PhilGastwirth

jerry , 1 day ago to random

Today is my last day at IBM.

I joined Netrex in February 1999 as a Unix admin

In late 1999 Internet Security Security Systems bought Netrex, largely for its managed services business.

In October 2006, when I was the director of IT, IBM bought ISS largely for its managed services business.

I was given lots of opportunities at IBM. Twice I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time and was on a list to be let go, but other parts of IBM decided to pick me up. I once resigned to take a job at Deloitte, and at the time my manager told me that didn’t work for anyone and made it worth my while to stay. For many years, I led an incident response function for the strategic outsourcing business, which was later spun off to be what is now Kyndryl. I learned a LOT. I learned so much, in fact, that I decided to start a podcast in 2012, partly to make myself smarter, and partly in hopes that I could help the industry avoid the mistakes I was seeing our clients make on a near daily basis. I have deep scars from all the big security events of the 2010’s - heartbleed, shellshock, wannacry, notpetya, and many others.

In 2019, I was leading an internal practice around cyber regulations (in addition to the IR role) and ended up helping the cloud business out of a sticky situation. Unbeknownst to me, cloud had been looking to replace their CISO, and in March 2020, they offered me the job. My first big test was leading Cloud through Covid.

I had the extreme privilege to lead a team of 184 remarkably talented professionals. We did some cool things, but I regret the long list of things that didn’t get done.

As well published in the news, IBM took a hard line on return to office, particularly for executives. They gave people like me a choice: relocate to a key site (Atlanta was not one of them) and work from the office 3 days a week (with tight attendance tracking), or be let go. I have been working from home full time since shortly after IBM bought ISS in 2006 - nearly 18 years. I spend about 1/3 of my time at my beach place, which I was not willing to part with. Plus, I fundamentally disagree with the return to office approach and with how people have been treated, so I opted to “let it happen”, and so today is the day IBM terminates me.

I’ve saved up enough money that I can take a break for a while. It’s been 32 years since I’ve had more than a week off work, and at least 20 since I’ve had any sort of vacation that wasn’t disrupted by urgent meetings, crises, and so on. I’m going to spend some time with my family, especially my extremely patient wife, in ways that I haven’t been able to.

I have a very long list of things I’ll be doing during this downtime. I intend to get back into podcasting; I am going to write some including maybe a book; I am going to focus more on the fediverse instances I manage to ensure they are enduring; I am going to way too many baseball games with my wife (she is a mega baseball fan); and I am going to take way too many pictures and hopefully find some creative ways to make money with those pics.

TL;DR: today is the end of a long journey for me, and the start of a new one. And it’s a good day.

jerry , 27 days ago to random

Update on my dad...

For background, my mid 70's parents drove from ATL to Michigan on Thursday to attend my neice's high school graduation. Friday morning, my dad wasn't feeling well and he kept feeling worse. After convincing himself that it wasn't just indigestion, he went to a local hospital ER. While there, he started developing intense pain in his chest. The ER docs hooked him up to an EKG and ran an enzyme test to see if he had a heart attack. They came back clean. But the pain was worsening. The doc administered some morphine, which apparently did nothing. They hooked him back up to the EKG and monitored him for a bit. While monitoring him, he had a heart attack.

The docs rushed him into surgery where he needed 3 stents to open up an artery that was 99% blocked.

He was moved out of ICU into a regular bed today and expects to be discharged tomorrow. He has to wear a defibrillator vest for the next 3 months, while he is assessed for futher treatments. My dad describes the vest as a "bra with metal pop-tarts all the way around his chest". I had a chance to talk to him today and he says that he feels better than he has in many years, other than the pop tart bra.

The doctor told him that the only real reason he was able to survive was that it happened while he was in the hospital. Apparently this sort of heart attack is not one that people commonly survive otherwise.

I am immensely grateful to the doctors, nurses, scientists, janitors, clerical staff, and so on, that gave me and my family the incredible gift of more time with my dad.

jerry , 1 month ago to random

Time for some orchid pic therapy