Doing Beautiful Work Inside an Ugly Frame

I have spent 30 years in technology support. Not building apps. Not launching startups. Not moving fast and breaking things. Sitting across from another human being who cannot get their computer to do what they need it to do, and helping them through it. That has been my career. And for most of those three decades, the best part of my job had almost nothing to do with technology.

For me, the best part was the moment a client’s face changed. The shift from frustration to relief. From embarrassment to confidence. The follow-up questions that came, not because something else broke, but because they trusted me enough to keep asking questions that were backlogged in their mind. I learned early that when someone sits down with me and says my computer is not working, they are often really saying something else entirely. They are saying I feel out of control. I feel dumb. I feel like the world moved on without me. The technical fix was the easy part. The real work was the relational experience—being present with someone in a moment of frustration and transforming it into something better. Making them feel capable instead of diminished. Making them want to come back instead of suffering alone next time.

I have taken pride in breaking the stereotype of what a technology support professional could be. In every consultation, I was making a quiet argument that this interaction does not have to go the way most people expects it to. The person helping you with your computer can be patient, warm, genuinely curious about your life, and even funny. That was the work I loved. That was the work I was built for.

Here is the part nobody talks about in IT: the system you work inside often punishes you for doing the work this way. Leadership metrics require speed in issue resolution. The work culture prefers transactions. Management wants tickets closed, not relationships opened. I spent decades doing my job the way I believed it should be done, against institutional pressure to be faster, more transactional, less human. You know what? That takes conviction. It has also taken a toll on me. I was doing beautiful work inside an ugly frame. And after 30 years, I have decided that I am done with the frame—not with the work.

More later...

(also published on LinkedIn)