Desktop Management with Dad
My father passed away in 2008. Today, April 2nd 2021, is exactly 13 years since he passed away. On the anniversary of his death, depending on how I am feeling, I will often post some kind of memory. Here’s what I wanted to talk about this year.
One of my Dad’s many achievements was writing a book. Desktop Management with Novell Zenworks was published in 2000 by the tech documentation publisher, O’Reilly. He was an IT Manager at Cambridge University at the time, and already had over 15 years of experience under his belt.
While I was naturally proud of his achievement, being a teenager at the time, I was far more interested in drawing animated characters than large-scale computer management software. My brother was always the IT person; he and my father connected in that way a lot more than I did at the time. He later followed in my father’s footsteps to pursue a degree in computer science. To me, the contents of the book might as well have been in Russian, and the subject bored me blind. Nevertheless, I received a copy (signed of course). It remained in my book collection, cherished but unread.
Over a decade later, and several years after he passed away, my career path somehow ended up in IT. It was not what I had planned, but was nevertheless successful. I was several years into my IT career before I thought to open his book.
When I finally did start to properly read it, not only did I actually understand what it was about, something also became very clear: I was doing essentially the same job as he was back then. Suddenly, the book transformed from a boring tome to steadfast career advice. It brought him back to life in an unexpected and deeply meaningful way. I will never be able to talk to him about IT stuff, but this book suddenly became a worthy substitute.
Amongst the largely tech-specific writing, many quotes stood out that resonated with me. For example:
Users have good long-term memory; they rarely remember the things you did right and always remember the things you did wrong. As long as you keep communicating with them and helping them, they will comply. If you complete the [software] rollout and alienate the users, you will have won the battle but lost the war.
Not only did that paragraph make total sense to me; it was already my personal approach. Aside from having useful advice, it is written proof that I am more like him than I ever realised.
The problem with IT literature is that if you write about a specific version of software (as my Dad did), it becomes outdated almost immediately. A year after it was published, I found his book in the bargain bin at a bookshop for £1. (We both thought this was hilarious.) It is now out of print and has been for some time.
The monetary value of the book is of no consequence. 21 years later, it is one of the few remaining ways left for his daughter to connect with her father, and not something Amazon can put a price on.
