to take the story to the stars that doesn’t involve long boring periods of “Are we there yet?”

Second example? A little problem called gravity. Vitually every space story has “artificial gravity.” It allows the characters to walk around a space ship as easily as they would stroll down the street to the corner market. The problem is that artificial gravity has no basis in reality. Oh, we THINK there might be something called a graviton that is to gravity what the electron is electricity. Just as we move electrons around to manipulate electricity for lights and batteries and streetlamps, we could conceivably use gravitrons to manipulate gravity. The problem? We’ve never seen one. We’ve never detected one. We don’t even know if they actually exist.

Of course, film makers use artificial gravity because it’s a lot easier to film a space opera on a budget if you don’t have to keep the actors suspended constantly. Ron Howard, the director of Apollo 13 went to the expense of filming on the “Vomit Comet.” A big airplane that plunges toward the ground for 30 seconds at a time to simulate weightlessness. (He should have won an Oscar for best picture. It was a crime he wasn’t even nominated. Curse you Forest Gump!)

I would suggest that sometimes science gets in the way of the story. The movie 2001 A Space Odyssey worked very hard to get the science accurate. Arthur C. Clarke, the screenwriter is one of my favorite authors. Stanley Kubrick, the director did a fantastic job of creating a realistic space station. They solve the gravity problem by building a spinning spaceship to simulate gravity. They don’t travel faster than light. (It takes them a LONG time to get to Jupiter.) But, and I know some film buffs were disagree, 2001 was a boring movie. It has some really cool lines

But, I’ve tried to go back and watch it. I really want to like it. It kind of drags.

Compare that to Star Wars. The entire world knows that Star Wars 7 is due out in December. It’s already setting records. It crashed the Fandango ticket site two months before the movie opens. The science in Star Wars? It ranges from improbable (blasters and light sabers) to impossible (hyperdrive and THERE ARE NO SOUNDS IN SPACE!) But, it’s a great story.

We really don’t care that much about the science if the story is good enough.

October 21, 2015

Where’s My Flying Car?

Today’s the day. 4:29PM to be precise.

Back To The Future II released in 1989 had Marty McFly travel into the future to October 21, 2015. Near future fiction is hard. Sometimes innovation outstips even an author’s wildest imagination. Much of the tech in Star Trek, set in 2364 has already come to pass. iPads look a lot like those tablets they use. Flip phones were patterned after the communicator. Voice interactive computers are now commonplace.

Other times, technology fails to keep up with the author’s imagination. Back To The Future is a perfect example. And there is no bigger disappointment than the lack of flying cars. I have to think that the author understood that he was painting a future that was likely beyond the reach of earth’s scientists, at least in the 30 year window that he gave himself.

But, these movies do something important for us as a society, rather than just entertain us. When done with an eye toward science (as opposed to magic like the Harry Potter films) a movie like Back To The Future helps us imagine what’s possible. And it’s strange because we often know that it’s impossible. It’s just a movie. But, we start to think about the possibilities. And there is no factory so productive as a fertile mind.

So, while I miss my flying car, the hoverboard that Lexus created, and the self-lacing shoes that Nike has patented, and a number of other “inventions” from Back To The Future and other movies gives me hope that we will get there someday.

Oh, and one other prediction from Back To The Future that people had a hard time believing: the Cubs are still alive and may yet win their first World Series in 107 years.

October 20, 2015

The Winning Move Is Not To Play

I’m old. It’s not the 13 kids that make me feel that way. It’s not the 3 grandkids. It’s not the gray hair on my temples that my barber can no longer trim away. It’s not even the number of Advil I have to pop after hiking with my kids in our beautiful Wasatch Mountains.

It’s every Tuesday and Friday morning from 6:00AM to 7:20. I get up as quietly as possible in the dark to avoid waking my lovely wife. I dress in shorts, a t-shirt with the arms cut off and sandles with socks and drive about a mile to the LDS church. There I put on my shoes and run up and down the court for 80 minutes chasing a round leather ball.

