johnmaconline

Ever wonder why prices at fast food and other volume-based retail establishments are $2.95, $1.10, and $5.15, rather than $3.00, $1.00, and $5.00? Wouldn’t it just make sense to use round numbers to make it easy on both the customer and the cashier?

Teenagers. That’s why.

Near the end of my summer working as the fry guy at Dorney Park’s Wildwater Kingdom, the shift manager summoned me, “Get your ass to the security office.”

So I did. I had no idea why, but this wasn’t an altogether foreboding request. We got summoned to the security office for a variety of non-scary and non-security reasons — phone call from home, forgetting to sign your time card, a question about a lost and found item, etc. I had been there a handful of times myself. No big deal.

So I sure didn’t expect what was waiting for me inside that office.

I walked through the door and into a group of stern-faced adults that included the head of security (in CHiPS-style uniform complete with mirrored aviators), another security officer (also in uniform, but without the shades), the operations manager for all food services, and the big guy himself — the bodybuilding, 80’s athletic short shorts and string tanktop wearing, dude-permed owner of the park.

My heart sank, my anxiety shot to the moon, and I thought to myself, “Uh oh, I think I know what this is about.”

For just a second, I didn’t move. Nobody did. 

A silence dropped over the entire room for what seemed like an hour. I had no idea what had happened, but now I could smell burnt hair. 

I looked down at the hair on my arms — most of it gone, and what was left was curled up like Christmas ribbon. A coworker looked at me and said, “Dude, your eyebrows.”

My eyebrows were gone, and so too were my eyelashes. My bangs looked like the few remaining follicles on my arms. 

And that smell.

If you’ve ever worked a pilot light before, you know what happened. I pushed and held the gas valve knob, which momentarily shut off the gas flow to the pilot light and choked out the flame. But I failed to twist it so that it stayed off. So as I worked to clean the fry hopper, the pilot light gas trickled (luckily, only trickled) out and built up inside the cavity, just waiting for some dumbass kid like me to come along and present the flame. 

My father-in-law had a great saying, “It don’t pay to be dumb unless you show it.”

I got my money’s worth that day. 

The good news is that now, over 35 years later, I’m extra diligent around gas-fired appliances. Fool me once…And I’ll never forget that smell.

Oh, and this was 1985. Of course, I stayed and worked the rest of my shift.

Now get off my f*#!kin lawn.

In the summer of 1985, I was 15 and worked the inaugural season of Dorney Park’s Wildwater Kingdom. I learned a lot of life lessons in those short couple of months. 

I worked in the burger and fry joint stationed at the end of the wave pool. Get out of the wave pool, and exchange your soggy dollar bills for a refreshing drink, burger, and fries. Yeah, we got ketchup. 

I was the fry guy.

Actually, we all rotated through the various jobs, the fryer was one, but we also made burgers in a conveyer belt oven, slung drinks from the fountain, and took our turn at the window interacting with the public. 

But my favorite job was making fries — I didn’t have to interact with the wet and impatient public; it was a one-man job; and most importantly, I could nic a few fries here and there throughout my shift. 

Today was cleaning day. As the “fry guy,” my job was the fryer. My directions:

1. Turn off the pilot light
2. Drain the cool oil
3. Clean the hopper
4. Fill it with new oil
5. Relight the pilot light

I went at it with fervor. Steps 1 – 4 were complete; now time to fire it all back up.

I reached for the pilot light with the match, and “Phwooooof!”

I can still remember the smell of the first computer I saw and touched. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. I was in fourth grade, and this was the library in Lower Milford Elementary school.

What is that smell? It’s caused by the out-gassing of blah, blah, blah…

It doesn’t matter what it is. Every time I smell it, it takes me back. Directly to that library in 4th grade. The engagement of nostalgia through my olfactory sense. Once I’m there, I can hear the keys’ click and feel their resistance under my fingers.

The first moment that set me on what was to be my professional path for over 30 years.

I remember the smell of the movie theater seats where my dad took me to see Star Wars in 1977 and the smell of the inside of a brand-new Dodge Omni. I remember the smell of the blanket we wrapped our oldest son in to bring him home from the hospital.

And I also remember the smell of the insides of many houses that I worked in doing mission work. I’m not sure what the ingredients are, but it’s the unmistakable smell of poverty. 

Every time I get a whiff of any of these out in the world, I’m immediately transported back to that moment. The story, or stories that surround those moments, make me who I am. 

What are the smells from your past that form the story of who you are?

We have a Holy war in the software development world.

Ours is an ancient topic invoking the same intense emotions as the debates around abortion, vaccinations, and crypto. Developers line up on either side, sling mud, and lose their shit over this topic like we’re all a bunch of toddlers fighting over the yellow dump truck. 

This Holy War is tabs versus spaces for indentation in a source code file. 

On the one hand, it’s as silly as you think. We’re throwing tantrums over whether the tab key will insert a “tab character” (ASCII character 9) or the appropriate number of “space characters” (ASCII character 32) into the file. 

When you look at the file, the outcome looks the same.

But under the covers, it’s way more nuanced. Some languages require tabs specifically. Some editors work better with spaces. Some are agnostic.

As a new engineer, I started out as a tabs guy. Why? Because the person who showed me the ropes was a tabs guy. But now I’m a spaces guy. Once I had built up my own profile of experience, I saw the light. 

So for the tabs people, I’m an apostate. Actually, worse. I’m a fallen angel, a backslider. Or, rather, I’ve carelessly thrown it away. A special place in hell awaits me. But I’m convinced I’m right. 

Here’s the thing about holy wars — no matter what side you’re on, you are always right. Until you switch sides. Then you’re right again.

I had no idea how to respond.

At 22, I didn’t have the experience or skills even to know what to think, let alone what to say. 

