Reflection: Fitting Into Life's Situations
I tell a story about teen life as a way of thinking about how I'm positioning my career right now.
In this post:
Looking back at how I learned how to write code
Talking about the thrills of finding a technical niche
Reflecting on how to position my career and personal reputation
A neighbor and close friend recently asked this: Chris, you’re from the Northeast, how come you’re not a bro?
My answer spilled out in two parts.
First: What makes you think I’m not? Let’s see - I’m a white guy, from the Northeast, I’m Catholic, raised in a relatively traditional family, and played a million sports.
And then: But, I think I’m not because I’m weird! I recognized that I didn’t fit the typical mold.
This post isn’t about why I am or am not a bro. But that square-peg-in-round-hole feeling hit me first in middle school. I carried a set of friends from elementary school to middle school, soon understanding that we were not as close as I believed. New friends were cordial, but not sticky.
So, I ate lunch alone. A lot. At one point, almost every day, using the time to proactively do homework or instead scramble to resolve procrastination. A teacher once asked me if I was ok. And I answered yes despite beginning to understand that the answer might have been no.
These feelings persisted into high school, but I managed to blend into another set of friends, based in part around their proximity to my cousin of the same age. He, in contrast to me, retained sticky friends and was an all-around popular person.
Lacking social options forced me to explore other entertainment avenues. I was an avid and good musician, the best alto saxophone player in school through middle school. In high school, I politely revolted and took up drums, playing them throughout high school and well beyond.
My technical tinkering began at roughly the same time. Some of my past posts highlighted the various computer-oriented books laying around my house. And, I was curious enough to flip through them (newer example, but close) and try what I was reading.
Those explorations unlocked a nascent world. And, carried me forward for the next 25 years until, well, today. Teaching myself SQL (Structured Query Language) in high school provided me with an enormous early career moat.
And, still today, knowing and writing that language fluently gives me an edge that’s hard to replicate.
I tell that story because a client recently asked me to write two SQL stored procedures (i.e. reusable rather than one-off code ) as part of a broader engagement.
Yesterday’s web-only post posed a question: how do you want to spend your time? It was a question not only about career time, but certainly inclusive of career aspirations.
Writing those procedures reminded me of the thrills of construction code. You feel outrageous satisfaction when your mishmash of symbols and letters produces working outcomes. The work also reminded me of where I began - a semi-lost place in school social hierarchy.
So, in that post from yesterday, I expanded on things I didn’t want to give away in deriving how to spend my time. Yesterday’s post mentioned just two: time with kids, and work-from-home flexibility.
But I am hung up on the technical pathway I’ve described here. I referenced something (SQL) that I enjoy as a solo activity and also with others, while also moving away from it not long ago.
The multi-discipline start-up life seemed to fit my desire to be not just the technical expert, but instead, an all-around comprehensive contributor to a business.
There are numerous parallels to my earlier life example. I recognized then that I wasn’t part of the standard social fabric. Did I try to fit in? Sure, but climbing that hill involved a long and steep crawl. I found a way to carry on with life, though not with the right level of comfort and peace.
My above conundrum (technical/specialist vs. generalist) is that problem through a career lens.
I’ve tried - and still try - to graduate to more of a generalist and leader but still fall on and execute with technical skills in so many situations. Consulting is a business that succeeds on many fronts, but often through just two paths: a) deeply specialized ninjas, or b) visionary generalist wizards.
Some people are both. The needle in the haystack. Or the unicorn as they’re called in corporate speak.
What I haven’t resolved is whether I am one or the other, or, possibly, both.