Life and Work - a conversation with an Engineer
John is a fantastic network engineer. Stocky, well built, sharp penetrating eyes, a drawling southern accent - he was probably the most attentive in our group. He asked questions in a manner that is unlikely to offend anybody, interjected his studied comments with a gentleness that enhanced the quality of subject being taught without deviating from the topic- John presented himself as befitting a professional with over twenty years of networking experience behind him. His knowledge of network transport protocols was almost eerie to say the least. He would talk of bytes, zeros and ones, routers, TCP layers - in such intimate tones that an outsider happening to overhear would definitely assume something is wrong with him. Probably – a mental imbalance. His standard line over the last five days “Network packets don’t lie”. He was sitting next to me, and so both of us developed a bond that comes when two individuals are in a similar quest to understand technical nuances. We arrived early