You Ate Your Cheese (Redux)

Posted on

I wrote this blog post in 2013 for another iteration of this site in another time with different challenges than the current challenges we face. I chose to revive it because it applies again now and will always apply. Watch your cheese supply and get a new source of cheese before you eat it all!

Italicized sections added in April 2020.

Original post from 2013:
“Who Moved My Cheese?” is one of the most popular books in history that addresses change and how to cope with it in your life; however, I would suggest that, for IT professionals and many others, we need an eye-opening, direct book with a title more like, “You Ate Your Cheese.”

You see, the point is that most of the career challenging and life altering work-related changes that occur can be predicted in the technology sector. For example:

  • If you still desire to be supporting Windows 3.1 computers, you ate your cheese.
  • If you still think modems are the best way to connect to the Internet, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think dBase is a modern database, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think Apple is the winner in the mobile phone space, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think InfoSeek is the best search engine, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think Colorado Jumbo 250 tape drives are still a good backup solution, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think Zip drives are the greatest external storage solution ever made, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think 802.11b wireless is fast enough, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think you can control every device users bring into your environment, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think Commodore will make a comeback, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think Windows XP is here to stay, you ate your cheese.
  • If you think Mac OS X will win the OS wars, hmmm, let’s wait and see.

Addendum 2020:

  • If you think the old way of working will be the future way of working, you ate your cheese.

We will never go back to the way it was before the COVID-19 outbreak of 2019/2020. Was it as bad as “they” said? Did “they” inflate it with ulterior motives? Were “they” just innocently wrong about how bad it was based on “their” models? Was it as bad as “they” said? I’m writing this in the midst of all the lockdowns and, I must say, however these questions get answered – it doesn’t matter! It really doesn’t matter because it is whatever it is and our lives will be forever changed. So, if you’re a conspiratorialist or easily believe what the experts tell you, you’re in the same future boat. Get ready for the ride. In the future we will:

  • Not need as big and as powerful network systems in our corporate campuses because fewer people will work at work. How many fewer? Time will tell. I predict an increase in telework by 15-20% minimum over the next 2-4 years.
  • Put more in the cloud, whether public or private, than ever before. Want to work for Amazon, Azure, GCP? Do you know how private cloud platforms work? Are you prepared to shift from legacy Industry 3.0 networks to modern Industry 4.0 networks?
  • Need more experts in “consumer” networking. The home networks MUST work efficiently, consistently, securely, and accurately when corporations need to trust those networks. And, no, an expert in enterprise networking is not automatically an expert in consumer networking. Very few such true experts exist – mostly people who service primarily small businesses.

Return to original post:

This should be enough to make the point. You eat your cheese when you stick with the knowledge you have and do not grow and learn with the industry. If you think you can master a technology and then just work with that for 20 years, you’re in the wrong industry today. Cobol/mainframe durationism is dead. I suggest that you consider returning shopping carts to their storage locations at the local department store. It’s one of the few jobs I know of that is still pretty much like it was 20 years ago. Even in that job, many facilities now have motorized cart pushers to ease the strain on the staff and how long will department stores continue to exist with home delivery? Time will tell that too.

Do you see the point? You must continue learning in practically all jobs these days and this is particularly true in IT. If you find yourself in a situation where your skills are no longer in demand, no one moved your cheese, you ate your cheese. It’s time to become cheesemakers and not just cheese eaters. When you use up all the skill you have, it’s often too late to develop new skills. Cheesemakers develop skills continually. Certifications are a great way to do this, but simply learning new skills that you can apply for your current employer or customers can be a great way to evolve over time so that you never get into a situation where you’ve eaten your cheese.

So, the next time someone tells you that someone else moved their cheese, just look them in the eye and kindly say, no, you ate your cheese.

NOTICE: This post is not intended to cover all scenarios in life and is likely to have missed many situations where cheese is indeed moved by a third party. In such situations, advice from books like Who Moved My Cheese? may indeed be helpful. Individuals should consider this post to be advice only and not a medical, physical, emotional or psychological solution to the trauma induced by the moving of said cheese. When said cheese is moved, ensure proper measures are taken, such as just-in-time delivery of snacks and binge TV shows.

-Tom