I started out a field tech for an industrial firm. My industrial job killed my body. 110+ degrees in the factories, heavy chemicals back when safety was a joke, impossible hours and crawling thru hell on earth to trace a control problem.

Decades later I ended up a CTO. The more I worked, the more I realized it was impossible. Everything was impossible. It could never be secure enough. I could never have enough faith in my vendors to sleep at night. Everything in every direction was terrifying, and we were good at it. You just couldn’t be good enough.

I wished I had stayed a field rat. That CTO job broke my mind. Now I’m that nutjob that won’t let people use my WiFi, they go on the visitor walled off WiFi. My kids can’t install apps without permission. I check my home network logs and have alerts set up for everything imaginable.

I read stories like this and it gives me PTSD.