Why I’m Writing a Blog After 32 Years in IT

May 1990.
The Dow Jones hits 2,878. Microsoft rolls out Windows 3.0. Elijah Harper, standing alone in the Manitoba Legislature, blocks the Meech Lake Accord.

And I start my career as a computer programmer, writing code in COBOL, a 30-year-old language already considered obsolete.

Fast forward to September 2022.
The Dow tops 32,000. Microsoft is updating Windows 11. Queen Elizabeth II passes away as Canada prepares to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation for just the second time.

And I retire as Lead, Legacy Systems – still coding in COBOL, a 62-year-old language that's basically prehistoric. And little more than a trivia answer to anyone in their 30s.

In a world that moved on to the internet, smartphones, and cloud everything, I stayed the course with the same syntax.

So why blog now? Because the most interesting part of those 32 years wasn’t the code. It was everything around the code.

What I Really Learned
I learned about people. The loud ones, the quiet ones, the ones whose Teams status was always "offline."

I learned that how you get along with your boss, your team, other departments, vendors, and consultants (ugh… don’t get me started) matters more than any technical problem.

consultant /kənˈsʌltənt/ noun

1. A professional who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is – and then keeps your watch.

I learned moods are contagious. Sometimes your stress spills over; sometimes theirs does. And sometimes, all of it collides like a three-car pileup on the TransCanada.

The Dream vs. The Desk Chair
Offices should be full of smart people pulling together. Often, they’re not. Deadlines get weird. People pull in opposite directions. Petty stuff gets in the way.

But I still believe in the potential. Like Bill Clinton once almost said:

"There’s nothing wrong with your office that cannot be cured by what is right with your office."

(And if not, there's always early retirement.)

So Why the Blog?
I’m not here to give advice. I don’t have steps or hacks. Just a bunch of thoughts and stories from a long career in IT.

I’ve sat in meetings that went nowhere, read memos that said nothing, and watched org charts twist into pretzels.

I might not be right. I might not be relevant. But I’ve got time, an internet connection, and a few things to say.

What You’ll Find Here
Burnout. Office politics. Groupthink. Logic puzzles. Quotes from philosophers that feel as relevant now as when they were first spoken 2,500 years ago.

Maybe even a diagram I once drew on a whiteboard and never quite erased - from the board or my mind.

"It was always: 'Socrates, what is truth? Socrates, what is the nature of the good? Socrates, what should I order? Socrates, what are you having?' And not once did anyone ever say: 'Socrates, hemlock is poison!'"
— Steve Martin as Socrates, "The Death of Socrates" sketch, Comedy Is Not Pretty (NBC, 1980)

Note: Socrates may or may not have actually said this. While scholars of ancient Greece continue to debate its authenticity, I’ll refrain from citing it further in the interest of factual accuracy.

One Final Thought
If something I write makes you feel seen, makes you think, or makes you laugh quietly in a Teams meeting, that’s enough.

And if no one reads it? Well, I worked in an office that didn’t really believe in documentation. I'm used to it.

This post was brought to you by overthinking, caffeine, and stubbornness.