Fruit Cake

Many IT guys have the emotional range of a bad fruit cake.  I was reading an article earlier this year which discussed the high percentage of people who suffer from Asperger's syndrome who exceed in IT related ventures.   I am not that disconnected but I can admit to having been so utterly focused on problems over the years that I shut off everything around me.

And if portions of the "everything" is family and friends then that is not so good over time.  Fruit Cake... like crazy.  I wasn't really thinking about the word in that way but now that I used it as my anaology I guess I should explore that double meaning.  

It is crazy doing what we do.  Working so hard.  Building ourselves up as data saving super heroes.  And all the while if we are not careful the things that are most important are being lost around us.  That was me.  And I know that is not unique to my field.  Many guys do this.  Maybe some of you gals, too.  But I know that day is not coming where I will look back and say, "Gee, I wish I had spent more time at the office or on the road."

Solving problems for us in this environment is a great escape because to the extent that we understand our subject matter we can genrally "fix" stuff.  We can make it better.  And then one day we walk into a room and people are bowing down and calling you "Oh great Guru."  And maybe that goes to your head after a while.  

And all the while those touchy feely things elude us.  That hurt which our wives and children feel blows right over our heads.  This fruit cake let it all go past him.  I may have cared more about other people's data than my legacy.   Some days at work I was a hero.  I did some "great" thing with a mouse click and the "end users" were amazed.  But at home I was a failure.  

Or so I thought... to my kids I was a hero every day.  I just did not see it.  I did not see anything as much as I ran from the problems I could not solve.  

A friend once told me it would be easier if people were like computers.  You could just correct bad programming and move on.  But that's not so easy.  Too much fuzzy logic to work thru.

But now I am on a quest to change me.  Let me rephrase... a quest to allow myself to be changed... As I proved I really could not do it by myself.  So it became necessary to bring in an outside consultant.  

He's pretty good.  He started out in a small office in Israel.  Since then He has moved up quite a bit.

His knowledge of human programming is pretty good.    I will keep you posted.