An Unexpected Fork

My first job in high school was working in the Outside Garden department at Home Depot. I took the job to help pay for my senior prom. I have vague memories of the people I worked with, but I remember helping customers load lawn mowers, answering questions about grills, and trying to figure out which weed killer they actually needed.

I also spent a short time at Kohl's. I was hired before the store officially opened, so as a teenager I got to help set up a brand-new location from the ground up. Most of my shifts were spent in the back unloading trucks, although I occasionally worked the sales floor or registers.

Around that same time, I worked for a small local computer shop called Happy Computer. We built custom PCs, installed components, replaced hardware, and troubleshot whatever problems customers brought through the door. It was the first time someone paid me to work with computers instead of just tinkering with them at home.

While I was a sophomore in college, I landed my first salaried position as a Technical Support Representative at EarthLink. The call center sat in a two-story building on the corner of LBJ Freeway and Luna Road in Farmers Branch. It was surrounded by taller office buildings, yet somehow our little building always felt bigger. Every shift started the same way. Badge in through the side door. Clock in at the computer. Put on the headset. Set my status to "Ready."

The phone would ring.

"Thank you for calling EarthLink. This is Kyle. How can I help you?"

Every customer had a case, and every case needed good notes. We documented everything we tried so the next person would know exactly where things stood if the customer ever had to call back.

This was long before we could remote into someone's computer. We had to solve every problem through conversation alone. Many customers had never used a computer beyond checking email. Some didn't know how to double-click. Some didn't know what the desktop was. More than once I heard someone read an option aloud as "Install... Yoonistall?"

The calls we dreaded most were what we called a TCP/IP R&R, short for "Rip and Reinstall." Before we could even begin, we'd have to ask if they still had their original Windows 95 or 98 installation CD or floppy disks. If they didn't, there wasn't much we could do. If they did, we'd reboot the computer, coach them through getting to the DOS prompt at just the right moment during startup, and then slowly walk them through a long series of commands. Every character mattered, and we couldn't see what they were typing.

Computers weren't exactly fast back then. There was a lot of waiting.

"Has it restarted yet?"

"Not yet."

"Okay... we'll wait."

You could almost tell how your shift was going to go by the version of Windows the customer was using. If they were running Windows 2000, we were thrilled. If they said Windows ME, we quietly cried a little inside.

We owned every call. Escalations were rare, and it wasn't acceptable to tell someone to try a few things and call back later. If a customer's dial-up connection wasn't working, it was our job to stay with them until it was fixed. I vividly remember one call that lasted my entire shift before we finally got everything working.

I distinctly remember my team lead, Amir, and coworkers like Ali, Stefanie, and Erich. Working second shift meant our lunch break was usually a mad dash. We'd pile into Erich's black Honda Prelude, and because I was six-foot-two, I always claimed the passenger seat in the tiny coupe. We'd crank up Dream Theater, race somewhere to grab food, scarf it down, and hurry back before setting our status back to "Ready" for the next call.

More than twenty-five years later, I still text Erich every year to wish him a happy birthday.

A Place of My Own

I don't know exactly why I left EarthLink. What I do know is that I found myself out of work for a little while.

To help me get by, my dad agreed to renovate my friend's mom's garage into a studio apartment. Instead of getting paid, he horsetraded for my rent, and I helped him with some of the work. That project taught me a few things. I learned how much I hate hanging drywall and spreading mud. I learned that accidentally grabbing 240 volts can make your arm go limp for a few minutes. I even learned how to install a PTAC next to a brand-new exterior door.

I loved living in that little garage apartment. The PTAC kept the place ice cold, which was exactly how I liked it. It was the first place that was truly my own. My first Pentium 4 sat in the corner of that room. It was also where I watched the Twin Towers fall on September 11.

The daughter of my dad's best friend helped me land a job at a pool supply store in Plano. My manager was Ken, and I worked alongside his son and daughter. We were a tight-knit group, and I quickly discovered there was an entire world of pool equipment that I had never thought about before. I found it strangely satisfying to keep track of inventory, making sure we had enough impellers for the common pumps, grids for Pentair D.E. filters, wheels and ball bearings for the Polaris 360, and staying in touch with our supplier, SCP.

Before long, it became clear that I had a knack for computers. The company's IT Manager was the one who really entrusted me with technical responsibilities, giving me opportunities to troubleshoot systems and step into that role more seriously. At the same time, Ken trusted me in a different way. Whenever something went wrong with the point-of-sale system, the thermal receipt printer, an executive's laptop, or the network, I'd usually get the first crack at fixing it. But beyond that, he trusted me personally, not just as an employee, but as someone he could rely on. Those little detours into IT quickly became my favorite part of the job.

