IT’s All Geek to Me!

By SJ Swampy

The premise for this book was an introspection into Information Technology (IT) which I felt has neither been done before or in this style. All the events and conversations written have all happened and, to reduce folk’s embarrassment, everyone in the book has been given an appropriate nickname to hide their true identity and to add an element of surprise as the accounts explores the various topics of interest, such as leadership, self-discovery or family and friends, which have been essential components for growth from child to adult and to navigate and make sense of the world around. Drawing on my own personal experience to demonstrate a lifetime of experimentation. This book was written sequentially and not intended as a complete chronological order of events, the intent was to start from the perspective of present day with a world in the midst of a global pandemic and drift back in time at relevant points so that readers can gain the sense of the journey, which at times has been hap hazard, unpredictable, difficult, challenging but at time purely majestic.

This book is not perfect and although all the pieces are there to form an almost complete jigsaw, the intent was to create interest and suspense in what would otherwise be a dull, dummies guidebook on what working in IT is like! There are times when language used is raw and the mood is complex, but this book is like a good bottle of red wine; it just needs to be left open for a while. If you don’t have a belly laugh at least once whilst reading the book then honestly, there is no hope for you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Aug 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803139906

SJ Swampy

SJ Swampy is an Architect, Technologist and IT Leader with over 35 years IT experience working across the key domains of networks, infrastructure, applications, data and security. Having worked for many global organisations he has gained a deep understanding of the journey companies need to undertake, to enable business and digital transformations.

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Copyright © 2022 Steven Marsh

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1803139 906

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For my mum and dad, my unconditional love, always…

Together again at last, RIP. Love Steven XXX

Contents

preface

prologue

foreword

the dark days

where it all began

understand the problem

working in the industry

ruddy acronyms

innovation

self-discovery

sales and marketing

leadership

self-improvement

motivation

bits and bytes

family and friends

communication

travel and culture

beyond technology

preface

I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you can get past the dark days this book becomes much more endearing, with lots of anecdotes, one after the other, to take you, the reader, on a journey to keep you entertained and draw you in. The premise for this book was an introspection into an industry, namely information technology, IT, which I felt has neither been done before nor in this style (or at least not according to my Google memory). The working title of the book was always IT’s All Geek to Me but it also had a second title, which was A Long Rope, which will become evident as you understand the journey. All the events and conversations written have happened and to reduce folks’ embarrassment the various stories use appropriate nicknames to hide the true identities of the individuals and to add an element of surprise as the accounts explore the various topics of interest such as leadership, self-discovery, and family and friends, which have been essential components for growth from child to adult and to navigate and make sense of the world around us all, drawing on my own personal experience to demonstrate a lifetime of experimentation. This book was written sequentially and not intended as a complete chronological order of events, though the intent was to start from the perspective of the present day with a world in the midst of a global pandemic and drift back in time at relevant points so that you, the reader, gain the sense of the journey, which at times has been haphazard, unpredictable, difficult and challenging but at times purely majestic. This book is not perfect and, although all the pieces are there to form an almost complete jigsaw, the intent was to create interest and suspense in what would otherwise be a dull, dummies’ guidebook on what working in IT is like! This book is definitely not that and as testament I was once described by an acquaintance as ‘Swampy, you are anything other than vanilla’ – in other words, boring – I very much took that as a compliment. There are times when language I use is raw and the mood is complex, but this book is like a good bottle of red wine: it just needs to be left open for a while. Honestly, if you don’t have a belly laugh at least once whilst reading the book then, honestly, there is no hope for you!

prologue

The narrative starts at a point in twenty-first-century history that will change mankind for the next millennium in ways we probably don’t even understand right now. I wrote this book as a direct consequence of my father’s death from COVID-19 and, whilst that’s an important element and from where the story begins, there is so much more than this being ‘a woe is me’ type of book; it’s a whistlestop tour of the events that have helped shape an ordinary person’s life, in a way that could be considered extraordinary. It has more twist and turns than the Corkscrew at Alton Towers amusement park.

The characters and nicknames used throughout the book are a constant reminder that family, friends and foes are the core ingredients for the recipe of life. Without them there would be no life or, at the very least, the tapestry of life. You may ask, why sixteen chapters? The honest answer is, it’s the day of the month of my birthday and I have used the same philosophy in leadership, which I talk about in this book, and, whilst it’s nothing more than a target, I think by the time you finish reading the book you will agree it’s, well, quite apt and fitting! Thanks for that advice, Wing Commander!

