last night, as we were watching mr. robot, there was a scene in which the lead character, a hacker named elliot, has to try to hack into a prison’s security system. now, credit to the writers, most everything they talk about by means of computing, programming and all things tech-related, are extremely accurate. but at one point in the story, elliot mentions that the prison is “running wap2, almost impossible to hack into,” but a second later discovers the solution in that the police cruisers outside have their cameras on a “dedicated 4g system” so now it’s no problem, he can use that to get in.

and that’s when it hit me, i now live in a world where i know he didn’t quite explain that well enough. where he mixed the jargon up just a little too much – mentioning a type of security in one breath, and a type of network in another.

a few years ago, i wouldn’t have known the difference, much less caught it.

i now live in a world where i have enough understanding of how websites are built (or at least, enough to be dangerous) that i can generally tell the difference between one built on a cms (like mine) or one written solely with html, a .css, and likely some java scripting. and yes, yes, i know that really *all* websites are based on html (of course. they have to be, duh) but i’m talking about how the developer or end-user created them. anyway…

before this was my world, i used to live in a world where i was the donna paulsen of the office. at various times in that world, i was different parts of her, either all put together, or whichever parts actually applied to the particular place of employment.

i was the person that scheduled the appointments, met the visitors at the door, fielded all the phone calls (weeding out the annoyances), typing up the correspondence, creating the reports, filing the documents, and cleaning off the desk. i was the one who kept the books, learning on the fly the differences between a general ledger and a general journal (“t” bars, anyone?). i made the travel arrangements – both in a world where travel agents were involved, and later when i could book it all online myself.

in the different parts of that world, i learned the difference between av-gas and jet fuel. a single prop, duel prop and turbo prop. what the hell an fbo was, and how there are thousands of them. i learned how streets are usually assigned their names by the developer, usually with the approval of the electric company, or the county (but not the post office or emergency services!). i learned how huge industrial systems can actually be built to be not only energy efficient, but with little to no air quality impact (if only more companies would actually buy them). i learned that you can really trip yourself up on that mortgage application if you habitually throw out the back page of your bank statement. i learned the difference between an i9, a w2 and a w4; and how to handle payroll taxes and insurance deductions and child support payments. i learned about statutes of limitations, a tro, a mtc and a mtd.

when i entered that world, i was fortunate enough to start with a man who respected me, was willing to teach me, and never berated me. i never brought him his coffee or picked up his dry cleaning. he thought i was crazy when i was willing to water the plants in his office while he was on vacation for a week. he thanked me for every task i did for him, no matter how small. all he ever asked in return was that i needed to be inside his head; sorting, knowing, anticipating. and because of him, as i moved through that world, i learned to expect nothing less from any other man or woman i ever worked for, to respect myself and my abilities, and leave behind those that didn’t.

and of course where i entered that world, i was leaving another behind. one where customer service was key, where profit margins of even .5% could mean the difference between whether or not the regional manager was stopping in to berate the store manager. where mixing paint was an art form, and an exact science. where men bought the wrong tools for the job more often than they cared to admit, especially to the young woman who tried to tell them differently, and wouldn’t accept a return for a clearly misused item. the difference between special orders, warehouse orders and distributor orders. where for years, my schedule was dictated by the availability of dozens of other people.

i hated that world.

in this ever-changing world, the one constant has been that i learned something different. that i adapted. i did all this with only a high school diploma (oh, i could have gone to college, but mom was like, “18 is too young to go live 1,300 miles away in another state all by yourself.” the sheer irony of that statement… but that’s another post for another day). and i did all of this out of sheer determination to better myself, and to have a better life. if i can do it, so many of you can, too. because not only is your world going to change, the world around you is going to change. and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.