How do we end up where we are? In my case, it’s a mixture of 2 parts born into privilege, 1 part luck, 1 part dumb luck and about another part hard work. That I would be a “success” was pre-determined: white, middle class, male. No strikes against me. But in some ways, I am a little bit proud of what I’ve made happen.

Today isn’t really one of those days, though.

This morning, I was presenting on technology security topics to this man—a total superstar of nuclear nonproliferation and my Director—as well as a gaggle of other esteemed colleagues. This evening, I was sucking down a Diet Coke (second one this month) and devouring a Manner in lieu of dinner.

This being the UN, we are perpetually and critically short-staffed. The member states would argue we need to be leaner, but the fact is, we’re working our tits off up in here.

And so I just finished crawling around in a rat hole while wearing a suit to lay down some network infrastructure for some highly confidential nuclear nonproliferation air-gapped ta-do da whooptiewhitz.

I remember when they asked me, during my interview so many years ago, what I would do if faced with critical shortage in my staff and were in need of tackling numerous critical tasks. The answer I gave is, of course, the answer they wanted to hear. And so here I am, doing it myself.

But somehow, it’s still all good.

At Bellsouth (the NEW NEW AT&T!), I had become so nearly end-user that I’d forgotten a lot of my tech skills. I was paid handsomely to sit around and read/think about technology all day without ever doing. This was Fortune 100, and we certainly had plenty of people to turn the screws, program the thermostats, trouble-shoot the elevators. We had thousands of coders at the end of fibre optic lines to various “best shore” companies. Resources were never scarce, for the most part; only decisions were rare. Well, scratch all that now.

I spend my day in the heady world of architecture while I’m up to my elbows in IOS spaghetti. I spend millions of Euros while checking the status of my backup tapes. I think about strategic direction while diddling with a script to lock passwords on a 490.

The candy bar and soda dinner made me think of the old days, when I’d sit up late coding with Deano or Nate or Clint or would pull a few consecutive all-nighters on a particularly “cruciall” project. I remember that strange exhaustion mixed with satisfaction as I fell into my apartment and stumbled to the bed or easy chair and the satisfying thump of the needle hitting the record as I got set to chill. I remember telling a girlfriend at the time, as we lay there, and I drifted in and out of sleep as she asked me something, “I don’t think my interfaces are configured for that…”

Thing is: I did that to Maple the other day. I was reading her books, when suddenly, I was out. The words coming out of my mouth sort of startled me awake. I said something like, “and the baby Tapir was not listed in the requirements specification document…” and shot up like a rocket.

As much as I felt a little tinge of nostalgia for those days, I felt an equal measure of terror. Something, I thought, needs to change.
——
Tonight, as I was walking back to my office from the rat hole, I called the elevator—too tired to take the stairs up 3 floors. The door opened, and a lady from the cleaning staff was inside. I got on.

“It’s going up,” she said in German.

I froze. I had called the elevator. Where was I planning to go? I even, for a second, couldn’t remember where I had been. Then I realized, yes, I do, indeed, want to go up.

“It’s okay,” I replied. “I am going up.”

There was a short silence.

“I had to think about that for a second,” I added. “But I’m certain: I’m going up.”

I pushed my floor.