Each chapter can also be used, read and reused for the journey from present times at the time of writing to elementary years at primary school. Characters such as the Bigman and Stuntman Ray have been constant characters in my life and individuals I know I can rely on to always be there; other characters like the Charlies of the World, the Weasel or Captain Nob are reminders of the unpleasantness of doing business in an environment that is hostile and toxic. But others such as Roxy and her husband, Drew, have been constant family friends and we have all shared in each other’s family events. Characters like Billy Bob, whilst short, have incredible influence and I would be nowhere without the likes of the Prof and Eddy to show me endless possibilities without even realising they had. Every interaction, every conversation and every moment in time has catapulted Swampy from humble beginnings, navigated adolescence, surviving school, defying the all the odds from a council estate with little hope but a simple belief and desire to be the best version of myself… The story starts with my father’s passing and the grim reality of a global pandemic and then quickly moves on to understand the beginning of my IT career, the influences and the characters who have helped shape it, the lessons I have learnt along the way and the various stories that have formulated the backdrop to my survival and dogged and relentless determination. I share my passion and I take cheap shots at certain characters as well as endorsing the folks I believe most deserve it. I have lost dear friends along the way, and I try to recount as many of the important stories and lessons learnt as I possibly can. There are, as you expect by the time you get to the end, more stories I could have written and perhaps one day I may write some more, but there is enough content in here to sink a ship, in my humble opinion, and I generally hope you laugh, snigger, grimace, nod in agreement and potentially even cry, although perhaps not all in that order. Just trust me, and I will take you on a journey that will hopefully give you a better insight into IT and provide enough funny stories to get you to the end of the book. Happy reading and, if you learn nothing else from this book, remember the following mantra: ‘fuck that shit’!

foreword

Pretty good so far you have alienated women, hillbillies, conservationists, people with mental health issues and non-technical readers. The Prof

From bytes to beaches, childhood to COVID, It’s All Geek to Me! charts the fascinating life of Swampy, a Generation X IT professional. Roxy and Drew

I would just like to put the record straight and say I am not only one who has been known to proverbially ‘stand on his soap box’, once-in-a-while – perhaps the pot calling the kettle black. The Bigman

Now, having read your book, it all suddenly makes a lot more sense! Stuntman Ray

Why the bloody hell did you go and do that for? Not the book but telling everyone I put ice cubes in your glass of red wine; I won’t do that again – sacrebleu! Bobby (son)

A book full of inspiring stories, I am endlessly proud of you. Can’t wait for you to sell 4 million copies so that we can go on a fancy holiday all expenses paid (no change there, wink face)! Dolly (daughter)

I finally found out what you have been doing for the past 25 years – business trips my eye! Wife

the dark days

At approximately 18:25pm on 8 April 2020 my life changed forever. It was a cold, wet evening and I had just returned from a walk with my son – something I had introduced into my daily life two years previously to help reduce my stress, keep the weight down and try to address my ever-increasing risk of developing type II diabetes. You see, I have always been physically fit, all the usual sports at school and had continued contact sports and the fighting arts well into my thirties. Now, at fifty-plus, I was just starting to gain a few pounds owing to the perceived high lifestyle of travelling (though it has its moments, as you will discover); working away and having a sedentary job working in IT sitting at a desk all day, I had started to pile the pounds on. Not quite a porker, you understand, though I am sure some will argue differently, but I am confident you get the picture.

So walking was – or, more to the point, is – my salvation, one hour every day (well, almost). I am allowed the odd slip and it was working, I shifted about three stone (in old money) and was feeling quite good about myself. But on that evening, as I walked the corner into our cul-de-sac, my phone started to ring and vibrate in my lightweight jacket pocket. Once I retrieved my phone, I just had time to read part of the message from a Good Samaritan who had been in close contact, a friend really of my dad’s who was helping him with a few things. The message went along the lines of ‘I would just like to say how sad I was to hear that your dad had just—’. I didn’t get any further with the message. By the time I looked up, my front door was opening, and I was greeted by my wife and daughter; their faces confirmed everything I needed to know. I looked down at my phone and read the final part of the message: ‘—passed away from COVID-19 a short while ago.’