And I feel old.

I’m still moving the same speed I always did. It’s the guys around me seem to be moving in fast forward mode. Now, part of it may be that I am really am old. Looking around at the other 12 guys, all but one are younger, faster and in better shape. Jeff, the one guy 14 years older than me isn’t actually a real person. I’m pretty sure that he’s an android.

But, there are only 5 players per team, so what about those extra three? Well, every gym has house rules. Sometimes, the extra guys wait and get to play the next game. Our rule though is that we typically use them to substitute for people on the court. These are just pick-up games, so there are no coaches, no defined teams, you call your own fouls and the players on the court decide when to sub out.

This system works well. . . if everyone is willing to not play. Generally, a team will have a rotation. I subbed out for Chris. Mark subbed out for me. Jay subbed out and let Mark back in. Andrew sat down to let Jay back in. It was back to Chris’ turn, so he sat to let Andrew back in.

At this point, I should notice that Chris is sitting on the bench and after he’s been out a couple minutes, I should call for him to come in for me. They system works well if everyone is willing to sit. It means you might end up sitting for two or three minutes out of every 15.

But, what happens if the system breaks down? Suppose I just ignore Chris? Suppose I decide I want to keep playing and make Chris wait on the bench for 5 minutes? Or seven? Well, now Chris feels like he got shorted, so when it’s his turn to come out for Andrew, he makes Andrew wait longer. Andrew, in turn now feels slighted.

Worse yet, is if someone just skips their turn to sit out. Now, the rotation is screwed up and the guys on the court don’t know who should sit down. Eventually someone decides to sit even though it’s not their turn. The guy on the bench is frustrated, the guy subbing out is frustrated.

(Yes, if you’ve never played pick-up basketball, it really can get THAT complicated.)

We see a similar situation when two lanes of traffic have to merge. If everyone takes turns, alternating one car from the first lane and then one car from the second, everyone moves along at the same slow, but consistent pace. But, what about when that guy in lane one decides he isn’t going to let the guy in lane two merge in front of him? He creeps up on the bumper of the car in front of him to seal the gap. Now, the guy in lane two is trying to decide to press it, or drop back. He’s frustrated. The guy in lane one is frustrated. The guy behind him in lane one is frustrated because he knows that the guy in lane two and the guy behind him are both going to want to merge in.

We have these situations in business as well. I’m on call 24×7 on my job. I really don’t have a backup. I work with other teams that are also on call, but typically they have multiple people who share the on call duty. Often teams will formally assign the on call person. But, I work with one team that does not. And they are by far, the most pleasant team to work with. Their “on call” solution is that they have a single on call number that rings to everybody’s phone. When the on call phone rings, whoever can get it first, gets it. Even after hours, in the middle of the night, they share the pain.

Now, imagine that they had a team member who refused to answer the on call phone. The rest of the team would start to resent it. Perhaps they would even stop answering the phone as quickly if they knew the one lagging team member was available, just to put him on the spot. The team would be frustrated, the laggard would be frustrated, the customers calling them would be frustrated.

I think that is what seperates “teams” from a group of individuals. Teams step up and sacrifice for each other. They are willing to “take one for the team” whether that is answering the phone at 2:00 am or subbing out of a basketball game.

Just some random thoughts as I was waiting WAY too long to sub back into the game.

October 19, 2015

Why I Have Not Yet Seen The Martian

One of most popular movies of the summer was Matt Damon in “The Martian.” I won’t try to tell you about it, because you’ve propably already seen it. And besides, I haven’t.

I intend to. In fact, it’s one of the movies I have looked forward to the most. But, my movie watching is definitely not typical. First, though, the reasons I’m excited to see it and have been anxious to see it since the first previews came out.

