What Colors the Steel Sky Blue

Every day new people come into our lives, much like new voyagers to a ship. Some depart quickly leaving not much for a trace, others stay on for days, months, decades. It is not the length of time that really leaves the mark behind however it is sure to factor into the depth of the mark.

When I left New York, I would like to believe that some people actually missed me. I know my cousin missed me, as I missed him in my life. Perhaps other people I met along the way in those brief 2 years missed me for a month or two. I hope they still remember though I do not know why I hope so.

Either way with my arrival in Austin, a lot changed in my life including a new job, a whole new group of coworkers. Amongst this team was my work-partner, my number one team mate, my other half to be: James Salisbury. I met him during the new employee orientation. A tall dark haired man with prominent and marked bone structure that not only exuded confidence but also created a sense of safety -- a sense of comfort. It seemed like we were going to get along just fine and I was relieved because I know I can sometimes be difficult.

Well, the honeymoon did not last long. Within a couple of weeks we were already in "I want to do it this way", "you want to do it this way" kind of disagreements. In fact after the first couple of months it became apparent to me that we were not going to get anything done unless one of us gave up his personal preferences and played along. And this I did, although every bone in my body screamed that this was not the right course.

I let James create our technology plan, I let him come up with the specs. He loved to work, and heaven knows he seemed to be working hard. He was putting in the hours and I was supporting best I could. At least I thought what I was doing was good enough. Well it wasn't; not for him anyway.

Most of our exchanges started or ended with "why did you do the following task this way as opposed to that way", "you wrote so and so code wrong, it does not work", "no it's all broken, you were busy so I rewrote the entire thing". At first I thought my skills were rusty from such an extended unemployment. But then I realized the number of things I could successfully do was getting smaller every day, leaving me in charge of fewer and fewer tasks I was considered competent to do.

My boss insisted on keeping the two of us as equivalents although both of us at different times had volunteered to work under the direction of the other. So the clashes continued. Yes we were equivalents, with the exception that most of the team only listened to his recommendations while blatantly ignoring my input. He sounded so calm, so calculated, so knowing. Sometimes even I doubted if I was the one full of shit and if he was right all along.

So I shut up, I tried to keep my quiet, I tried to play along. I tried to work with him. But it became more and more impossible until I just could not take it anymore. So after one of our usual "you can not do it right" exchanges I decided no more -- a line had to be drawn here.

I scheduled a meeting with my boss and related the situation. At the time my boss was almost completely unaware of the clash between the two of us. He was shocked, surprised, and a little confused as to how to proceed. I asked him to not intervene and let me handle it. I was merely informing him ahead of time so that he would not be caught by surprise when I acted differently in project meetings.

Right around the time I started to open up and be more vocal about my problems with the ways things were in the team, James started to shy away from us all, started retreating into his corner where he typed at the keyboard incessantly like a deranged racoon. All day long, he would back typing away, looking up questioningly if I dared to leave my desk for five minutes.

He frequently asked me why I was coming in late, or why I was leaving early on some days. Days I took for sick leave, or comp time were frequently questioned. He was acting like my boss, trying to manage my time, asking me questions one should not really ask a coworker of equal rank.

I just could not take seeing him right there at the other end of the unobstructed room any longer. So we both went to Target and bought Japanese screens for the room. So the walls went up and soon we did not offend each other with our faces. The walls quietened the stress for a while but instead of chasing it, the screens actually were the beginning of the pressure build up that would eventually erupt one day right when I expected it least.

I defined my work and my tasks by things James did not want to do or was not interested in doing. So the work flow was even partitioned off into tasks only I would do and others only he would do. And believe me my set of tasks always were prey to his ever endless free time and his way of just knowing how to do my job better than me.

I have never been in a job before where I had to almost beg to keep my tasks on my plate. Like a big dog, not only he chowed down his tasks but always had his eyes on my dish. It just did not make sense; I am sorry it just did not.

I tried to communicate with him several times either in person or e mail and every time I was confronted with his singular opinion about how I was doing things wrong and how he was completely unmistaken. The whole experience was a lot similar trying to talk some sense, some objectivity into the religious right. I could gab all day but when it was all said and done he was right and I was wrong.

I am willing to fight any fight and willing to try to win anyone over, time and time again. Heaven knows, I am stubborn at times but that actually means I do not give up on people that fast. I still had not given up on James and I wanted it to work but it just didn't no matter how I changed my role in the team. I tried the project management, production management roles. He would not have it. I was not out to position myself to be his boss, all I wanted was to help him organize his coding efforts but he was not even open to that.