So I just mumbled, “Uh, what?” with a blinking stare on my face.

“I’m not going to teach you how to do what I do. You can tell Charlie that. This is what I do. If I teach you, then what am I going to do? They’ll just lay me off.”

So I walked away.  

I didn’t know what to do. I was too afraid to tell Charlie, so later that day, I mentioned it to my friend Jim. He said, “Yeah, I thought that might happen. Don’t worry, you and I will figure it out together.”

So that’s what we did, and it only took about a day of poking around and figuring stuff out.

Sure enough, the company had some layoffs a year later, and Bill was on that list. The very thing he was trying to avoid became a reality, and it had little to do with his skill set or how good he was at his job.  

Professional organizations need grease, not roadblocks. True for humans and true for robots.

I guess people have always been worried about protecting their jobs. It seems like a natural worry.

But we’re wrong to think that not teaching someone else to do our job or help us with ours is the way to protect it.

At 22 and fresh out of college with a degree in Electrical Engineering, I started working at a large defense contractor building satellites. I showed up a shy and unconfident version of myself.

My team ensured the satellites that we built would survive both natural and man-made radiation in space — nuclear survivability. Fancy, right?

My manager Charlie paired me with a few guys, Jim, Tom, and Rob, who helped me get comfortable, figure out what working and contributing in corporate America looks like, and helped me with all of my newbie technical questions.

A few weeks in, I was already growing.

And then, I hit my first roadblock. Charlie asked me to see Bill and ask him to teach me how he does his particular type of modeling. He was overloaded and could use some help.

So there I went — bouncing over to Bill’s desk like an enthusiastic puppy. I mentioned that Charlie had sent me over to learn how he does his modeling and asked when he had some time to show me.

After a pregnant pause, a slow turn in his chair, and a condescending stare down his nose over his glasses, he answered, “Not gonna happen.”

Uh, now what?

He flashed it, looked at us, put his shirt back over it, and kept right on moving past us.

Now I don’t know what to do except quickly deposit the trash and get back to our group as fast as possible. But once we were amongst the group, the whisper shouting started.

“What?! Should we leave? Are we ok?” And so on.

As one of the adults, I figured I should have some answers, but I didn’t. In my context, guns commanded safety rituals and pomp and circumstance. Nobody walks around with one in a waistband. I was knocked off kilter.

Luckily, my adult partner was our local expert and had spent a lot of time in this neighborhood fixing other people’s homes. He gathered us on the front porch.

“OK, let’s calm down. We shouldn’t have anything to worry about. 

Think about what y’all look like to him. He has no idea who we are, but he knows we’re not from here. We’re running around, making a commotion, laughing, singing, and walking all over the place. We got a dumpster out front and trucks with new stuff stopping by and unloading.

This is just his way of showing us that regardless of who we are, he’s prepared. And we should know that.

So let’s be a little more respectful of his space and try to put him at ease.”

Context forms the lens through which we see the world, and personal experience shapes that context. 

Tuesday was the day we saw the gun.

It was our second day of work at Mrs. Williams’s house, and we’re sitting in the marginal shade between the houses, leaning up against the chainlink fence, eating our lunch. The shade provides so little relief, but it’s oh, so important. The July sun in Richmond is unrelenting.

The only thing that comes in second to the workcamp shower is the workcamp sandwich. You get either a sparse ham and cheese or a squishy peanut butter and jelly on smooshed white bread. But it’s the best sandwich you’ve ever, or ever will, until the one you have the next day. By lunchtime, you’re so hungry that you’re eyeing up the giant cockroaches.

Our group of teenagers and adults numbers about ten, and at mid-day on Tuesday, we’re still a cheery and energetic group — breaking into song, laughing, and generally enjoying being together and working.

We were also outsiders, loud, noticeable, and, unfortunately, completely unaware. That was about to change.

One of the girls and I grabbed the lunch trash and headed for the dumpster out front. Coming towards us, on his side of the fence, is Mrs. Williams’s neighbor. A guy, probably around 30, staring right at us as we converge. I open my mouth to say “Hi,” but before I get it out, he tugs the front of T-shirt up just far enough to reveal it.

The handle sticking out of the waistband of his shorts.

I’ve just met Mrs. Williams, and I’ll forever be a better human because of it.

On this particular occasion in Richmond, our job is to replace the floor in her kitchen. I mean, it’s a complete disaster.

The old wood-fired pot belly stove (yup, you read that right) leans to the left because of the rotted floorboards. That lean creates a visible disconnect between the stove and the chimney.

I wonder what the air in this kitchen is like when she fires up the stove. Does she even fire up the stove? Of course, she does. It’s THE stove.

You can’t get to the sink without straddling the 18-inch hole in front of it. Over to the left, daylight shines through a breach in the wall. Look a little harder, and you see the telltale signs of the plethora of critters that also call this structure their home. At first, I’m disillusioned about the breach. But then, I thank God for that breach because the smell is overwhelming.

Mrs. Williams is 82 with a perpetual smile on her face. She’s your grandmother. She’s my grandmother. She’s everyone’s grandmother.

She flits about as we work on her floor throughout the week, always smiling. She moves pretty good for her age, but still, I have no idea how she gets to that sink. Maybe she doesn’t.

She and Mr. Williams moved into this house, a parsonage, a billion years ago when Mr. Williams became the pastor of the nearby Church. Mr. Williams died almost 10 years ago, but Mrs. Williams is like a freight train.

She continues to feed the hungry, smile at the sad, and hug those who need love. The front porch supports a constant stream of people who need what Mrs. Williams provides. Unfortunately, that porch is straining under the heaviness.

She’s kept on keeping on. But now, her house is crumbling like the neighborhood around her.