I am William Wallace

By Alexander Connolly

Essential reading for any aspiring, even mid-tier Information Technology executive, or anybody else with general management aspirations.

"I am William Wallace" is a compelling memoir of one man's determination to overcome rejection at an early age and rise to the highest echelons of leadership in Information Technology. Like the story of William Wallace depicted in the movie Braveheart, that Connolly draws inspiration from, it touches all the emotions that it is humanly possible to experience – excitement, disappointment, elation, betrayal, anxiety, confidence, love, anger, compassion, forgiveness, humor, fear, shock, and awe.

The successes, mistakes, even failures, experienced on the journey by the author and the observed behaviors of the people whom he met along the way, and their impact on him personally, are a must for anyone on the same path, to know, understand and internalize.

Replicating the authors journey won't guarantee the same success but not learning from it will almost certainly herald an outcome more like Falkirk than Sterling Bridge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667834214

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Copyright © 2022 Alexander Connolly

All rights reserved

1st Edition, February 2022

ISBN 978-1-66783-421-4

A fictionalized recollection of a real career in a Fortune magazine ranked company located in the fictitious US state of Delmarva.  The lessons, learnings and observations portrayed herein are based on real life experiences. The advice is as honest as it is heartfelt, and the journey is a well-trodden one.  Following the suggestions, even just internalizing the behaviors portrayed in this book, won’t guarantee a successful career, but not reflecting on them in earnest will almost certainly herald some failure.

Though the behaviors observed in this recollection are based on real life experiences, the events, institutions and/or characters contained therein that participated in actual outcomes, are amalgams of real events, institutions and/or individuals, drawn from the author’s memory. No single event, institution or individual is to be construed as an actual event, institution or individual.

And other than truly historical events, no other external event portrayed in this work is meant to be a characterization of an actual event.  Any resemblance to external institutions or organizations, active or defunct; buildings, standing or demolished; or people, living or dead; is purely co-incidental.

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not meant to characterize actual motive for words, actions, or other behaviors.

To my late wife, Eleanor, my children, James, Maire and Anne, and all the many friends and former colleagues who provided feedback to my manuscript, and organized and upgraded the memories contained therein, into something of possible use, and/or interest, to those at the beginning of the same journey that I undertook. The end of which, I reached on Nov 30, 2017.

To all the unsung heroes who toil in the corporate world anywhere on planet Earth and aspire to get on to the first rung and climb the proverbial ladder to the top or as high as their personal fear of heights permit them to.

Also, by Alexander Connolly:

Corpus Christi

A parable of The Christ,

A tale of The Troubles,

And a story of the Redemption of one Man.

Counterpunch

A tale of a President and three people; two men & a woman, singularly focused on him.

One with the intent to take him down.

Another with the intent to prevent that at any cost, as redemption for past failure.

And a woman who would harness their combined ability for the defeat of an even greater enemy.

Perpetual Sin

A crime, the worst kind of all.  The desecration of the dying on the battlefield.

A curse, one with no end, and that takes innocent life mercilessly.

And a race to lift it all before it claims its next victim.

Contents

Foreword.

I shall tell you of William Wallace.

First Learn to use this.  Then I’ll teach you to use this.

So, you’ve got children.

I’d say that was rather less cordial than he was used to.

All men betray.  All lose heart.

Go home.  Some of us are in this.

Sons of Scotland.

My hate will die with you.

You have bled with Wallace.  Now bleed with me.

MacCaulich.

Use up the Irish.

We’ll make spears.

So, he accepted our bribe.

You will embrace this rebellion.

I will invade England.

But men don’t follow titles, they follow courage.

There is one clan in this country.

Unite the clans.

This Wallace… he fights with passion.

They fought like warrior poets.

Freeeee-dommmmm!

Epilogue.

Outquotes.

Appendix 1: A spear like no other.

Appendix 2: Arrows to go with spears.

Foreword.

Not everybody knows about Braveheart I am sure, so let me begin with a little bit of a reprise.  It is the academy award winning epic directed by, and starring, Mel Gibson.  It won Oscars for both best picture and best director in 1995. Unbelievably, this year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of its release. An unlikely winner, it heralded a partial rebirth of the historical epic, which had hitherto fallen out of favor.

