I’m in a shared office at the first startup I worked for. My desk phone rings. It is the director from the larger startup that was acquiring us. He’s never called me. I’ve only briefly spoken with him at some company get-togethers. On this day, he wants to talk about a problem we were having with a signature customer, ADP. He tells me, “Vince, between ADP and you, we choose you”. And I know this meant we had already lost ADP as a customer and the only choice was whether to fire me or not.

I’m in a focus room to interview a candidate for an opening on my team. The table in the room is somehow at my knees. Not useful for taking notes. As I ask my questions, I keep thinking this candidate is a “good guy” and I’d like to work with someone like that. I checked myself - what happened to my standards?

When I started interviewing for Microsoft, I studied and practiced the formal process. Two proficiency areas to probe, one culture area. Make a definitive call - hire/no-hire. On the fence is a no-hire. Be able to explain your decisions with specific reasons, ie “seems smart’ isn’t a reason. We interviewed a lot, in some periods 20% of my time was spent prepping and interviewing. And humility aside, I was good at it.

It’s the summer of 2005 and my days are spent reading, running, spending time with my toddlers, and going to an endless string of dinners. I am by choice unemployed while trying to relax and trying to figure out what I want to do career wise. I am a tech burnout at 39. On one of these summer days, I find myself browsing That’s Beijing’s jobs section. I find one that looked interesting - teaching English for use in IT settings - and I fire off an email inquiring. To my surprise, I got a response almost immediately with an interview set up the next day.

When my father retired at 56, I remember he would play golf a couple of days a week and go on long bike rides on other days. I remember him in the TV room watching The Newlywed Game. At some point a father of a childhood friend asked if he’d be interested in working part time as a “starter” at a golf course. A “starter” is responsible for taking golf reservations, collecting the money, and organizing the first tee. A kind of cashier. After my dad was there for a while, he asked me if I wanted to be a starter too.

I leave the gas station after my first shift with a stomach ache. Fumes. In 1982 leaded gas was still a thing. Regular, Unleaded, and Super.

I remember that first day. It was a trial run at a full service gas station on Linden Ave in my home town. My brother Pat and I were introduced to the job by a neighbor who was already working there. Cars would pull into the station and I’d ask what kind of gas they wanted and for how much. Then I’d place the gas nozzle in the tank and wash their car windows. Pretty simple and it wasn’t very busy, only occasionally needed to handle two cars at once. At the end of my shift, I met the owner and he remarked how good a worker my neighbor was - even for a small guy. I was arguably smaller.

I’m in bed, lying on my back, when the hotel room door opens. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. Door closes, a shuffling of feet. A moment passes and then the footsteps get closer. I feel a man standing over me. I make my body still.

This is at a work offsite in 2014 or so. The man standing over me is my assigned roommate who I don’t know very well. I do know that even though he decided to leave the company, he still went on the offsite. He saw it as a reward.

If you’re a creative, you know the gap between the vision in your head and what you actually build. You may end up disappointed, frustrated, delighted. The gap gnaws at you and forces you to either give up or close the gap. I am working on closing that gap.

Recently, I was looking for a project to work on. I wanted to feel productive and to me that mostly means creating. I listen to a ton of podcasts and I also like True Crime. I brainstormed a bit with ChatGPT and landed on an idea - wouldn’t it be great for the True Crime cases that really interest me, if I could get a feed of new podcasts and other case updates on my phone?

A year ago today my alarm woke me at 6am. I needed to be in the office before my colleagues which in itself wasn’t that unique. What was unique was the reason I needed to be in early. It wasn’t for some meeting with Redmond, rather it was to turn in my badge. After 18 years at Microsoft and 35 years of working, my life was about to change. There was no hoopla or formal farewell or retirement gift. And I didn’t want to see anyone on my way out. I was grateful for the two close colleagues I did run into and shared moments with.

In The Bear season four finale Syd confronts Carmy in disbelief. Carmy has been keeping a truth that Syd just can’t comprehend. Carmy’s truth as it relates to me and tech hit me hard (warning, spoiler alert ahead).

Going into my junior year of high school, that would be a long time ago, I could choose two electives. There were some restrictions, like you had to take one from this group and one from that group. It was hard to avoid language studies and I really did not want to study one (a preview of my Mandarin illiteracy). I noticed that instead I could take a class called “Computers”.

“Vince, Vince Allio, come to the stage.” I’m a month into my tenure at Microsoft China and attending an org-wide offsite in the suburbs of Beijing. Terrified of attention, I was hanging out in the back of the ballroom with a few team members. My name is called again and people turn to look for me. I stitch on a smile and make my way to the stage. I am at once hyper aware and completely dumbfounded. I’m handed a small device. What is it? Someone helps me put it on. Headphones connected to a MP3 player. A microphone is placed in my hand. Other foreigners in the org are flanking me on the stage. A song plays in my ear. I’m still dumbfounded. The foreigner next to me, Paul Nelson, starts making strange noises. He’s singing. Something incomprehensible. Then I “get it”, I’m supposed to sing the song I’m hearing in my ears. It takes me a few beats to realize the song is in Mandarin. It’s meant to be great fun.