So we went around in circles, with me retreating into my corner and my set of tasks for a while then getting another burst of courage to venture out and try to get things to work with him and back again. This whole pattern was observed by him as "Troy is checking in and out of the project." And this expression became his equivalent of "flip flop" argument the right wing used against John Kerry. Every time I brought something important up, it was disqualified by the fact that I checked in and out of the project.

While this was all going on, we did have months of peace especially around the time he was busy with his wedding plans. I even went to his wedding and it was a great experience to be there. To this day I still do not regret going to the wedding.

So you can imagine how mixed up my head was after two years of this, hot, cold, warm, scalding, freezing, cold, hot and everchanging experience. The feeling of not knowing whether I will be ignored or put down during any given day was messing with my head.

In times of distress I reach for chocolate and it is the one thing I must avoid because it gives me migraines making me even more irratable and angry. Well I plunged into the world of conspicuous chocolate consumption and I knew, I knew some days I would walk into work -- especially in those last few months, with the WORST of all attitudes because the hangover migraine from the day before was hurting so bad.

We had no project plan, no deadlines, no clear milestones... hell we did not even have a technology plan nor any form of achitecture document. Did I mention we were developing in Java?? Exactly.... I begged and I begged, I prodded and prodded for months to get him to sit down and create an architecture document or some high level tech plan at least but it was useless.

One day I walked in, dazed by one of my migraines to find James all braced like a cat in his corner, ready to pounce. I was not sure what was going on but I knew nothing good would come of it. Before I could say hi, I was asked to hand over the code I was putting together for him so that his code could talk to our database. When I asked why, I was told it was because I would be gone for a week for vacation. Apparently, by taking vacation, I would be setting back the project. Mind you, no one at this point had informed me when my chunk of the code was supposed to be ready. Suddenly he was done with his code and needed my code before I left for vacation. When I told him it was not finished he told me that he can finish it. Now normally, I would appreciative of such an offer but with him we had a precedent -- and not a good one. I knew right then and there what was going to happen. My code was going to be thrown out once more, and replaced by his code which strangely looked like my code but had no functions, and nor any object oriented style worth mentioning.

You see this pattern had been taking place in the last two years where I would prototype something, he would take it away from me and turn it into his code and then proceed to delete my version. My documentation from servers would vanish, my experimental code folders would be erased or not tolerated for long on the servers. I could not believe that I had been working at this place for two years, I had so little to show for it -- everything was so rewritten, so erased, so taken offline... Any trace of my work was practically erased and I had had enough.

I told him no such hand over would happen and that I would finish the code and document it once I get back. Well that kind of opened the flood gates. Next thing I knew he was telling me that I was a risk to the completion of the project, that I was refusing to communicate with him, work with him, etc. It was such an accusatory, you you you did this, you did that, you're wrong attitude combined with a raised voice that I was not going to sit there and listen to him. I told him to voice his concerns to our boss if he is so concerned and that he can not communicate with me in this manner.

Silence ensued.

For three months, we must have only said "good morning" in the morning and "have a good one" at the end of the day. Otherwise we did not talk to each other, we did not work with each other, hell we did not look at each other.

My anger lasted longer than it has lasted for anyone in my life. I could not even bring myself to look at him on many days.

He kept to himself. As usual he talked to no one else beyond who's on our immediate team of five. He kept the bare minimum 8 hours -- mostly coming in at insane early hours and leaving at 4PM sharp. I on the otherhand came in as late as I could, usually at 10:00AM and left at 7PM. Subconsciously and secretly our schedules were overlapping each other less and less every day -- until we came to a point where it was almost impossible to schedule a meeting with both of us at the same time.

Long story short, he left without a warning right before the Christmas break of 2004. The day he came in to announce it, we were so shocked but I just could not keep the completely inappropriate smile off of my face. I was a little upset still, upset that he was going without a warning, leaving us in the middle of an already broken production schedule. He was the reason the schedule was so broken and I had never for once told him so. In fact where I come from we spend a lot of time complaining about the small things but never wipe people's face in mud for the big things. It is considered rude and unkind. For big things, you try to help and support people. Well James had certainly fucked us up with the uncertainty he created in our team for two years, by messing with our morale, by messing with our egos, by making what should have been a fun stressless job into one of the most uncomfortable and stressful projects I have worked on.

My project team talked a lot about James after he left. He was the subject of many lunch and hallway conversations. So I feel somewhat justified to deliver the following message on behalf of my team:

James, thank you ever so much for nothing. We love you, respect you, and wish you the best -- just don't come back.