Matt Damon – I enjoy his everyman personas. Goodwill Hunting set the stage for it. His character was the smartest guy in the world and all he wanted to do was hang out with his friends in Boston. If there was one person to be stranded alone with on a deserted planet, it would be him. Except that if you were strnaded with him you wouldn’t be alone and this part just got weird.

Mars – I’ve always been a science fiction and science fact fan. I still remember watching the first space shuttle landing. Not the orbiter, the glider that they built to test the landing ability. They named that one Enterprise, after the ship in Star Trek. Interestingly in Star Trek canon, the USS Enterterprise was originally named after the space shuttle. So we have art imitating life imitating art. Anyway, the pilots of that first test flight were Crippen and Young. I’m anxious for us to go to Mars, and then beyond. I don’t know that we will ever be able to escapte the solar system, but we can certainly expand beyond a single point of failure when it comes to planets.

What seems to set “The Martian” apart is the author and filmaker’s attention to science. While I love Star Wars, Star Trek and other movies that allow characters to go shooting across the galaxy, the reality is that it’s impossible given what we currently know about science. I don’t mean to say just that we don’t know how to make a ship fast enough to span the stars. We don’t how to make anything go fast enough to span the stars. Warp drives, hyperdrives, transporters. They truly are the stuff of science fiction, not science fact.

Arthur C. Clarke (He wrote 2001 Space Odyssey) said it’s much easier to write a story set 500 years in the future than it is to wrote a story set 50 years in the future. Near future real science keeps overtaking what the writers can dream up.

It’s why I enjoy Ben Bova’s books. He grounds them in near future science. He did two books on the Red Planet, “Mars” and “Return To Mars.”

Science – That’s really the other draw to “The Martian” for me. Because I’m excited about the day we figure out how to put explorers on Mars, I’m equally excited to see a possible example. I have to admit there are certain parts I’ll be watching for specifically. Do they solve the free hydrogen issue? Do they address the change in gravity? Do they have to deal with the vitamin C problem?

Yes, I’ll have to wait and see.

When will I see?

Well, we have discount theaters in my town, a lot of them. Last weekend I finally saw “Jurrasic World” and paid $4 to get in. “The Martian” isn’t there yet.

October 16, 2015

They Spared No Expense For Custom Monogrammed Candy

No, really. They spared no expense at all.

I was in California for the wedding of my friend Margit. She was marrying a great guy named Michael. Well, I assumed he was a great guy. I’d never met him. For that matter, I’d only met Margit once. (Some Weirdo From the Internet Showed Up At Her Wedding.) But, I’d known Margit a long time.

The wedding was a full on production. Both Margit and Michael were Shakespearian actors. And apparently so were all their friends. The ceremony was choreographed with the attention of a stage production. Each bridesmaid and groomsman entered to her or his own theme music. The groom entered to the Star Wars imperial march. Of course, the costumes were coordinated; tuxes and matching bridesmaid dresses.

The dinner was equally an event. A gorgeous hall that was decorated beautifully. There was chicken and garlic mashed potatoes, dances and speeches. The cake was lovely. But, what really set tone for the entire event were the monogrammed candies. Not content for dinner mints, or those cool ones that look like the marshmellows from Lucky Charms cereal. Each dinner guest got their own tiny box full of candies. I estimated there were perhaps 200-250 guests. That’s a lot of monogrammed candy.

We each have our strengths and we each have our areas that we probably shouldn’t attempt to make a living in. One of those areas for me is whomever is responsible for creating and approving logos. Google recently switched their logo to use a new font. Many of my friends hated it. They didn’t say, “I don’t like the new Google logo.” They said, I hate the new Google logo.

How do you hate a logo? I don’t get it. But, I’ve read thousands of words written on what a mistake Google made in choosing the new logo, or specifically the new font. I don’t understand how a corporate logo could engender those emotions.

I do, of course, understand the importance of logos. A friend pointed out that the logo of a popular truck brand bears a more than coincidental similarity to female anatomy.

