The day the time loop broke
I was sitting in my small townhouse, furnished in Network Operations Center chic-the kind of setup that screams midlife crisis for someone over 40 who traded dreams of innovation for endless maintenance of failing systems. Blinking LED lights and wall-mounted monitors spewing meaningless graphs gave the room a frenetic glow, while a surplus of ethernet cables sprawled across every surface like tangled vines. Next to me, a half-drained IPA sat warming on a stack of coffee-stained AWS certification manuals, its bitterness mirroring my own. The faint hum of unemployment-induced despair was broken only by the mocking brightness of my laptop screen, its cruel light highlighting the crow’s feet etched onto my over-40 face. The LinkedIn job board stared back at me, barren as a Nevada salt flat.
Cloud engineering, once the golden ticket, had become a goddamn trapdoor. My laptop screen glared back at me mockingly, its cruel light highlighting the crow’s feet that years of late-night deployments had etched onto my over-40 face, the LinkedIn job board barren as a Nevada salt flat. Cloud engineering, once the golden ticket, had become a trapdoor.
That’s when the email arrived:
“Congratulations! You’ve inherited something spectacular.”
I figured it was spam-maybe one of those crypto schemes that promised the moon but delivered existential dread. But curiosity is a cruel master, and besides, it wasn’t like I had meetings to attend or code to deploy. The email was signed by an estate lawyer representing someone named Aunt Diane. A vague memory surfaced: a reclusive relative who showed up at family gatherings long enough to scare the kids with theories about black holes and the NSA. Apparently, she’d died, leaving me the sole heir to her “lifetime’s work.”
Two days later, I stood in a dimly lit storage unit that smelled like mildew and unfulfilled dreams. The space was packed with all the trappings of eccentric genius: stacks of dog-eared physics textbooks, jars of mysterious liquids, and a box labeled “Do Not Open Unless Absolutely Necessary.” And there, beneath a tarp, was the machine.
It looked like the bastard child of a waffle iron, a Soviet-era computer, and an Apple Newton. Wires snaked out from every corner, and a greasy Post-it note was slapped onto its side. Written in Aunt Diane’s manic scrawl:
“CAREFUL. THIS ACTUALLY WORKS.”
Time travel for dummies
At first, I thought it was some hoax, but the journals she left behind told a different story. The diagrams were nonsense to the average eye, but as a former cloud engineer, I could spot the logic hidden in the chaos. It ran on an almost insulting amount of power: one Red Bull and a double-A battery.
After hours of deciphering notes and Googling quantum mechanics on stolen Wi-Fi, I flipped the switch. The machine roared to life with a noise that sounded somewhere between a jet engine and a garbage disposal. The air shimmered, the walls melted, and suddenly I wasn’t in the storage unit anymore.
I was in a conference room. Beige walls, fluorescent lights, and the faint whiff of bad coffee. The year? 2009. And on the screen at the front of the room, a PowerPoint slide read:
“Snake People and Gen Z: Smarter, Faster, Better?”
It was a snake-oil pitch, plain and simple. Thom, the consultant, was pacing the room with an air of practiced charm. The audience watched him with a mix of mild awe and the kind of detached interest reserved for infomercials. A few heads nodded along, their pens scratching down notes as if Thom had just unlocked the secrets of the universe. He was a slightly effeminate pretty boy, his suit tailored just enough to hint at vanity but poorly chosen in color-a shade of blue that screamed “trying too hard.” His hair was meticulously styled, every strand gelled into submission, and his tone was a syrupy mix of smugness and fake sincerity. His gestures were exaggerated, as though he’d spent hours in front of a mirror practicing how to appear effortlessly dynamic.
“They’re parseltongues!” he proclaimed. “They multitask, they innovate, they’re not bogged down by outdated processes.”
The room nodded along a sea of suits eager to buy into the fantasy. I could almost see the thought bubbles over their heads: Finally, a reason to cut salaries and hire interns to do real work.
This was it. Ground zero. The exact moment when the myth began: that knowing how to open 47 tabs in Chrome somehow outweighed decades of experience. I clenched my fists. My unemployed, overeducated, and deeply bitter soul couldn’t let this moment slide.
Rage against the timeline
I didn’t plan what happened next. It was pure adrenaline, mixed with the simmering fury of every time I’d been ghosted after an interview. I marched to the front of the room, yanked the clicker from the consultant’s hand, and faced the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, my voice tinged with the desperation of a man who’d eaten nothing but ramen for three days. “Let me make this fucking clear: you’ve been conned. Hoodwinked. Sold a pile of glitter-covered horseshit by this fraud up here.”
The room froze. The consultant’s mouth hung open like a broken garage door. I didn’t care. Years of pent-up frustration spilled out in a rant that was equal parts manifesto and fever dream.
