Architect's Away Day 2

One of the other dinner conversations last Thursday was about erstwhile colleagues we'd both known but lost touch with in recent times. Learning of the fate of someone I'd worked very closely with for six years in the 80s brought home to me again how differently life turns out from what you might expect.

This is a recurring theme on my blog, but in this case the star player in the story is not me. It's a man who, when I first met him in 1982, appeared to walk on water. New into the operating system support team in July of that year, it was the first chance I'd had to meet some of the people who actually wrote the operating system. I'd been studying the code for several months (the entire OS code - referred to as "the Project Log" - was regularly released on microfiche the use of internal users to investigate and suggest fixes for errors) as part of my previous job. The experience stood me in good stead for my years in support. I knew my way around a small part of the OS and that was the part I started supporting.

But the guy at the heart of this story wasn't just the author of that small part. He was the leader of a team who at one time had responsibility for almost a third of the entire operating system. It seemed to me at that time that his intellect and knowledge were so far above mine that I was scarcely worthy to breathe the same air. It soon became apparent that he had an ego to match, and a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. You've heard the expression "not allowed to make the same mistake twice?" Well with this guy you were barely given scope to make the same mistake once. Growling, scowling and generally behaving like a bear with a sore head, most of the rest of the support team gave him a wide berth and avoided talking to him whenever they could.

Since he had ultimate responsibility for all of the code I was interested in (and experienced with), I didn't have the luxury of avoiding him. So I figured all I could do was play it with a straight bat - admit that I was inexperienced, show a willingness to learn, make sure I *did* learn, do the best I could before seeking his help with a problem, and try to make sure that whenever I did go to him for help it wasn't with a trivial problem that I should have been able to sort out for myself.

Armed with little more than that approach and a propensity for fast learning, we built up a grudging respect for each other over those six years. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say we ever became friends, we could at least claim to have developed a good working relationship which included trust, appreciation of our abilities...etc.

In the interim period between me leaving the support team and him leaving the development team, we'd lost touch. I was aware that he'd spent some time in our ecommerce unit and then been moved sideways into the supply units - the people who handle the best-price acquisition of all the hardware and software that we put into our solutions. I guessed that his abrasive style had not gone down too well with a succession of managers. This may even have led to him being passed over for promotion and/or receiving a succession of bad pay reviews. Either that or he'd made a conscious decision to move to less challenging work. This was all supposition on my part but it's certainly true that as well as providing a wealth of opportunities, big companies can be unforgiving places if your face doesn't fit or you become a victim of internal politics. It can happen to anyone.

But I was surprised to learn that he'd left the company and even more surprised when I found out what he was doing now. Driving trucks. Long distance.

Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a truck driver. It's another of those essential jobs without which we'd all be dead. But it's not the kind of job you expect someone who is capable of writing mainframe operating system software to end up doing.

There was one more surprise in store. My later reaction to the news. I started envying him. The open road, the lack of stress, feeling in control. I imagined him translating his legendary attention to detail into his new role. Making sure his rig was always in tip-top condition, his load balanced and his tarps tied down. Tyres checked, oil topped up, tachograph maintained and his driving hours exactly meeting regulations. And his idiosyncratic interpersonal skills not getting in the way of making a decent living. And, probably best of all I suspect, no damned office politics giving him sleepless nights. Good luck to you mate. Keep on truckin'