It is the story of William Wallace who became the accidental leader of a rebellion against England in early fourteenth century Scotland, though many said that it was fast and loose with the truth.  For me that didn’t matter that much.  It was a great movie.  Actually, as I watched it, I was reminded of the old Paul Newman movie, The Life and times of Judge Roy Bean which had as its tagline, ‘This is the story of the law west of the Pecos.  If it is not the way it was, it’s the way it should have been.’  Well, the same can be said of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.  If it didn’t depict Wallace’s story as it was, it sure as hell depicted it, as it should have been.

Released to broadly positive reviews from both critics and moviegoers alike, Braveheart weaved a rich tale of courage, love, loyalty, betrayal, triumph, and despair, that grabbed its audience by the throat and held it hostage in its seat through mesmerizing action scenes interspersed with complementary tenderness and intricate dialog.  The latter of which led to its more than fair share of instantly quotable and memorable lines. 

Also, some of the best battle scenes ever filmed were filmed in Braveheart.  It is a rollercoaster ride that brings out every emotion that it is humanly possible to feel in one three-hour experience: joy, sadness, love, hate; loyalty, revenge; fear, courage; elation, misery; inspiration, despair; shock, awe; admiration; even disgust.

When I first saw it, I was taken by its lessons for leadership. How people become leaders?  Even why they become leaders?  How they behave in leadership positions?  Are they primarily motivated by self-interest or the wider interests of their field of endeavor?  I began thinking about the leadership environment in the company I worked for.  I wondered was I working for an inspirational leader?  Was I motivated to do things because I wanted to do them, or was I doing things because I had to?  I even started to muse was I an inspirational leader myself?  What did people think of me?  Was the environment that I worked in, transparent and empowering, or was it one rife with the political shenanigans prevalent in Braveheart?

To help me I actually watched the movie again. And even began to reference it in my own leadership team meetings.

As William Wallace said to Robert the Bruce in one powerful dialog.

‘Noble and common they respect you.  If you would lead them towards freedom, they would follow you.’

The Bruce looked at Wallace, and Wallace at him.  Wallace then added, after pausing a bit for effect.

‘And so would I!’

Strong stuff.  That got me wondering to myself.

Would I follow my leader? Would my team follow me?

In still another powerful dialogue, Wallace said to the Bruce.

‘Now is our chance, now. If we join, we can win.  If we win, well then, we’ll have what none of us have ever had before: a country of our own. You are the rightful leader, and there is strength in you. I see it.’

He looked deep into the Bruce’s eyes.

‘Unite us.  Unite us.  Unite the clans.’

Powerful stuff.

That too got me thinking.

Were we united behind our leader? Was my team united behind me?

Braveheart awakened something in me.  As well as being more conscious now of my own leadership style, I looked for other dialog lines from the movie that I thought relevant to the environment I was in, and I began to weave them into my alliterative discussions with my teams over the years.  I knew I had made an impact when at my retirement celebration, one of my team shouted over to me.

Freeeee-dommmmm!

She was echoing the last memorable line spoken by William Wallace at the end of the movie.  Though my anticipated experience of freedom was more palatable than his.

The remainder of this book recounts my experience over a rewarding career spanning almost forty years, and how elements of this great motion picture found its way into my learnings and my teachings as I worked to lead and be led.

I hope you enjoy reading this fable as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Alexander Connolly

February 15th, 2022

I shall tell you of William Wallace.

These are the openings words of Braveheart.  They harken a tale of an unlikely hero, one of two sons of a crofter who was orphaned as a young boy, but through happenstance rose to the highest levels of prominence in early fourteenth century Scotland. A powerful story indeed. And while the story of one Alexander Connolly is not nearly as interesting, it too had equally humble beginnings in the post-war working-class housing estates of twentieth century Northern Ireland. From there, Alex rose through trials and tribulations, to the highest echelons of executive power in the Information Technology function of a blue-chip marquee-name Fortune 100 company.

I retired from fulltime employment at the end of 2017 after a career spanning thirty-seven years.  Needlesstosay and not surprisingly, I learned a lot during those years as I ascended from being an individual contributor at the bottom of the hierarchy on a remote plant site in Northern Ireland, one of over two hundred at the time, to a team leader at the very top of the global Information Technology function at company headquarters on the east coast of the United States.  I was second only to Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Eva Spliethoff. 

There were countless learnings that helped shape me along the way, but which also had an impact on those around me too.  In my later years I mentored many younger employees all of whom said to me as I shared my journey with them, that I should commit my experiences on that journey to writing, for it would benefit others to know of it, even though they had not been party to any of it along the way.