On January 1, 2002, I moved into my own one-bedroom apartment. It was about 500 square feet, on the first floor, just a few minutes from the pool store. The weather was dreary that day, and my mom helped me move everything in. I mostly slept on the couch because I thought it was more comfortable than the bed.

The pool industry hit a rough patch, and I was laid off. It was the first time it had happened to me, and it took a while to process. At the same time, I understood the decision. Most of the company was family. I wasn't.

About a month later, I accepted a technical support position at TelVista supporting QuickBooks. After a week or two of training, it felt a lot like being back at EarthLink. The biggest difference was that we could reach out to a higher tier for ideas if we got stuck. One of my teammates had long fingernails because he was an incredible flamenco guitar player. It was the first time I had ever heard of flamenco.

TelVista only lasted about five months. It never quite felt like the right fit, and my friend Derrick let me know about an opening at Experian in Allen that paid more.

Experian was different from anywhere else I had worked. I could wear whatever I wanted, so I usually showed up in punk band T-shirts, oversized JNCO jeans, dark blue hair, and piercings in my ears and lip. During training we processed mail all day, and somehow I became ridiculously fast at it. By the time we graduated and joined the rest of the department, people already knew who I was. The blue hair probably helped.

Once we hit the floor, we'd rotate between processing mail requests and helping customers over the phone. I always preferred the mail because we could put on headphones and listen to music while we worked. My catty-corner cubemate, Ed, introduced me to bands I had never heard before like Stabbing Westward, Dishwalla, Eve 6, Guster, and plenty of others. More than twenty years later, whenever "Right Now" by SR-71 comes on, I'm immediately back in that cubicle because Ed took the time to hand me his CD binder.

Derrick expanded my playlist even more. He introduced me to Blue October and a local Dallas band called Edgewater. We saw Blue October together at least twice, including a show at The Aardvark in Fort Worth. We also caught Edgewater several times at Club Clearview in Deep Ellum. Those bands became the soundtrack of that season of my life, and I still think of those concerts whenever they come up in a playlist.

Derrick also taught me how to drive a stick shift. His Chevy S-10 needed a little extra gas when taking off, and he had far more patience than I deserved while I ground the gears. We'd drive to work together, hang out after work, and he eventually trusted me enough to drive his truck even when he wasn't in it.

Even though I wasn't at Experian very long, the people stayed with me. Derrick, Skye, Ed, Alina, Lori, Josh, and Camilla all became part of that chapter of my life.

I had no idea that someone from an earlier chapter was about to change the direction of the next one.

Building the Help Desk

The day I left Experian, I talked with Erich. I don't remember who called whom, but somewhere during that conversation he mentioned that he was helping start a small help desk for Hanson Building Materials of America in Irving. The pay was better, and he thought I'd be a great fit. We had already spent countless hours troubleshooting dial-up connections together at EarthLink, so he knew how I worked. He asked if I'd be interested in talking with his boss, Rob.

A few hours later, Rob called.

He lived in North Carolina at the time, so the interview happened over the phone. It didn't last very long. Between Erich's recommendation and whatever Rob picked up during that conversation, he wanted to move forward. A week after leaving Experian, I was driving to Irving to start my new job as a Help Desk Technician.

The drive from my apartment in north Dallas wasn't exactly short, but I didn't mind. I was excited to be working with Erich again.

The office space had recently been remodeled, and they gave me a tiny office tucked away on the inside of the floor. It felt like a janitor's closet. The door almost seemed like it stretched all the way to the ceiling, even though I know it didn't. Inside was a desk, a chair, a computer, and a phone. There wasn't much else.

The help desk was brand new, and most of the company didn't even know it existed yet. We'd log every call in Lotus Notes, solve whatever we could, and route the rest to the local IT technician who actually knew that office and its people. Since we supported locations all over the country, that happened quite a bit. Some days we didn't receive a single call. I was tempted to turn off the lights, crawl under my desk, and take a nap. Eventually people figured out they had a help desk, and those quiet days became less and less common.

Most of our calls were password resets, printer issues, or general Windows support. Every now and then someone would call needing an AS/400 batch unlocked, and we'd route it to the right person. There wasn't anything glamorous about it, but I genuinely enjoyed helping people.