I’m glad that there are people to worry about such things. I’m even more glad it’s not me. I feel that sometimes I can see what a company is trying to do with a logo. Other times, more often, I have no clue.

Which is why I was so excited to open my box of custom monogrammed candy that Michael and Margit had made especially for their friends and family. I know they had them made special because there was a card tied to the top of the small box that said so.

As I removed the lid and dumped the candies into my hand I had to laugh. Yep. Custom monograms indeed.

October 15, 2015

All Candy Is Not Created Equal

All candy is not created equal. I learned that teaching a training class in Seattle

I remembered the lessons of WordPerfect as I left the company and became an independent trainer. I was teaching a class I helped write about WordPerfect Office. Don’t misunderstand, WordPerfect Office was nothing like Microsoft Office, with its word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software. WordPerfect Office didn’t even include the word processor. It was basically WordPerfect’s email software.

For a while WordPerfect tried to own the word “Office.” In fact, WP Office came out before Microsoft Office. But, fighting with Microsoft over the definition of Office was like playing space chess with a Wookie. The best strategy is “Let the Wookie win.” Eventually, Novell bought WordPerfect and rebranded WordPerfect Office to Novell GroupWise. It’s still available today. Mostly because Microsoft decided it didn’t need to be killed.

My training class was three days long. As an instructional designer, I try to use a variety of methods to keep the class interesting and the students engaged for three days. The most important lesson is

Why? I’ve never seen anyone fall asleep while doing a lab.

But, I also believe in using in class rewards. Specifically candy. I didn’t give much though to what candy I used until one particular class. Typically, I used M&Ms. They were chocolate. Everyone loved them. (Or almost everyone.) And you could get them anywhere. However, I personally was a fan of Jelly Belly jelly beans. If you’ve never had a Jelly Belly, you’ve never really eaten jelly beans. Jelly Bellies are unique flavors. Not just fruits like grape, cherry and pear, but more exotic flavors like roasted marshmellow, cotton candy, chocolate banana, and capachino.

For this particular class, I decided to get small boxes of Jelly Bellies and give them out during the class. It seemed to go well and it was fun to watch people discover just how tasty a coconut jelly bean could be. But, during one of the breaks, one student announced he was going down to the cafeteria to get something else.

I’d never heard anyone complain like that about M&Ms. Especially if you got the peanut kind, people treated them almost like real food. It made me appreciate the power of chocolate. Even when we don’t think it’s influencing us, chances are that it is.

I switched back to M&Ms the next day and never got another complaint.

I wouldn’t have thought it made a difference, but not all candy is created equal.

October 14, 2015

How M&Ms Sank His Sales Presentation

It was going great. The WordPerfect Sales rep went into his practiced sales pitch. He emphasized WordPerfect’s clean interface. He touched on the literally hundreds of printers supported. He stressed the widespread marketshare that WordPerfect’s word processor enjoyed. And he finished up talking about the world-class customer support. And it was at this point that he pulled out the finisher to literally “sweeten” the deal.

As he started to toss out the M&M candies the room seemed to turn cold. An executive caught a package that while not aimed at his head was dangerously close to arriving there and laid it on the conference table in front of him.

Ever have one of those meetings?

During our recent ribbon cutting ceremony in Louisville, KY for our new 700 person call center, our team went all out on the festivities. The food was a full 4 course meal from a popular steakhouse, served cafeteria style. Both the mayor Louisville and the governor of Kentucky were planning to show up. We had scarves and binders for the attendees in both red and blue. And we almost had an M&M moment.

Turns out the governor was a huge University of Kentucky fan. The Wildcats colors were blue and white. The mayor, not surprisingly was a big fan of Louisville Cardinals. Colors? Red and white. The schools, located just 80 miles apart, are big rivals. The mayor and the governor got to rib each other a little about the two schools while wearing their colors.