Honestly and deep down, I knew this was coming: my dad had just passed away! Now he joined the other poor souls who had been struck down by this illness and was now just a government statistic and officially part of the first wave of ten thousand people to die within the United Kingdom from COVID-19. What can I say about COVID-19 that hasn’t already been said? Perhaps the following words from my wife’s good friend Roxy: ‘the fear of a nation’, ‘the anguish of being prisoners in our own homes, when we simply wanted to be with our families and friends’ and I would add the continuous changing and at times conflicting advice, e.g. the two-metre rule, mandatory wearing of face masks, working from home, regularly washing your hands, the traffic light system for international travel and the constant fear of lockdowns in an attempt to break our eternal optimism and spirit. In the future, I am sure, the policymakers and politicians will look back on COVID-19 with some glee having created a world full of paranoia that has given legitimacy to their political agenda – nah, surely not!

Now, I think it’s important to point out at this stage of the book that the reason I begin at this point is context. With context we have meaning, and we hopefully have some level of understanding. Working in IT we need to make sense of things, come up with solutions and to help describe to other lesser mortals, or at least less technically minded individuals, what the bloody hell we mean… After all, I am sure it all seems just like bits and bytes to the majority of ‘folk’ (sorry, spent too much time as a child watching cartoons like Tom and Jerry with that classic line, ‘That’s all folks!’), and often IT is compared – wrongly, I may add – to something mystical, whilst it couldn’t be further from the truth; from my perspective it’s all smoke and mirrors, but I will try to explain all of that later.

With my dad’s passing, I had suddenly hit a new milestone in my life and, if I am frank, I was not well prepared to deal with it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a bloke, full of macho and bravado (most blokes are, let’s face it – and full of shit, most women would think), but full of regret and sadness and generally not knowing how I should feel. Should I be sad? Should I cry? Perhaps I could just laugh, or would it be reasonable for me just be quiet? You need to understand there is no right or wrong way to behave with grief. For anyone who has lost a parent, they will I am sure be able to identify with that. It’s hard to explain; it’s all just very odd and very surreal. No going back in time, no last chats and no more words of wisdom; I can hear my dad now and all of the fathers who have gone before him, simply saying, ‘You’re now flying solo, son.’

For that moment, I don’t give a shit how hard you are, nothing can prepare you for it, that single moment of truth in your adult life. We all know it’s going to happen, but it still hits you like a sledgehammer when it does…

I did that evening what I have always done every Saturday since his passing, and that is light a candle. I wallowed in self-pity, poured my heart out on social media (yep, some of my posts I regret, but, hey, I am just human), and listened to crap music (or at least music that plays on the old heart strings) and I may have polished off a bottle of red wine or two – cheap ones, of course. The news wasn’t completely unexpected nor did it come as a great surprise to me or my younger brother that our dad had died, as the two of us had been in constant contact with the hospital, checking on my dad’s status twice a day, every day, for the previous few weeks.

You see, he had only gone into hospital for surgery in the January of 2020 after a fall at home, where he had spent numerous hours lying on a cold floor. My mum had been unable to pick him up and he had been unable to help himself. Once in hospital and after some X-rays and a formal assessment made by the consultants, it was decided he needed to have a total hip replacement. Because of his age, it was all done under local anaesthetic and, following surgery, it must be said he made quite good progress, and, although he did spend quite a few weeks in rehabilitation (constantly moaning, as only old people can do), he did eventually manage to go home, but, as it turns out, for his very last time.

Which I for one and I am sure the family were forever grateful at the time; I also take some solace from the fact that I did at least visit him in hospital during that period of rehabilitation. Nevertheless, less than twenty-four hours later following his discharge his hip dislocated (you couldn’t make this shit up) when he just tried to get up from a toilet seat; his hip popped out – poor bastard. So, clearly in agony, he ended up going straight back into hospital for a second operation to fix the dislocation. As I had returned from China a few months earlier after a luxury cruise with my good mates Stuntman Ray and the Bigman (but more on them later), I was acutely aware he needed to get out of hospital, and as quickly as he could, because of the spread of this new novel virus, namely COVID-19.

Interlude: if you have ever played bullshit bingo, I think COVID-19 should be struck from the English language; let’s face it, most people, Trump included, think it’s no more than a common cold so let’s call it that. In which case, my dad died of the common cold. Oh, I feel so much better knowing that fact. If you have never played bullshit bingo, here are the basic rules: when in a meeting you record every time someone says or uses words that have been overused: my favourites are ‘think outside the box’, ‘hit the ground running’ or even ‘on the same page’: generally speaking, overused clichés.