One of my favorite parts of the job was getting to know the local infrastructure team in Irving. Jim, James, Jessica, Joe, Ty, Chad, Gordon, Kurtis, Glenn, and Alan never made me feel like I was "just the help desk guy." If I had a question, they answered it. If I wanted to understand how something worked, they took the time to explain it. Sometimes I'd just wander back to their offices and hang out for a while, listening to whatever they were working on or asking questions. They knew Windows, Exchange, servers, networking, and just about everything else. I soaked up every bit of it.

Jessica quickly became one of my closest friends. We went to Chipotle more times than I could count, usually talking about work or whatever else was going on in life. She drove a Nissan Frontier and eventually started dating Bart, who worked in the Hanson office. They got married a few years later, and I was there along with Joe, Jim, and several others from work. More than twenty years later, our families are still close. My wife and I have stayed with them in San Antonio, we've watched each other's kids grow up, and every time we're together it feels like no time has passed.

A few months later, the company decided to invest in the help desk. One corner of the office was remodeled into a real support center with about a dozen cubicles, televisions on the wall showing the call queue and other statistics, and an office in the back for our manager. Our little two-person help desk had become an actual department.

That's when Billy, Mike, Rivers, Joe, and several others joined the team. More than twenty years later, I can still picture each of them. I can hear the sound of their voices, think about the things they enjoyed outside of work, and picture where they sat in that room. Joe and I especially hit it off. He introduced me to Battlefield 2, and I've been a Battlefield fan ever since.

Not long after we got married, Rob surprised us with an incredible gift. He offered to pay for our flights to Seattle for our honeymoon. He only had one request: while we were there, spend a day at the Tacoma office so I could meet everyone in person. It seemed like more than a fair trade.

We spent our first couple of nights at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront and did all the tourist things we'd only ever read about. We wandered through Pike Place Market and grabbed coffee at the original Starbucks, stood beneath the Space Needle, and treated ourselves to an unforgettable dinner at El Gaucho.

One afternoon we decided to drive up to Vancouver. As soon as we crossed the border, a bit of anxiety took hold because neither of us knew what to do with the flashing green traffic lights. Rather than trying to figure them out, we stopped at a bookstore in downtown Vancouver, grabbed a coffee, and immediately made our way back to the States.

For the rest of the trip, we stayed in Bothell. On the day I visited the Tacoma office, we took the opportunity to continue on to Mount Rainier. Another evening we drove out to Snoqualmie Falls and had dinner at Salish Lodge overlooking the waterfall. It was one of those meals and one of those views that you don't forget. Until this trip, I'd never seen a real mountain or a true waterfall.

Then it was back to Texas, back to Hanson, and back to the little help desk office that had become home.

I had great managers before Hanson. Ken immediately comes to mind. But Leo was the first manager in my IT career who intentionally invested in me as both an employee and a person.

When we moved from our simple Lotus Notes ticket database to Magic Help Desk from Network Associates, Leo noticed how interested I was in learning it. He sent me to Columbia, Maryland, twice for week-long training classes. I couldn't believe a company was paying to fly me somewhere, rent me a car, and put me in a hotel just so I could learn new software. Driving from the airport to the Courtyard by Marriott by myself, eating dinner at Carrabba's, and spending a week learning something new felt like a huge adventure.

While I was in Maryland, I had the chance to visit one of our plants in Jessup. After talking with so many people over the phone, it was genuinely fun to finally shake their hands and put faces with the voices I'd been hearing for months. Back in Texas, Jim or Jessica would sometimes let me tag along on trips to Bridgeport so I could get some hands-on experience outside the help desk.

Leo also had an open-door policy that wasn't just something people said. On particularly frustrating days, he'd let me come into his office, shut the door, and vent. We'd talk through whatever problem I was dealing with and figure out what to do next. I never felt like I was wasting his time.

Somewhere during all of this, I started writing code again.

Magic Help Desk was surprisingly customizable if you were willing to tinker with it. I started building a few small internal tools to solve problems for our team, and before long I was teaching myself ASP.NET 2.0 and Web Forms. They weren't big applications, but they scratched an itch I'd had ever since Hall C. It was my first real experience building software on Microsoft's platform instead of writing PHP or CGI/Perl.

By that point, I was convinced I knew where my career was headed. I wanted to become one of the infrastructure guys. I loved getting to spend time in the server room, following Jim or Jessica around, and learning everything they were willing to teach me. I figured that would be my next step.

Then an opportunity came along that required something I never expected nor wanted: leaving Texas.