Though I was flattered to hear this from so many people, I never really thought about doing anything about it until recently, when somebody still working for the company that I retired from, reached out to me to meet for dinner.  This was somebody I didn’t know all that well.  It was somebody who had heard about me, and my willingness to coach, from colleagues of mine that were still there. Anyway, not really knowing why the individual wanted to meet me for dinner, I agreed to meet.

We had a pleasant enough dinner talking about the things that people talk about in these situations: the weather, politics, sports.  At the end just prior to our getting the bill, he asked me if I would help him with a problem he was having at work.  I said sure and asked him what it was.  He described being out of his comfort zone, in that he was being asked to make business judgements now, and not just technical ones.  He was morphing into a new role where it was not technology alone that would drive his thinking, but also the tradeoffs that exist at the intersection between technology and business. He described a situation to me, and he asked me a question.

What would I do in this particular circumstance?

I told him.  I hadn’t said anything that profound, but he looked at me like a weight had just been lifted off his shoulders.  He asked me if he could reach out to me from time to time.  I asked him why he couldn’t just reach out to anybody at work.  He described an environment where everybody is too busy with too much to do, and not enough time and resources to do it with. This applied to his own leadership.

That got me thinking of the fable of the man who was running alongside his bicycle.  He was too busy running to get on to it.  He didn’t realize that if he would only stop to get on the bike, he would go further, faster, and consume less energy. Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.  I told my friend this story.  He liked it and said he would remember it. 

But it was what he said next that got me thinking.  He described a coffee-time meeting with his colleagues, at which one of them remarked to him that if Alexander Connolly were still here, he would have been able to ask him.  The colleague went on to say about how Alex mentored many up-and-coming employees.  He added that they all wished he had left something behind him in print that they could use for reference. I was flabbergasted.  My gast had never been so flabbered.

So it was, on that night, that I decided to document my own experiences.  And I sincerely hope they are as impactful in this form as they were to my mentees when first delivered.

*****

My learnings began long before I started work.  Like most people growing up with a mother and a father, much of what formed me was from them, and in my formative years.  Give me the boy until he is seven and I will show you the man. That is as true today as it was then.  But much of life’s learnings come from outside the home, and at pivotal moments in the journey. The first such lesson for me was at the junction between primary school and secondary school.

In Northern Ireland where I am from, at the time I was in the education system, there was a selection test at age eleven.  Those that passed that test went on to grammar school, and those that failed it were destined for intermediate school.  Grammar school was more academic in its curriculum and was geared toward those who would work more with their brains than with their hands.  Intermediate school was the opposite, more vocational in nature.  Most of its graduates went on to vocational jobs.  I was expected to pass that selection test and go on to grammar school like many of my friends.  I didn’t pass.  I failed.  I was rejected at eleven.  That’s what it felt like: rejection.  All of my friends, who were similarly academically minded, as I was, passed.  We would now go to different schools, likely with different outcomes affecting our future.  The vast majority of grammar school students go on to third level education whereas the number of students from an intermediate school who go on to third level education can be counted on one hand.  Not two hands, one hand!  The odds were against me.  My mother suggested that she pay for me to go to a grammar school, and that I take a repeat selection test in a year’s time.  I knew we didn’t have the money so I asked her not to do that.  Instead, I committed myself that I would be one of those few students from an intermediate school who would be counted on that one hand.  And I was.

At the end of seven years of secondary education, I was admitted to Queens University, Belfast where I studied Computer Science. Though I must say, even at university, I carried with me a bit of an inferiority complex.  I didn’t know it, but it was very common in that first year for new acquaintances to ask what school you went to, and the vast majority of them went to prestigious grammar schools.  They almost outdone each other to boast about their school versus others.  I could only rather sheepishly say that I went to an intermediate school.  Nobody gasped but they didn’t have to, their faces said more than their words.

This whole experience gave me a bit of a chip on my shoulder.  In a way I had to prove myself.  I had to do better than them.  Though later in life, I realized that I didn’t have to prove anything to anybody, except possibly myself.  I actually came to appreciate that individuals develop at different rates, both mentally and physically, and that eleven is too early to be judging and streaming people down different paths. Paths that largely dictate the opportunities afforded to them throughout their life.  I learned that if you believe you can do it, you actually can do it.  I did.

