In five short years
No one would have foreseen me going into the tech field, least of all me. This was not a straight path.
In high school I signed up for “Keyboarding” because I wanted to learn how to play an instrument. Turns out, it was a touch-typing class. I was like, “Guys, the typewriter is going the way of the dinosaur. No one needs to know how to type!”
Not only was I oblivious to computers becoming a thing, but I was also slow to learn the technology. Especially since I’m not into porn, and cats arrived on the scene much later.
I recall asking my husband what an external hard drive was. He said, “It’s a hard drive…that’s external. What’s not to understand?”
I answered his question with a question: “What’s a hard drive?”
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When I was in ninth grade, I told my father I wanted to be a nun when I grew up. I wasn’t interested in getting entangled in marriage or reproduction or the world at all. I just wanted to be married to the Lord. You know, a typical fourteen-year-old’s fantasy.
“You’d have to be Catholic,” my father said.
Aw, man! There’s always a catch. I’m not any type of Christian, so it wouldn’t even be a relevant stretch for me to become a Catholic nun.
Why can’t there be a generic convent? One that’s not connected with any particular religion.
“We celebrate all Gods here! Or none of them! You’re welcome even if you’re an atheist who just feels like wearing a nun’s habit and working in a garden or scrubbing floors all day.”
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I learned my way around a computer little by little. Typed a few school papers, started blogging in 2006, took a class on Web design. But I was never the early adopter; I remained at the back of the pack. I think I was the last person in America to get a cell phone that didn’t have physical buttons for each letter of the alphabet.
I just love how they’re called smart phones, but we use them for the dumbest stuff.
Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Swipe, swipe. Dr. Google: “What does gonorrhea look like…not because I have it, I’m just curious.” We’re melting our brains watching videos on TikTok, playing mindless games, pretending to text while we’re waiting for our friend to show up.
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All of this is to say, I didn’t plan to go into the tech field. I’ll point to my English degree to back up that statement. Why am I telling you about this? Because you can’t be what you can’t see (said Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund).
Ironically, my only reference for the tech world was Office Space, which I saw in the theater in 1999, long before I knew what a hard drive was. Then I found myself working for a motherboard manufacturer — in an administrative function — without fully comprehending at first what role this particular piece of plastic and metal played inside a computer.
AND THAT’S HOW I BECAME A TECH WIZARD. I’LL TELL YOU MORE ABOUT IT AS SOON AS I CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO TURN OFF CAPS.
A Flick of the Pen 