Troy Taysom – ProModel Development

In the technology world I’m ancient.  I was alive during the Vietnam War—enough said.  When I started my career at ProModel, two and a half years ago, it was a major change for me.  I had worked with technology but never in technology.   I knew that I would have to learn a new vocabulary but I had no idea the extent to which my language skills would be tested.  My first day in the office a raging debate was taking place about Star Wars and Jedi powers, superheroes and video games and which ones were more powerful.  The words that my fellow employees were using were English but it might as well have been Klingon.  Luckily for me, I have three teenage sons and I texted them furiously for translations to what I was hearing.  Hey, what’s a rogue?  Is getting ganked bad?  Do I need to join a guild?  Did episode 4 really get made before episode 1? Are Marvel superheroes better than D.C. superheroes?  Who should I say is my favorite superhero?  Can Batman defeat Spiderman? MMO, RPG, was I back in the army?   My confusion was overwhelming.  Apparently this type of knowledge is required to work in the bowels of the software development world.  I studied feverishly at home with my sons.  I needed to know what WOW was and RL.  Who shot first Han or Guido?  These facts were absolutely vital to my survival in this new world. I also didn’t realize that being called a geek was just fine with them, in fact they call themselves geeks; not to be confused with nerds those are the accounting guys.  As time passed I found out that WoW is World of Warcraft and RL is real life.  I even own my own superhero tee-shirt now—Aquaman, I like being different. Getting ganked is bad and I’m a rogue.  Guilds are clubs and yes Lucas made the episodes of Star Wars out of order.  And no matter what George Lucas says—Han shot first.