University proved to be challenging.  I was always good at numbers, so I oriented myself toward the Faculty of Science where I enrolled to study Pure Math, Applied Math, Computer Science, and Physics.  Physics was a choice just to fill out my schedule.  It was a poor choice.  As it turned out, I didn’t have the basic grounding in the Physical Sciences that I needed to succeed at university.  I quickly found out that I was out of my depth.  But rather than soldier on and likely fail, a mentor advised me to drop out of that class and enroll in another that I was more comfortable with.  I did that.  I enrolled in Geography instead.

This was an important lesson for me. Don’t do something just for the sake of doing it.  I had chosen Physics rather nonchalantly.  So, knowing when you have reached your limit was something that I became very conscious of.  I would reach that same conclusion two more times at university: one year later in Applied Math, and two years later in Pure Math.  Computer Science on the other hand was a new subject where I was at the same starting position as everybody else, when I started it in my first year. I was not at a disadvantage, and I liked it.  Being mildly obsessive compulsive, I was drawn to its fundamental base in Logic, so as I reached my limit in the other subjects, I pivoted over to Computer Science more and more, in effect making it my single honors subject by the time of my graduation.

These basic learnings, That there are different rates of individual development and knowing one’s limits, remained with me throughout my professional career.  I was acutely conscious of the speed at which I was learning new things versus other people, and I was acutely aware of when others were struggling.  That led me to develop empathy toward helping them.  And I did.  Actually, I enjoyed doing that.  So much so, that I wondered if my secret calling was to be an educator.  Though whether it was or wasn’t, I wouldn’t find out.  My job search would take me into industry. I graduated in Computer Science in July 1980, although I guess what I graduated in by today’s standards would be considered Ancient Computer Science. But it got me my first job out of university.

My degree required what in the UK is called a sandwich-year, a year in which you take a break from studies and go work for a year.  In the US this is called an internship.  At our college, this sandwich year was done in the penultimate year before graduation.  This experience was a great one for me.  I was privileged to work at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland.  That definitely looked good on my curriculum vitae.  Though I have to say, my ability to get into CERN gave me another life lesson.  That having the basic ability to do something, while it is necessary, it isn’t always sufficient.  Sometimes it is also about who you know. In this case, the lecturer in charge of work placement had a nephew in the same class as I, though I must state that I knew this individual for three years before I came to know his uncle was in charge of the work placements.  The placement in Switzerland was a plum.  I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t have been successful in my application on my own, but equally so, I can’t rule out that I got the option because I was a good friend of the nephew of the individual in charge of placements.  Needlesstosay, this nephew got the same option. 

And together we went off to Geneva for a year.  It was a priceless experience and one that definitely contributed to my getting top tier job interviews and subsequent offers.  Mind you, it was with mixed feelings that I left for Geneva when it was time to go.  In the intervening time between submitting my application, getting my interview, and actually leaving, I found true love.  It was with a fellow student named Eleanor Kerr.

*****

And my tale with Eleanor is a fable rich in content, almost Shakespearian in nature.  We met for the first time during our fresher year at university in Belfast, and honestly for me it was love at first sight.  First sight love that was not returned but which did not go away.  A love that I kept to myself, being the shy unassuming person that I was.

Now, at the end of the year at the college we attended, there was an annual formal ball held in May.  I asked Eleanor to go with me, not directly but via a friend. Not surprisingly, I was turned down.  Afterall, if I couldn’t ask her myself, she must’ve thought, I was being put up to it by somebody else and didn’t really want to go with her.  She couldn’t have been further wrong.  I later of course realized the supreme irony that if I had asked her myself, she would have gladly gone.  I kicked myself.  Anyway, I did go with somebody else, the sister of a friend of mine, though neither of our hearts were in it. It was a strange night indeed.

Eleanor didn’t go, and I never saw her after that before the university broke for the summer.

Over that summer I had a summer job delivering wholesale goods that took me through Eleanor’s hometown on many occasions.  I prayed I would see her but I didn’t.  I didn’t see her again until we were back at university for the new year.  I could see that she was going with someone I knew, a so-called friend of mine.  Eleanor mightn’t have known how I felt about her, but he did.  He shouldn’t have done that.  It hurt.  It was like a kick in the you-know-where!  I immediately resigned to forget her and pledged to go to the US for a semester to do just that.  And I did.  I even got a girlfriend over there, not a love-at-first-sight girlfriend but one that I believed would exorcise the ghost of Eleanor Kerr. It did.  Though, alas, that exorcism did not last too long.