I digress. Leading up to my dad’s demise, I would generally call him every day. Each day in his last few weeks of his life he started to become less and less talkative and more preoccupied; I can only assume, consumed by the pain he was suffering. The nursing staff assured me he was being well looked after and occasionally there would be – or, more to the point, he would have – some lucid moments. Each time I called, my dad would start to become agitated (no, I wasn’t after his money and, when I visited him, I didn’t take the tape measure with me to measure him for his box) and so I eventually called the ward sister and asked the obvious question: ‘Did my dad have COVID-19?’ There was a very long pause on the phone… and the ward sister eventually answered, ‘Because of the circumstances, yes, I can confirm your father has COVID-19.’

Now, I know the hospital would have been insanely busy and in a state of immense pressure due to the virus; it would nevertheless have been a comfort to the family if this information had been shared much sooner in the process – perhaps one for the suggestion box and lessons learnt! Fast-forward a week and we continued calling our dad to get one of two daily updates (I did the mornings, and my younger brother did the early evenings). We would then share the relevant information we gleaned, by text, with our mum, who was and is partially deaf – oh, and possibly a little mentally unstable (more on electrical convulsion treatment later); to be more precise and politically correct, she suffers with her ‘mental health’; nah, the Victorian term is so more profound. On one occasion I called the hospital, and I got no answer from my dad, who up until this point had usually been quite responsive and talkative on the phone. The phone rang and rang – it seemed like a lifetime – though eventually a nurse answered my dad’s phone, and she informed me that Eric (my dad, who was eighty-two years young) had taken a turn for the worse.

They had made a clinical decision (without asking the family) to move him to an end-of-life ward, where they would be stopping all treatment, except essential pain relief.

Those of you who have experienced such sudden, shocking news, I am sure you can imagine: I take one almighty large gulp of air and in that moment the world just seemed to stop for me. The words just appeared to buzz in and out of my head and the drone of sad thoughts ran through my mind. In that instant I had to decide whether to drive the seven-hour round trip there and then and see him one last time, with me dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE), before they carted him (literally) to his final hospital ward, designated for end-of-life treatment. At this point of the epidemic, we knew little about the transmission of COVID-19 and he was completely unresponsive. I took (and it will always remain) the most painful and heartbreaking decision, and now one of my life regrets, not to visit him one last time. Not that he would have known I was there, you understand (at this point he was already unconscious), thus to some degree that level of control had already been taken out of my hands, to sit with him for his final moments; it transpired the end-of-life ward would not allow patients (sorry, the dying) to have their relatives present in their hour of need or indeed their final moments.

At this point, in computing terms we would simply call it EOL (end of life); let’s face it, that’s what it is. The next morning, one day after that frightful evening’s text message and that look from my wife and daughter, I drove to the East Midlands Hospital, where my dad had been taken care of and had spent his last moments. I informed our relatives en route (hands-free, of course) of my dad’s passing and then went to collect his remaining belongings (a mere used brown envelope, containing his purse and mobile phone). After the hospital I drove the short distance to my parents’ house to pass those few remaining things on and inform my mum in person. Now here’s a story.

There is me, a fifty-two-year-old IT professional, standing on the doorstep of my parents’ rented accommodation. Explaining to my mum, first with sign language and then with the aid of text message, that Dad had just died and that her partner of over sixty years would not be coming home. Ladies and gentlemen, it was heartbreaking.

Also, funny as fuck as my mum is literally standing two metres away from me looking at her phone, while each text message I sent circled the planet. A pause and then the next message would ping (that little annoying sound meaning a message has just arrived), which is a bit pointless as my mum’s deaf, but a useful cue for me to point at her phone to remind my mum she needed to read the next ruddy message. In total, I stood there for an hour trying to explain what was happening, what would happen next and to give what little support and comfort I could give her at that time. God only knows how much of my carbon footprint I used up in those sixty minutes.

All just very sad, very funny, and emotional highs all at the same time.

My younger brother had also taken the time to travel to see my mum, staying for a similar amount of time and having probably the very same conversation as me. Credit to him, though, he was the one who said use your phone and text her as she can’t lip-read through the face mask. What would the neighbours be thinking? Not that I would have cared, though I have since upgraded (that’s when you replace or improve what you have); e.g. in my case I have a new iPad Pro and am now able to write messages for her on a tablet, which I have done successfully since. I do wish, though, that she would just get a blinking hearing aid!

