I would say happy Veteran’s Day, but I don’t really think this is an appropriate statement. I have spoken about feelings on veterans on Memorial Day. And to get more technical, a veteran is a living person that served in combat, not just spent time in the military. Despite my feelings on whether our country should have been involved or not, I can appreciate the sacrifice of service.

Growing up, we had a parade in town that was billed as the largest Veteran’s Day parade west of the Mississippi. I was in band, so I was marching in the cold and the rain every year. Since leaving home, I have never had it as a holiday so I really haven’t seen it in a long time. But, I assume this is not the reason that you are here so let’s get into it.

I had in my notes “short chapter, kind of worthless”. What happens is Francisco goes to Dabny to see if she will change her mind about going back to working for the railroad. Of course she will not. This conversation is interrupted by Henry Reardon coming in and loosing his cool.

I won’t say that there is nothing of value in the chapter, the conversation and debate between Dabny and Francisco was pertinent. There are two camps: either don’t support the looters by continuing to work or don’t let the looters win by quitting. Which side is correct? I suppose that it has to do with where you stand on confidence with your abilities, pride in outcome and stubbornness to continue.

I know which side I fall on. Maybe you can guess what it is, but I can relate an anecdote to highlight my stance. I have spoke of this before, but I once ran a program. The people above me were extremely poor running their own programs, hence I would call them looters. In fact, the company was taking money out of my program to prop up these other failing programs. In the end, it was all from the same bucket but the point was taking from me to make them look better.

These people made my life miserable. Misery at work translated to misery at home. But, I was running a successful program. I was happy with my team’s results. We were named a ‘Center of Excellence’ for the company. Along with that success came more meddling to the point where the company took that program away from me in a way. They hired someone to run and expand the program I was running, in effect pushing me away.

That move was explained to me as ‘making my life better’ by reducing my interactions with the looters. What they didn’t realize was that my fundamental success running the program was the only thing keeping me satisfied with my job. In my mind, it simply gave me no possible way to happiness because instead of making my life better, I was more miserable. I had reason to keep fighting when I had something to prove. By being relegated to team lead instead of a program lead, I no longer had that motivation.

So, I quit. The program failed within six months. In fact within a year, the company imploded. I don’t claim that this was all me. Mismanagement left a structure riddled with holes like termites in wood. I was simply a part of the structure that was no longer sound and when I crumbled, so did the rest.

It is not in my nature to quit. For right or wrong, this is one of the few things I have ever quit. I was devastated to surrender my identity but I was also at a point where staying was self-destructive. I no longer wanted to prove something, I wanted to take the whole thing down. I had no other success criteria than a total re-write of the company in my own image. That wasn’t realistic, so I gave into the looters and natural consequences took their course.

End Your Programming Routine: I think that you can see that I side with Francisco. At the time, I didn’t do it with the same intent, it just happened to prove his theory. On my last day, I walked out the door with a small box of my personal belongings. I didn’t leave a single item that was mine, including the business in which I was engaged. I choose the path of force disrupter rather than head on battle for change.