Sure, when I returned, I was very matter of fact indeed.  I could take her or leave her and I did, but one night in the library, Eleanor and I were alone together.  And we talked at length.  My heart melted and the love-at-first-sight experience returned.  I was putty in her hands.  By the end of the night I had been invited down to her student home to show her, and her friends, all my photographs of the USA.

I reciprocated by inviting her down to visit my hometown of Larne one weekend.  She said she would go.  I was so excited.  I went down early and got everything ready.  My mother was excited too.  But Eleanor didn’t come!  I was so disappointed.  It turned out that she was as shy and nervous as I was, and basically chickened out at the heels of the hunt.  She hadn’t even the courage to tell me.  She just went to her own home.  She called me over the weekend. I was angry.  I didn’t take my anger out on her.  I just listened politely to her apology.  I didn’t say a lot.  I made my mind up for a second time to get over Eleanor Kerr.  This time there was no melting me like butter on a hot summer afternoon.  I steeled myself. 

And when I saw her the first few times back at college, I just ignored her.  And I managed to do that for a while.  Then one day she came up to me in the snack bar.  I was sitting at a table with a lot of my friends.  I’ll never forget what she said to me.

Are you speaking to me at all, Alexander Connolly? 

That must have took come courage.  I wasn’t speaking to her, but I didn’t say that to her.  I probably said something sheepish.  We agreed to meet for a coffee.  We did later in the afternoon.  And by the end of our time together, as a true glutton for punishment, I had asked her to the February Valentine’s dance.

It was almost two years since I had first asked her to that May ball.  She accepted.  I am guessing she couldn’t say no after what had happened.  It didn’t matter to me why she said yes.  I was just so glad she did.  I later learned that on the afternoon of the dance she had taken to bed because of a bad flu, and even thought of taking a raincheck, but deep down knew she couldn’t possibly do that to me again.  So, she prepared to go.  She took medicine, got ready, and I picked her up.  We walked to the dance together.  I was on cloud nine.  We had a great night that was like none that either of us had ever had before.  We both knew that night, that this was it.  The date was February 14th, 1978.  We became an item on campus.  I was the happiest I had ever been.

Until Geneva loomed in front of me.  I had applied for that during my first nonchalant period.  Now I was regretting it.  I had committed to a year in Switzerland, a year I had to complete, but a year I now wished I did not have to undertake, given that Eleanor and I were soul mates.  It was a test for both of us, out of sight but not out of mind.  We were in contact almost every day by royal mail and we saw each other every three months during semester breaks.  I recall after her departure from visiting me for two weeks in September, when I got back to my apartment, I felt alone like I had never felt before or since. I knew I would see her again at Christmas but at twenty-one, that just seemed so far into the future.  Of course, it wasn’t. I saw her then, and again at Easter.  At Easter when she left, I smiled. I knew it was the home straight. When I returned, we were inseparable.  We got engaged.  I was on top of the world.  I graduated a year later and a year after that, we got married.  And we’re still married today.

You might wonder why I included this experience in a professional memoir.  And I must say I thought about it more than once.  But as I reflected on it, I realized that life lessons come from all facets of life itself.  Through this experience I learned that the road one travels is not always smooth.  Indeed, it can be positively rocky, even strewn with big boulders.  But rather than fall at the first obstacle, persevere.  Strive for the one beyond that, and even the one beyond that.  Life is a steeplechase.  Be resolute in facing its challenges.  Often what was once thought to be gone, comes back round again, and its desirability is no less intense than it once was.  So, remain flexible for a bit longer.  Don’t burn any bridges.  You never know when you might be back at that crossing point again.

I am not going to offer any advice to you in the realm of boyfriend/girlfriend, except perhaps one piece.  When it comes to asking somebody out to a dance, take matters into your own hands.  Do it yourself.  Overcome what reticence you might have.  Shorten the journey to your endpoint.

*****

When I graduated, my job offers included one from Northern Ireland’s premier shipbuilding and engineering company: maker of the ill-fated Titanic and its siblings, Britannic and Olympic.  They also included one from Britain’s premier petroleum company.  And last among my top three was one from a US multinational chemical conglomerate, a member of the Fortune top ten at the time.  All were equally attractive offers, and I learned something while considering each.

