“You know what this Thank You letter means? You dug a nice ditch.”

A true story about risk versus reward when speaking up for yourself

Main Character: Joshua

In 2017 terms, Joshua in 1991 would’ve been considered a “Non-Traditional Student” because he started his University studies at age 31. It’s not that he didn’t have the grades or whatever, but Joshua went out at age 17, traveled the world, got married, came home, started a family and wanted a new challenge. Computers tickled his fancy.

Working his way into Computer Science classes by way of Math, it was the hunger and life experience that helped adapt to a new skill set. Tell computers what to do. Build things, puzzles, new opportunities…

Welcome to the Real World

After some stints in the Seattle scene — Microsoft and a couple other big names one the CV — Joshua got hooked into the airline business. With a team, they built infrastructure to work through big math problems: Loads, destinations, connections, where to seat people.

In many ways, the projects and challenges were team-building in nature. Joshua had the talent and skills to herd a bunch of cat people and produce something new. It was the first online ticketing system.

The Twist

Before Joshua had his chance to run a team his way, a successful project had all the credit go to just, well, some Middle-Manager-Asshole. He got a paid vacation because of the success of the team.

Joshua and the team got a “Thank You” letter with a stamped on signature from the Middle-Manager-Asshole on vacation.

Fuming, Joshua took that letter to the Boss of the Middle-Manager-Asshole, and slammed it down on the desk as an uninvited guest.

“You know what this letter says? It says you dug a nice ditch.”

After walking out, Joshua didn’t know if he’d be fired, but he at least let that off of his mind. Karma catches up and Joshua acquired the job of the other guy within a year. His team wasn’t in the business of digging ditches, they wanted to be Respected. Joshua led by example. Talk big but back it up.

Note: If the WGA goes on strike, I do too in commercial ventures. Full stop.

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