More Important Than Human Life

I reached a big milestone when I was two months into my Information Technology career.  My employer, a bank, issued me a beeper.

Only certain types of people carried beepers, mainly physicians and drug dealers.  I had joined their elite ranks.

I wore my beeper proudly.  I was an honor to be considered competent enough to fix the bank’s production problems at night on my own.

People would spot my beeper and ask me if I was a doctor.  My response: “No, I am not a doctor. I deal with something more important than human life.”  Most people then figured out that I must deal with money.

I carried a beeper for many years. To my disappointment, not once did someone spot my beeper and ask me if I was a drug dealer.

With a beeper on my belt, I had to make decisions about my social life.  

It was a crap shoot.  If I went out to a movie, and my beeper went off, I would miss a big chunk of the movie while I responded to a production problem.  However, if I stayed home out of fear that my beeper would go off in the middle of a movie, I would never get to see a movie.

Once my beeper went off during a party right when we finished singing “Happy Birthday to You” and the cake was about to be cut. I had to leave the party, and I still feel deprived that I never got any birthday cake. That was thirty-three years ago.

Usually there is a primary beeper and a backup beeper.

One night, when I was on backup, my beeper went off at 4 AM. The woman on primary needed help figuring out a problem.  Since she lived two miles from my home, I drove over to her house so we could look at the problem together.

She greeted me at the door wearing her bathrobe and fuzzy pink bunny slippers. We sat at her home computer in the dining room. We had the problem fixed in an hour --- but not before her husband woke up and groggily looked into the room.

Nowadays, my current employer does not make us carry beepers.  Production problems that occur at night are fixed the following morning.

So, never again will I be interrupted in the middle of a movie.  Never again will I miss out on birthday cake.

However, never again will I get to see the expression on a drowsy husband’s face when he peeks in his dining room at five in the morning and sees a strange man talking to his wife who is wearing her bathrobe and fuzzy pink bunny slippers.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Floating Up Through The Roof Of The Lodge

I worked for banks for many years, earning my living as a wire transfer programmer. Wire transfer was my bread-and-butter.

In 1995, I was working in Minneapolis for a bank which announced that it was changing its wire transfer software, and moving all its wire operations to Colorado.  I began to worry about my future; I thought I might have to find a new job.

I saw a flier for a weekend retreat called "Find the Perfect Job".  It was being offered in an old lodge out in a forest.  In my mind, I pictured a lodge that had a large common room with timbered ceiling beams and a big stone fireplace. 

I signed up for the retreat.  The lodge turned out to be just as I had pictured it.

The organizers of the retreat used many approaches to help the participants discover their selves, their interests, and what they were hoping to get out of employment. We took the Myers-Briggs test; we did role playing; we gave little talks. Most intriguing: There was a visualization session.

This was intriguing because it was my first visualization experience.  The lights were dimmed.  The fire in the fireplace continued to crackle while the visualization leader spoke softly and reassuringly:

    You are now wrapped in warmth…
    You are floating up through the roof of the lodge…
    You are warm even though it is February.
   
    You are moving now; moving along in years... 
    It is now ten years in the future…
    Descend and look around…
    Remember what ten years from now looks like.
   
    You are floating up; moving further along in years…
    It is now twenty years in the future…
    Descend and look around…
    Remember what twenty years from now looks like.

I did remember.

I remember ten years in the future.  Wrapped in a blanket of warmth, I saw myself sitting in a cubicle in an office where everyone had chairs with wheels. When my ten-years-in-the-future coworkers wanted to speak to someone, they did not walk to that person's cubicle.  Instead, they rolled to the cubicle in their chairs, propelling themselves backwards. Ten years in the future there was a nearby room --- a former computer room with a raised floor and a little ramp.

Two years after that weekend retreat, I moved from Minneapolis to St. Louis.

A. G. Edwards was one of my St. Louis employers.  I was given a cubicle in the Sherwood Building. This building had nice wide aisles, and I noticed that my co-workers did not walk from one cubicle to another. They rolled there in their chairs, propelling themselves backwards.

Rolling chairs was a connect with my visualization. I noticed that around the corner from our area in the Sherwood Building was an old computer room with a raised floor --- another connect with my visualization for ten years in the future.

It was seven years after the retreat, but that seemed close enough to say that my visualization had predicted my future.

And I remember twenty years in the future. Wrapped in a blanket of warmth, I descended to earth. I was not sitting in a cubicle.  I saw myself sitting in the desert next to a saguaro.

I can't help thinking that there is some Arizona in my future.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com