The Northern Ireland company had an overwhelmingly Protestant workforce, and being a Catholic, I was conscious of the risks to my safety there, so I asked the interviewer about that.  Remember, at this time Northern Ireland was in the midst of its sectarian strife.  He was very clear about what would happen inside the building where I would work.

I will come down on anybody that harasses you like a ton of bricks, I recall him saying.

I was relieved by that. But he continued.

Out on the shop floor, I cannot similarly offer a blanket assurance.  If an anvil should happen to drop on you from a gantry in the Herdman Channel, I cannot be accountable for that.

Needlesstosay I was not too reassured by that. And while staying in my adopted city of Belfast was an attractive option for me, it wasn’t attractive enough to overcome that risk.

The British petroleum company actually made me an offer right at the time of the interview and put me under some pressure to accept it.  I resisted accepting their offer right there and then, telling them I was waiting on a competing offer from another employer.  That employer was the American multinational chemical company that I was hoping for an offer from. Entreprise de Poudre Noire.  I got it!  It was a great offer, and it was the one that I accepted.  It was in Derry which was overwhelmingly Catholic so that negated any sectarian risk, and it was local.  Also, it did offer the most attractive starting salary.

This whole experience was laced with learnings for me.

Ask not just about the subject matter at hand but about the environment inside and outside the immediate workplace.

Don’t just take the first offer you get.

Take a chance.

Of the top three companies that I got job offers from, the one I chose had the lowest profile in the UK.  Not many people had ever heard of it.  And I have to confess that before the university milk-round, as the process is called, during which employers visit university campuses, I didn’t know much about it either.  Actually, the only company that I had ever heard of, with the same name as the company I was interviewing for, was a French one that made lighters. It goes without saying, I didn’t confess that in the interview. One thing that I will confess, that did motivate me to join a US multi-national, was the prospect that at some point in the future, I might get a chance to visit and work in the US.  I had spent that one summer in the US as a student, and I enjoyed the international exposure in Switzerland, so the possibility of an opportunity to work in the US was attractive.

When I got the confirmed offer of employment, I remember sending a telegram to my then fiancé, Eleanor, with the words, ‘Derry, here we come.’  Telegrams were expensive then, so it was important to be economical with the words but still deliver the message.  We were both very happy.

First Learn to use this.  Then I’ll teach you to use this.

In Braveheart, these lines were spoken by Argyle, William Wallace’s Uncle.  Young William Wallace had just lost his father and brother at the hands of the English.  Understandably he wanted to do something about it.  He picked up Argyle’s heavy sword and tried to wield it.  Argyle took it from him and said pointing to his head. First learn to use this.  Then pointing to the sword, he added. Then I’ll teach you to use this.  This was important guidance for young William.

Today we would say, Think before you act.  Walk before you run.  Or even, Plan then Do.  It was guidance that would have befit me in those early days at my first job.

On the day I started work, it was my third time in Derry.  The first was my interview, the second was my medical, and now the third was the day I started work.  I was apprehensive.  I wondered had I oversold myself! Would I be able to match up?  The inferiority complex that I had consigned to the back of my mind reared its head again.  I was in the graduate recruitment program, so I knew I would be one of many under evaluation for opportunities.  In this regard I compensated by adapting my personality to be a bit more brash that it actually was.  I found myself being driven by the desire for results.  I would write more programs faster than anybody else.  And even though, nine times out of ten, maybe even ninety-nine times out of one hundred it worked, I was wrong to adopt this strategy.  It had me acting before thinking.  I was using my arms at the keyboard before I was using my head to fully think out and document what I would be typing. I was taking more risk than I needed to.  I was a man in a hurry.

One example comes to mind. I had just finished writing and testing some code, and I was getting ready to deploy it into production.  This was DEVOPS before it became fashionable.  In those days we wrote, tested, and deployed into production.  We even were our own system administrators.  But I digress.

As I always did, before I deployed some code into production, I decided to back-up the source-code development disk.  That required mounting the backup source-code platter into a removable disk-drive, spinning it up, initializing it, and copying from the source-code drive to the now blank destination drive. As a safety precaution, I would write-protect the source-code drive.  I had done this many times before, so I was perhaps a bit more cavalier about it than I should have been. I pressed the write-protect button.  Unfortunately, I pressed it on the wrong drive.  I inadvertently protected the blank destination drive, the drive I was writing to, and not the one I was reading from.  That would not have been a problem at all if the rest of my chore was without