Sell Your Cleverness

It struck me recently that it has now been three years since I retired, and I haven't written any programs, scripts, or HTML pages in all that time. Not one. In a sense, of course, that is precisely what retirement means: you have stopped working, your accounts have lapsed, your administrator passwords have been terminated, and all the accumulated, undocumented knowledge you carry around in your head has been retired, too. Access denied! I can almost feel the empty space in my head where it used to be. But, still, I'm surprised: I had come to think of my modest code-cutting adventures as a core part of who I had become, and fully expected to continue them into retirement, perhaps even writing some apps for smartphones that would make me stinking rich.

But, no. Of course, I also haven't done any meetings, seminars, appraisals, training sessions, or conferences in that time, either. But I was never going to miss those aspects of a working life; who would? Conferences abroad are fun for a few years, but air-travel, hotels, and tedious afternoons in sunless seminar rooms quickly pall as you get older, particularly if you have to juggle childcare arrangements. I do miss the people, mostly, but then almost all of "my" people have moved on or retired, too. I think what I most sorely miss is the daily craic on the smokers' table* in the Staff Club at morning coffee-time, but then that pleasure had already come to an end years ago as the number of smokers (and "honorary smokers") declined, and then finished off by a ban on smoking indoors. Somehow, skulking in a corner out of the wind and rain is not conducive to life-enhancing gossip and banter.

But what about all that computer stuff? Do I miss it? All the operating systems, hardware configurations, and coding languages I learned, the systems and project management expertise built up over 35 years, or the highly-specialised data-handling expertise acquired? What will happen to the part of my brain that used to get such regular exercise? Well, I suspect it has already and quickly been occupied by another, more colourful part, suppressed for too many years, like a defunct office space eagerly turned into an artist's studio. Besides, if I'm honest, in my final years of working I found that coping with the constantly accelerating pace of change was making me anxious and unhappy. Working with IT eventually teaches you two profound life-lessons: first, that all your achievements are ephemeral, to be washed away in the next tide of change and, second, that nobody understands or cares what you have done, anyway. Instructively, after 30 years of service I received a perfunctory retirement letter from the central university administration, the main burden of which was to remember to hand in my keys before I left.

I suspect I may even be becoming a neo-Luddite. As I wrote in an earlier post, I have come to regret my role in the dumbing-down of university life, much as I enjoyed every minute it. What fun it was, to rise to the challenge of planning a major project, and what pleasure was to be had in meeting and overcoming all the technical problems thrown in our path! This, despite the knowledge that (repeat after me) your achievements are ephemeral, to be washed away in the next tide of change, and that nobody understands or cares what you have done, anyway.

But, when the basic strategic direction is wrong, all this counts for nothing. Or as the motto of my secondary school (not to mention the City of Edinburgh) has it, nisi dominus frustra:

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it:
Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Psalm 127

The planning and, um, execution of Stalin's gulags may have been perfectly brilliant, but history will award no prizes to those who actually devised and carried out such massively complex programmes of bureaucracy and logistics. Which does seem a little unfair. Although, even if Stalin had turned out to be one of the good guys, I expect history would merely have sent them the standard form letter, thanking them for their contribution, and reminding them to hand in their keys.

In the end, this is probably hard but fair. Cleverness unconstrained by wisdom may yet be the downfall of our species. Think of so-called Artificial Intelligence, which we might usefully think of as humanity's attempt to outsource its own most distinctive feature, perhaps best represented by that traditional cartoon of a man sawing off the very branch he is sitting on. Over my working life I have witnessed several waves of happily-employed, good, ordinary, decent people being made redundant and their lives rendered purposeless by clever technology. It sometimes seems that technologists will not rest until the last opportunity to enjoy a meaningful life through work has been eliminated. The advent of AI, of course, will be their final ironic triumph: cleverness itself will have become redundant! When, I wonder, will it dawn on those setting our strategic directions that the pursuit of efficiency, productivity and profits by automation and the elimination of expensive, fallible "human resources" is not the point: people are the point, and not the problem!

In the words of everybody's favourite 13th century Sufi mystic, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī: Sell your cleverness, and buy bewilderment. You know it makes sense.

* No, not crack smokers, fool!