“You think multitasking makes them smarter? Smarter than the people who built the systems they use every day? You’re shoveling so much crap you should be charging for fertilizer. These kids can swipe a touchscreen, sure, but have they ever been knee-deep in a server room during a power outage? Do they even know what a goddamn kernel panic is? I doubt it. I’ve spent nights patching code under the flickering glow of fluorescent lights because some VP-bless his clueless soul-thought ‘last-minute feature’ was a perfectly reasonable ask at 2 a.m.”
A murmur rippled through the audience. One man in the back nodded. Encouraged, I pressed on.
“Innovation comes from failure, from experience. Wisdom isn’t something you can Google in five seconds or learn from a YouTube tutorial. It’s earned, painfully, over years of trying and failing.”
Thom tried to take back the stage, adjusting his tie with a theatrical flourish, his carefully manicured nails catching the light as he attempted to regain control of the room. “Now, let’s all calm down,” he began, his voice oozing condescension. “We’re here to talk about innovation, not get bogged down by… outdated grievances.”
That was it. I snapped. “Outdated grievances?” I barked, feeling the heat rise in my face. My temples throbbed, and I could feel the sweat forming at my hairline, fueled by a cocktail of caffeine, anger, and a deep-seated need to expose this smug bastard for the fraud he was. “Thom, you wouldn’t recognize a real grievance if it bit you in the ass and sent you a bill for therapy. You’re up here talking about ‘innovation’ like it’s a buzzword buffet, but let’s be real-you couldn’t fix a printer if your life depended on it. Innovation comes from people who’ve been in the trenches, pulling apart broken systems, and fixing shit you can’t even begin to understand. So spare me your smug, manicured bullshit!”
Thom’s face reddened, but I didn’t stop. I pointed at his slides. “You think you can slap a few pretty graphs up there and sell this crap? You’re not a consultant. You’re a goddamn motivational poster with legs. You wouldn’t know real work if it punched you in the face.” I turned to him, my voice dripping with venom. “And you,” I said, pointing dramatically, “have never configured a router in your life.”
The tipping point
The room erupted. Some clapped. Others looked horrified, their faces a mix of disbelief and grudging respect. Thom-or as I now called him in my head, the Prince of Bullshit-stormed out in a huff, muttering about lawsuits and the ‘unprofessionalism of time travelers.’ Someone’s pen clattered to the floor in the stunned silence, and I seized the moment to hammer my point home. A Boomer in the front row raised his hand and asked, “So, what’s the alternative?”
“Simple,” I said, my voice rising as I jabbed a finger at the audience. “Stop treating experience like a liability. Stop this fucking narrative that younger is automatically better. Sure, the next generation has potential, but potential means jack shit without someone to guide it. Train the next generation, don’t worship them. Do you want real innovation? Combine youthful energy with the hard-won knowledge of people who’ve been in the trenches. That’s where the magic fucking happens.”
It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it struck a chord. By the time I stepped off the stage, I could feel the timeline shifting. Maybe it was foolish for a guy over 40 to believe he could change the world, but at least I’d given it a shot. A small dent in the absurdities of modern work culture, but a dent nonetheless.
The fallout
When I returned to the present, things had changed. Not drastically, but enough. The job boards were a little less insulting. Entry-level positions didn’t demand 15 years of experience. The myth that kids were born smarter than everyone else had faded into the background, replaced by a begrudging respect for experience. As for Thom, the Prince of Bullshit? He rebranded himself as a LinkedIn ‘authenticity consultant,’ peddling half-baked platitudes about vulnerability while hawking overpriced webinars to gullible middle managers. When I checked his profile, I couldn’t help but laugh. The irony hit me like a freight train. Thom-the slick, preening consultant who once paced a stage with the confidence of a soap opera heartthrob-was now paunchy, slightly balding, and sporting a Van Dyke beard so pretentious it practically screamed: “I’m deep, I swear!” The once-pretty boy was now paunchy, slightly balding, and had grown a ridiculous Van Dyke beard like he was auditioning for a role as a discount philosopher.
I’d like to say I landed a great job, but the truth was less glamorous. The time machine ended up as a conversation starter in my townhouse, nestled among the glowing monitors and racks of old servers, and I still spent most days writing code and dodging recruiters with unrealistic expectations. But at least now, I could sleep a little easier knowing I’d done something small-to restore sanity to the world.
And that, my friends, is why you never underestimate the power of a time machine, a grudge, and a can of Red Bull.
Originally published at http://willkelly.blog on January 11, 2025.
Will Kelly is a writer, strategist, and keen observer of the IT industry. Sometimes he writes fiction. Medium is home to his personal writing projects. His professional interests include generative AI, cloud computing, DevOps, and collaboration tools. He has written for startups, Fortune 1000 firms, and leading industry publications, including CIO and TechTarget. Follow him on X: @willkelly. You can also follow him on BlueSky: willkelly.bsky.social.