I was part of the technical team, not the marketing team, but we talked about how awkward it might have been if we had only brought one color of scarf. The funny thing was the guy who ordered the scarves and binders wasn’t even aware of the impact it would have at the press conference and ribbon cutting. If anything, living in Utah, he was picking colors for the two big rivals in the Beehive state: BYU (Blue) and University of Utah (Red.) It was just a happy accident that the colors matched up.

And that’s the point. If you are going to do any sort of marketing, you should know your audience. Chevy must have thought “Nova” was a great name for a car, and it was very popular in the United States. (Most famously featured as Eddie Murphy’s ride in Beverly Hills Cop.

Imagine their surprise when it did not sell as well in Mexico or other Spanish speaking countries. Not surpising when you consider that while in English, nova describes an exploding star, in Spanish it literally means “doesn’t run.” Who wants to buy a car named that?

When WordPerfect released version 6.0, they wanted to create a single logo that would be recognizable and used throughout the entire world. It featured the name WordPerfect above the text “SIX.0”.

Here’s a copy of a German book featuring the logo.

Copies of this logo are difficult to find. The company discontinued the campaign and quickly changed out all the logos. WordPerfect, a very conservative company, based in Utah, was horrified to learn, after the marketing campaign had kicked off, that in Sweden “SIX.0” literally spells “SEX.0.” Not really the image they were trying to project.

When you are doing marketing, know your audience.

And that WordPerfect sales rep at the beginning of this post? His problem? While he was handing out M&Ms, manufactured by the Mars candy company, unfortunately he was making his presentation to the Nestle candy company.

Know your audience.

October 13, 2015

Sorry, Your Computer Show Booth Doesn’t Meet Health Code

It wasn’t exactly a tradition. WordPerfect hadn’t been in existance long enough to establish traditions. But, if they had been around longer, it would have been a cool tradition.

Tradeshows have a certain energy to them that I’ve rarely found outside of a high school pep rally. Walking through the trade floor was like a stroll down the midway at a carnival. There was music. There were scantily clad dancing girls. There were barkers trying to entice you to you sit through a demo for a chance at a cool prize.

It didn’t even matter what product they were pitching . I’ve sat through demos for stuff I’ve never heard of so that I could get the t-shirt and enter to win the new laptop. And occasionally, I’ve scored some cool gifts.

I once played a version of Deal or No Deal at a booth. For whatever reason, I was the audience member who was selected to be the contestant. It could be that my friend Zach was running the contest, but that might have just been a coincidence. I still had to play the game and I ended up with a video iPod, back when a video iPod was the iPad of its day.

The atmosphere is partly a result of the energy that the various vendors bring to their presentations and contests. The other part is the food. Well, it’s not exactly food. In fact, I wouldn’t call it food at all. It’s straight up sugar. Every booth, even those that don’t have cool giveaways, has a bowl of candy. It’s like one big trick-or-treat event for grownups. It’s hard to make a unique statement with candy. It’s hard, but not impossible.

When I was running RESMARK, a small startup computer company, I looked for a unique, signature candy that would help brand my company with no marketing budget. And I found it in miniture Reeses peanut butter cups.

Reeses had two advantages over much of the candy handed out at trade shows.

First, the “R” on the Reeses packages was nearly the same as the “R” we used in branding RESMARK. And our color scheme for the company was lots of orange, browns and black. The exact same colors that Reeses used in their packaging for their candy.It almost looked like we had it custom made.

Second, and more importantly, it was chocolate. I don’t know why so few vendors stocked their booths with chocolate. Maybe because the price per piece was slightly higher than traditional hard candy. There would be dozens of booths that had Jolly Ranchers or some other form of solid sugar. I had people who sought out our booth specifically because we were offering something that you could eat rather than suck on. It was almost funny to watch them try to “sneak” a piece of our candy without being subjected to a sales pitch. I could see what they were doing and tried to put them at ease.

And it had peanut butter. Peanut butter is a real food, right? You put it on kids’ sandwiches and celery to make the celery palatable.