My older brother, on the other hand, didn’t go to visit straight away. He was without a car and, being a prat, decided to go and spend a few days with her later after I had managed to get his car fixed; well, I thought it was fixed until it imploded (engine overheated) on the way back down the motorway (freeway). You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I went to get him mobile and able to go and see our mum.

We haven’t spoken since. Families, hey, can’t pick them.

At school, my older brother was definitely the sportier and had grand ideas of playing football (soccer) for Liverpool or Manchester United and, as with so many kids with aspirations, didn’t fulfil his potential or at least his dreams! Hardly surprising, when you understand my older brother has this weird and at times twisted attitude and feels society owes him. OK, let’s start with attitude and aptitude on this journey of IT’s All Geek to Me. If you want to work in IT it’s good to have the right attitude, prepared to do anything. I for one, even if I have a well-paid position and my boss asks me to clean the toilets, then guess what? I clean the ruddy toilets. That’s not to say that when asked to do something outside of your pay grade you shouldn’t stand up for yourself and politely say no. But the key thing is being prepared to roll your sleeves up and muck in when you don’t have the necessary resources (people).

The only cliché I will use at this point: remember there is no ‘I’ in team.

No ‘I’ in team sums up my brother and not a thought I have had before, which is strange when I think about it, as he was definitely a team player playing various team sports at school, just not a team player off the sport field. You see, my brother hardly ever socialises and doesn’t particularly like people very much (and nor does my mum when it comes to that). Playing for Manchester United and getting up there to collect his medal at Wembley after winning the 1990 FA Cup final was never going to happen. In fact, he has had many jobs; I remember the one thing that sums him up the best and I still smile and laugh writing this… is him running around a farmer’s shed catching chickens and throwing them on the back of a lorry, ready for the local slaughterhouse (sorry to anyone with a disposition against animals being slaughtered including any vegetarians or vegans reading this).

Whilst I do have some sympathy for the chickens, I seem to remember when I pushed him for what he had learnt from performing that job, he paused for one moment and simply said, ‘I learnt how to grab six chickens at a time’ – or did he say eight? Honestly, I can’t remember.

Anyway, I am sure somewhere that skill would come in handy and, in IT, it leads to multi-tasking. Doing more than one thing at a time. Technically speaking, even computers don’t do that. Yes, yes, yes, I hear the connoisseur of chip manufactures state, multi-cores, quantum processing, blah, blah, blah. In the end, a processor provides time slices of processing to individual processes being executed on a machine. You see, computers are literally quite dumb (a bit like my older brother at times) and they only do what you tell them to do. We can have a debate about machine learning and artificial intelligence and even the schematic internet. Getting bored yet? Sorry about that, though do keep reading as the gossip is later in the book. I do, though, have to occasionally mention the odd bits and bytes of computing and IT in general; after all, that’s what the book’s premise is based on…

Back to aptitude, it’s that elusive quality in folks. I love that word: one of the few Americanisms I regularly use, not to be confused with awesome, which some Americans love to use as if passing a sweet: ‘oh, that’s awesome of you’, or, as I like to say in return, no, that’s not awesome, being the first man on the moon is awesome; passing me a sweet is, well, just nice. Oh, and ‘thank you’ – and that’s me just being polite.

Interlude: even to this day, it amazes me how much you can learn from people even in a short period of time. Even whilst travelling up a mountain in a gondola, connected to an overhead cable for ten or twenty minutes. Moral of the story, and to this day in business whenever I go somewhere new and someone is sitting opposite me, I always take the time and ask them what role or job they perform within an organisation, as you never know if they are important or whether they may be able to help you in the future.

But let’s not split hairs, if we were to say in a decisively slow American but deliberate hillbilly swagger, e.g. ‘awesome’. Reminds me of the time I took my mates skiing to Whistler, which without a doubt is one of my favourite (if not the) skiing destinations on the planet. We met a young Californian lad who spoke really slowly and I mean slowly. We bumped into him waiting for that ten-minute gondola ride up the mountain. Remember the sentiment of always engaging in conversation? We asked him politely how his day was going and what he was up to. Not that we were that interested; just being polite you understand. He responded with a distinctive, but slightly awkward swagger and said, ‘I’m going to meet my girlllllllfrieeeeeend’ and we felt obliged to ask the simple and obvious question of how long he had been dating her.

The young lad squeezed out (and seemed quite positive: good aptitude to life) and said ‘I met her last night…’ at which point I could hardly contain myself. After we had stopped