“You write beautiful code,” he said.
I practically swooned under the weight of those words, for they validated what I already knew in my heart: my code was not only technically sound, it was art.
Whenever I sat at my computer to code, I’d disappear into my mind, a realm of pure creativity where time and place ceased to exist. Only art can do that, but I didn’t think anyone else could see the depth of thought and thoughtfulness that took place while I was in the zone.
That job interview with Jack was the first time I’d ever received feedback like that. I didn’t bother searching for work anywhere else. Though it meant my salary would barely increase, I took that programmer analyst job and was never sorry for it.
Jack ended up being a godsend. He bought books and journals for me to read, sent me to software development conferences, and encouraged me to write papers about what I was learning. He gave me the time and the opportunity to be innovative—every day. It was as if he was preparing me for greater things, for every time I walked into his office and sat down, he would look up and raise his eyebrows and ask, “Are you leaving?”
I always replied, “No. I’m not leaving.”
Over the years, it became our running joke. Why would I go anywhere else?
My first assignment was to rewrite a core library that collected, interpreted, and stored EEG data during sleep studies. I had to convert it from C, a procedural language, to C++, an object-oriented (OO) language. My new coworker didn’t think I could do it. Maybe he had tried and failed. I never thought to ask, but my focus on programming languages gave me the confidence to try. I had learned many languages in school and discovered that I was good, better than most, at adapting to the OO paradigm, a new concept in the early 90s.
I learned OO programming in the class taught by that misogynist professor who thought I would quit because I was a girl. It was the OO assignments that pushed me to the top of his class. Everyone else, all male, struggled while I flew right through them. The OO paradigm became second nature to me; I eventually found no reason to program any other way.
I was hired to replace a woman who wrote the original library. Her C code was well-structured and easy to understand, making the rewrite straightforward. It took only a few months.
Jack was pleased.
My coworker was astonished.
At a subsequent staff meeting, a distressing request came to our attention. The sleep technicians wanted to replace our home-grown system with a commercial system; they needed a feature that our current system did not have. They wanted to look at previous EEG data while simultaneously collecting current data—just like collecting on paper.
I didn’t hesitate to raise my hand. “I can make that happen,” I said.
Jack beamed.
My coworker rolled his eyes. I was beginning to see why the other woman left.
My coworker and I were both Christians, so we spent a lot of time talking about our families and our faith inside the tiny office we shared. I have to admit he tried really hard to like me. He gave me CDs from Christian artists I had never heard of, like Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, and Amy Grant, but no matter how hard he tried to warm up to me, my resourcefulness unraveled him. His beliefs must have been more patriarchal than mine. I think he thought women should defer to all men, and not only their husbands.
In the meantime, I got to work on the new feature. I knew I could make it happen because the core library I had meticulously converted to C++ provided the means. It took only a short while to get it coded, tested, and deployed. Finally, the sleep technicians could look back at previous EEG data on the screen while current data continued to be collected in the background—just like on paper. I called the upgrade ‘Page Back’ and wrote an article about it for a software journal.
The next few years proceeded without controversy. Jack gave me many challenging assignments during the day while I attended graduate school at night. Since I was still employed at the medical center, I continued to get tuition reimbursement benefits, and I also got a fellowship from the School of Medical Informatics. In August 1998, I got my master’s degree debt-free and with straight A’s.
Those years were like walking through automatic doors. My children were doing well in school, my home life was stable, and my mind was sharp as a tack. Everything I put my hands to prospered, but unfortunately, every good story has a villain.
Just weeks before I graduated, Jack assigned me to lead a team to develop a system for another department. I had planned the kickoff meeting with every intention of garnering support for our new direction, but my coworker blustered his way into control of the meeting—as if he were in charge. His condescending actions blindsided me, silenced me, and put me in my place—a place where he thought I should be. Second to him.
I wanted to go to Jack and complain, but what was I going to say? My coworker was mean to me? It wasn’t long, though, before I opened his door and sat down, but not to complain.
“Are you leaving?” he asked.
Career Dream: Fulfilled 1995 to 1998 (Programmer Analyst).
College Education Dream #2: Fulfilled September 1998 (M.S. Information Systems Design).
If you have just joined us and are wondering what this story is about, start from the beginning. I promise it will all make sense.
A Speculative Memoir
In a 1989 journal entry, I poured out my dashed dreams to God. Those few precious moments became a watershed event in an unfolding narrative that began ten years before when I turned my back on God. Turning my back on God did many things, most of them sad, but foremost it made me forget who I was. But there was someone who never forgot. Someone who neve…