White Trash Software Engineer

Building large software products is not easy. If you want to persevere long enough to be successful at it, I have found that it helps if you were raised with conditional love, fear failure, and lack self-esteem

My mom’s favourite cinematic moment is the scene from An Officer and a Gentlemen when Richard Gere, with newly minted officer’s commission and freshly-pressed white uniform, marches across the factory floor to sweep Debra Winger off her feet. The film ends with the promise of a life of love and romantic adventure for Winger’s character as she follows her man through a series of exotic overseas air force postings. My mother’s fondness for this film is likely because it mirrors her own revisionist take on events leading to her marriage to my father. The only problem is that my dad—a budding Sapper in the Canadian Military Engineers—sabotaged his commission when he told his commanding officer to fuck off during his officer training in Wainwright, Alberta. As a result, love lifted mom and dad up where they belonged, which was apparently the same place they had started from: Chilliwack

This excerpt is from the book Lord of the Files, published by Thought Pilots.

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