In West Philadelphia born and raised. Oh, wait, wrong origin story. Let's start again.
My story began in July of 1981. My childhood in the 1980s and 1990s was probably very similar to most kids growing up then. I had friends. I played sports. I played video games. My parents divorced when I was very young. I do not remember what age I was, but I know I was under 5. I know this because my grandma died when I was 5. She was my mom's mom. I remember getting picked up from kindergarten that day by my dad's parents. I do not think that was strange, but I remember having a strange feeling. It was January. Just a few weeks prior my uncle died, in my grandparent's house while I was there. It was December 26th, if I recall correctly. A week or two after my uncle died, another uncle was taken to the hospital and put on life support. This was a week or so before my grandma died. Her heart could not take losing another child. She was at the hospital visiting my uncle when she asked my grandpa to take her home. She knew she was dying and wanted to do so in her own home. Maybe a week after my grandma died, my uncle was taken off life support. I was very close to both sets of grandparents as a kid. My dad's parents lived in the same city about 5 minutes away from us. My mom's parents lived in Detroit, but it was only about a 15-minute drive from us. We would go to McDonald's every Saturday morning when I stayed with them while my mom would work. Once breakfast was finished we would go to a flea market. I remember buying ninja stars, wrestling figures, comic books, and other random things at the flea market. Now before you start questioning why my grandparents would allow a child under 5 years old to purchase ninja stars remember this was the 80s. Child safety was not a thing. Don't worry, I was never hurt by the ninja stars and I do not recall hurting anyone with them either. I do not remember much else about my grandma except her hatred for Ronald Reagan. She was not big into politics and I do not think she disliked him because of his policies. I think her dislike came from the fact that his addresses to the nation interrupted the television shows she wanted to watch.
I said I liked video games and thinking back I would say that video games helped influence a lot of my choices and got me to where I am now. I would say I grew up in the golden age of video games. Sure, graphics are better now, but video games were fairly new in the 80s. I remember playing an Atari 2600 at my grandparent's house when I was very young. Pong was the first game I can remember playing. That might be why I consider it the greatest game ever made. Super simple, but very fun. The first console I had was a Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short. Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt was my first game on the NES. I remember playing many of the classics. I played The Legend of Zelda, all the Mario Bros. games, and Metroid. The two games that stick out the most to me on the NES were Friday the 13th and Jaws. These games stand out not because they were great games, but because I did not get very far in them. They were difficult games, but as a young kid, I remember thinking that if the movies were great the games had to be even better. Now, as an adult, I know that rarely are video games based on movies any good. I owned a Sega Game Gear, not a Gameboy, a Sega Genesis, a Sega Saturn, and a Sega Dreamcast. I wish I still had all of these consoles. The video game system that made the biggest impact on my life was the Nintendo 64. I own this when it was first released. A few of my friends had one as well. We were in high school so video games were a big part of our lives. The wrestling games on the N64 were the best. Yes, the graphics are better now, but something about those N64 video games just appealed to me. I have revisited these games, both on original hardware and through emulation, and the appeal is still there. The very best friends I have ever had in my life are probably the reason the N64 has had such an impact on me. I have not spoken to these friends in probably 15 years, and one of them is no longer with us, but I can say, without a doubt, if one of them called me up and needed my help, I would be there. I was an only child and these 5+ guys were like brothers to me.
I mentioned, in the previous paragraph, that one of these friends was no longer with us. I remember it like it was yesterday. My son was almost 1 year old. It was a Saturday and I was working my milk route. A friend called me to tell me that my friend had killed himself. I was shocked. I did not realize anything was wrong. This was not my first interaction with suicide. When I was younger an "uncle" (not a blood relative, but basically an uncle) had shot himself. He had borrowed a gun from his brother (I think it was his brother... it was very long ago). I was at the house of the person he borrowed the gun from when he borrowed it. My very good friend killing himself brought a ton of emotion rushing into my brain. I had not spent much time with this friend in a couple of years due to work, getting married, and having a kid, but I had just seen him a couple of months before this happened. We had talked about hanging out more and him meeting my son. This was one of those friends who I would have done anything for. I just wish I had seen some warning signs or that he called me, or that I could do anything. I would give up almost anything to have him back with us.