I think it was for this second reason that WordPerect chose M&Ms as their signature candy. It was unusual to offer anything made of chocolate and the peanuts in the Peanut M&Ms made it healthy, right? It’s nuts. Nuts are what health conscious people eat. And in a sea of hard candy, M&Ms are a welcome change.

WordPerfect would put out a big bowl, and people would come by and snack on a few M&Ms, get a t-shirt and hear about the latest copy of the most popular word processsor in the world. And that was the problem. Eventually, the Health Department put a stop to WordPerfect’s bowl of M&Ms. Setting out a bowl of unwrapped candy is okay for your kids while they were watching a VHS tape of “Back to the Future II” or “Little Mermaid” or some other late 1980’s movie, but at a tradeshow with thousands of people, everyone sharing a common bowl was kind of gross to even think about.

The Health Department eventually forced WordPerfect to switch to “fun sized” M&M packages.

Like I said, they hadn’t been around long enough for the big bowl of M&Ms to become a tradition, and that was probably a good thing.

October 12, 2015

Why He Brought 22 lbs Of M&Ms For His Coworkers

The table in front of his office was filled to overflowing. There were M&Ms in bowls, in bags, on the floor. But, it was really important that he brought enough. Old Timers who walked by understood perfectly. They looked forward to the day they could bring in 20+ lbs of those tiny chocolates. New employees were less aware. They’d learn.

A career in IT can be brutal. Most IT professionals are “salary.” That means we don’t get paid overtime. That’s a nice way of saying that companies have an incentive to work us as long and hard as possible. And most of my IT friends understand that. It comes with the territory. I’ve worked more weekends than I can count. I’ve worked holidays. I’ve taken calls on vacation.

Once while working for Microsoft, I cut my schedule extra close between work and my vacation. My family and I were planning on driving through Yellowstone National Park. But, the week before I had to be in Dallas for a training class. The only way to make it all work was to change my flight. Instead of flying into Sea-Tac and leaving with my family, they would start early and I’d fly into Yellowstone.

Believe it or not, Yellowstone does not have a big airport. In fact, it’s pretty tiny. And so are the planes that fly to it. But, the class got delivered and I safely met my family at a tiny airport 700 miles from home.

My current position means that I’m on call. . .24×7. . .365. I literally have no regular backup. It’s on the agenda to add another position that will back me up, but for now, it’s just me and my phone. If I’m on vacation, or say my daughter gets married, my manager fills in. But, he’s mostly a warm body to answer the phone. Plus, he’s doing his own job.

Why do we put up with it?

I’m not sure. The rewards can be anything from good to great. During the glory days of Microsoft’s meteoric rise, the compensation was beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Other times, I’ve worked for barely enough to pay the bills.

Maybe it’s the idea of working on products and systems that most people don’t understand and consider a form of black magic. I used to be one of the magicians. I can still understand the concepts, but like a former Olympian who is no longer actively training, my technical skills are good by the world’s standard, but pretty average by IT standards. However, like Michael Jordan late in his career, what I’ve lost in technical prowess, I’ve replaced with experience.

Maybe we were the geeks in school and discovered kindred souls in the ranks of the computer clubs and programming classes. Whatever it was, it’s locked me in deep enough that I don’t knwo if I’ll ever escape. A couple of times I tried changing careers. It didn’t work out well.

Fortunately, IT is a field that isn’t limited by age as much as some other professions. Sure, we have the hotshots straight out of college, or who maybe skipped college. But, like younger versions of ourselves, the young crop of IT professionals are often brilliant in some areas and utterly lacking in others. Our industry has been kind to it’s senior members.

And that brings me back to my friend and his 22 lbs of M&Ms. It was a Microsoft tradition that every year on your work anniversary, you bring in 1 lbs of M&Ms for each year you had worked for the company. My friend recently passed 22 years with the company in Redmond. The M&Ms were a badge of senority. Fortunately, one that everyone could enjoy.

Rodney M Bliss

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