Technology for Addicts and Geniuses
The halls filled with sunset, darkening from moment to moment. Monitors illuminate the evening player’s faces. Many use their high-powered equipment to transition from programming by day to video games by night.
They while away their evenings (or at least until dinner at 8 or 9pm). But some kept coding well into the wee hours. They couldn’t stop. Was it due to deadline?
One of them lives in a cave, emanating screen light from within. It’s a more “modern” kind of cave: a simple cubicle covered in a dark cloth tent, concocted to block out even more of the waning outside light.
Inside is a legend of top proportion. The best programmer in the house. Do you need a fully functional, brand-new app for your client in two days flat? He is the genius for the job.
A nearby Project Manager, burning the midnight oil herself, wants to know: Why does he stay here so late every night?
She pats at his cloth door, softly inquiring: “Hello?”
“Come in,” says the voice inside.
She stoops to enter the inner sanctuary of the coder. It’s a sea of black, if not for an unexpected set of string lights and a dim desk lamp. He sits with his back to her, a figure outlined by the almost imperceptible flicker of his monitor. She asks with empathy: “Workin’ late today? It’s ok, you can go home if you need. The deadline isn’t until next week…”
He slowly turns in his chair and looks at his guest with dry, bloodshot eyes that can only originate from 13 fixated hours at a code-filled monitor.
He says, “It’s ok, I do this for more than just getting the job done. I’m a recovering addict. Programming controls my urges… gives me a different place to focus. Keeps me out of trouble.”
Well alrighty then.
With a comment so raw, so matter of fact, she is rendered unable to find many words.
She mutters, “Ok, well take care of yourself, you’re doing great work…”, trailing off and backing away. Meanwhile his chair swivels back around to his monitor. His antidote.
But, an antidote to what? Drugs, child molestation, crime, porn? All of the above? Her mind lingers on the possibilities, disturbed. But simultaneously she wonders, does this all play into why this guy is such a genius?
The lesson that day is to never deny people who pour themselves into their work. They may be doing it for more reason than one. Replacing one addiction with another of lesser harm may mean “progress” to some in their life’s journey.
Gathering her laptop to work from home the rest of the evening, she chuckles to realize: No one out there really knows who builds the web and why, do they?
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