Around the same time that my friend died, I was also dealing with a work injury. I was a milkman. I did not deliver milk to houses, but to grocery and party stores. It was manual labor. I worked 6 days a week and almost 10 hours per day. I did something to my back. I asked my boss if I could go to the clinic and he denied me. He denied me a few times. This is when I learned to not trust leaders or bosses. I finally could not take it and I took some vacation days I had saved so I could see a doctor. The first few days of vacation, before my doctor's appointment, were some of the most painful I have experienced in my life. I could not walk. I could barely move. I was finally able to see my primary care doctor and I was sent for the normal tests. I had an MRI, an x-ray, and a CAT scan. The CAT scan was read by a radiologist who said I had a slightly bulging disc. I was told an anti-inflammatory and some rest should be all that is needed. It was not. The pain did not get better. I had to go back to work. I suffered for a few weeks before I could not take it anymore and had my doctor refer me to a specialist. Thankfully this specialist asked me to bring the disc with my CAT scan results instead of just trusting the report from the radiologist. This new doctor looked at the images while in the room with me and he was stunned at what the radiologist had said. I had two severely herniated discs. You could not even see the opening that allowed the nerves to travel from the brain to the lower half of your body. He told me to be very careful and that if I experienced any weird issues, such as lack of bladder or bowel control, to go to the hospital immediately. He prescribed some pain meds, anti-inflammatory meds, and physical therapy. The therapy did not work and he said surgery was probably the only option. The first surgery (spoiler alert: I had more than 1) was to cut out the herniated portion of the discs. Recovery from this surgery was not great, but it could be worse, and it would be worse. I went through a few more rounds of physical therapy after this surgery, but the pain was still there. I could still barely move and that was worse than the pain. Less than a year after the first surgery I was going for the second back surgery. This surgery would be removing the two damaged discs and fuse three vertebrae. The surgeon inserted 2 titanium rods, 6 titanium screws, and a titanium mesh around the fusion. Recovery from this surgery was much, much worse than the first. More pain pills, more physical therapy, more sleepless nights. The surgeries were over 15 years ago. I still have constant pain, but the pain is different. I can move.
My back injury was an on-the-job injury so I should be eligible for worker's compensation, right? You would think it would be simple, but it was not. My company tried to fight me on the worker's compensation. It took a few months to start collecting it. I did not make much money at the time and being without income for a week was difficult, let alone for a few months. Finally, I was told I would never be able to work again and that I could collect Social Security disability. OK, well getting Social Security disability should be easy enough, right? Wrong! The government does not like giving people money. They deny the first attempt to get disability. I was told, by numerous people, that they deny it without even looking at the documentation. I had to hire a lawyer. The government made me see their specialist. This "specialist" had an office in an old home, just outside of downtown Detroit. The rooms had the tables that you see in morgues on TV shows. Cold steel. The "specialist" made me lie on the cold steel table. He told me to turn on my side. This was just a few months after surgery. I was not able to lay flat on my back, but I had to. I was not able to roll over to my side, but I had to. He then placed one hand on my shoulder and one on my hip and one hand pushed while the other pulled. This moron was twisting me and the rotation was happening right where I had the surgery. I told him not to do that. He apologized and then did it again. I politely told him that if he touched me again I would stand up from the table and knock his ass out. My day in "court" finally came. It was not really court. It was me, my lawyer, a judge, and some other people sitting at a large conference table in a courthouse. The judge read my evidence and then read what the "specialist" that was hired by the Social Security Administration had said. He then handed me a copy of the report and told me what page to turn to. The "specialist" had said that I was unable to use my left leg for anything weight-bearing. The judge then asked me to turn to one of the last pages where the "specialist" had summed up his findings. Here he said that I would be able to carry around 100 pounds of weight on my shoulder all day. The judge then asked me if I found anything weird about the two things I read. Well, anyone would see that, when put together, the "specialist" was saying I could hop around all day on my right leg with 100 pounds of weight on my shoulder. The judge jokingly said that he, without a back injury, could not carry around 100 pounds on one leg. He then quickly approved my request for disability.
I started on disability in 2007 or 2008. It was incredibly boring. I had private detectives occasionally follow me to take photos or attempt to take photos through my home windows. They could take all the photos they wanted. I was not faking my injury. While waiting to get approved for disability the insurance company decided to settle with me. This is their trick. They know I cannot afford to not have any income coming in and they know that if they attempt to settle they can stop paying me while we negotiate a settlement. My lawyer said I could get quite a bit of money from the insurance company, but I would need to go to court. He said it would take at least a year to get a court date. The insurance company knew this. They had me where they wanted me. My lawyer was able to negotiate a very, very low settlement, but I had no choice but to take it. I had no income coming in and a wife and a very young child at home. This is where my distrust of insurance companies came from.
I had said that being on disability was boring. One day I decided to start studying for CompTIA A+ certification. I had always loved computers and figured this was a good distraction from boredom. I studied for a few months and decided that an A+ certification would not be enough. I decided to look into going back to school. I had spoken to my wife about it and she was fine with it. I decided to start with community college. It had been 10 years since I was last in school and needed to start slow. I brought the idea up to my mom and she questioned it. She said it was probably too late to try to earn a bachelor's degree. She said maybe I should just get some certification or maybe an associate's degree. This is not the first time I had my family not believe in me. Previously I would have listened, but I was done listening now. I went to community college for two semesters and earned 31 credits. I had a perfect 4.0. I decided to transfer to the University of Michigan - Dearborn. I knew computer science was the route I wanted to take. I was an older student but found many other students the same age I was in the computer science program. I switched from computer science to software engineering, but the differences were very minor. A couple of fewer computer science courses and a couple more business-y courses. Since I was told by my family that it was probably too late for me to go back to school because of my age I decided to do what any reasonable person would do. I became president of the computer science honor society on campus and also president of the campus ACM chapter. I earned my bachelor's degree in August of 2013, but earlier that year I started working, part-time, for ePrize.
I already had an offer from Ford Motor Company waiting for me when I graduated. I was working at ePrize to get some experience. I was an intern. I had a terrible fold-up table that I had to use for a desk. I had to find an old monitor so I could have two screens. No one spoke to me. I was never invited to meetings since I was part-time. I only spoke to one person. He is the person who would assign me tasks. ePrize made me a full-time offer as I approached graduation. It was a laughable offer. It was much less than the offer I had from Ford. I politely declined the offer from ePrize. They asked about the Ford offer and when I told them they said they would match. I had a lot of thinking to do. My family had worked for the Big Three when I was growing up. I almost felt some kind of obligation to work for an auto company, even though my family worked the assembly lines and I was going to work as a software developer. I finally decided I needed to forge my path. I chose to accept the ePrize offer. They were, after all, the company that decided to hire a student to work as a part-time developer. I guess this was another feeling of obligation. I am still at ePrize, but we have undergone some name changes. We changed our name to HelloWorld. Merkle bought us, and then Dentsu bought Merkle. I have worked my way up the corporate ladder. I started as an intern and now I am a director, but I had many titles in between. I started full-time as an associate software engineer, then after a year or so I was promoted to software engineer. I stayed a software engineer for many, many years. My leader told me that I was doing the work of a software engineer, but that I had not been with the company long enough to be a senior software engineer. This was a bullshit response, but I accepted it. Eventually, that leader left the company and I had a few leaders after. I was still a software engineer. I was training all of the new software engineers that started at the company. I was becoming a trusted source of knowledge about what we did and how we did it. I eventually got a leader who helped me move up. I was not just a senior software engineer, but a team lead as well. The part-timer who barely knew what he was doing now had people reporting to him. I was a team lead for a few years before another leader I had decided to leave the company. He recommended that another developer and I should take over his responsibilities and that is how I became a delivery manager. My responsibilities greatly expanded when I became a delivery manager, but I knew I wanted to be in people leadership. I did not want to be completely removed from the technical side, but I knew I could help a lot more leading people. Recently I was promoted to director even though I had been doing the work of a director for almost a year.
My origin story is not that much different than anyone else's story. I had an average childhood. I worked plenty of "regular" jobs. Why should anyone care about my story? Well, to be honest, they shouldn't. I am only telling my story to show that anyone can overcome adversity. Do not let people tell you what you cannot accomplish. Do not let people hold you back. You are the only person that knows what you are capable of. Nothing will be handed to you. You must work for what you want.
I was finally there to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.