A Hero To Me

I have heard many definitions of the word “hero.” I have also had many different ideas about who qualifies as a hero to me. The biggest hero in my life is (and always has been) my dad. However, I just added another person to my hero list last night, and just like my dad, this person made the list not by some act he performed, but by being himself in all his actions. Let me tell you about Scott.

I first met Scott a couple decades ago at Microsoft. Both of us worked in the Premier Support group. Scott walked over to my cube to introduce himself and ask a work related question of me. As most of you know, I have been an avid fan of LEGO my entire life. I had LEGO sets all over my cube, including sets sitting on top of my computer monitors (for you kids reading this, there was a time when all computer monitors were CRT [Cathode Ray Tube] monitors, not LCD or LED. They were massive in size). Anyway, Scott leaned against my desk and bumped one of the monitors, which contained the “Sopwith Camel” model. It went crashing to the ground and (obviously) fell apart. Nothing broke. It just became partially disassembled. Scott was extremely embarrassed, but I really didn’t worry about it. It’s LEGO! Just re-assemble it.

Over the next several years, Scott and I had chances to work together on various customer engagements. I delivered a lot of training to his customers and later started performing load testing and app optimization gigs for his customers. Many of those engagements (just like most customer engagements in the Customer Services Labs) were challenging and extremely tiring. It was not uncommon for me to start work at 6:30 AM and continue until 10 or 10:30 PM, every day of the engagement. The customers paid a lot of money to come to our labs and usually only had one or two weeks to do the testing and optimization. They had access to a few Microsoft SMEs who were the best of the best in their fields, and full access to an entire hardware test environment, complete with IT and infrastructure SMEs (the miracle workers who ran the lab equipment setup). The customers brought their own SMEs into the lab so we could work side-by-side. This not only gave our SMEs access to people who knew the app, it gave the customers’ SME the opportunity to learn how to perform debugging and optimization exercises from us. Our group was very successful and we had a reputation for being able to fix all kinds of performance and stability issues, often achieving performance improvements of several hundred percent.

Our reputation was great, but it came at a price to my teammates and me. We started to succumb to the “Hero Complex” (a psychological pattern characterized by an overwhelming desire to rescue others, often at the expense of one’s own well-being). We had to maintain our reputation if we wanted to be seen as relevant, and the customers were often in a position where they needed to be rescued. I can remember more than one time I would get into animated discussions with Scott during engagements where he would try to warn us of this very thing. He was always respectful, and he kept his side of the discussions very calm and rational. I (unfortunately) was not always so calm or rational. After 10 years of working as a test consultant, I was totally burned out and needed a change. I moved over the the developer consulting group. It turns out, Scott had moved there too. I ended up getting a cube right across the aisle from Scott. This gave us a chance to chat more often about the “psychology” of getting burned out and trying to avoid the Hero Complex.

I remember one day I was talking on the phone to a former team-mate about getting burned out, offering some advice about work-life balance, handling pushy bosses and customers and not letting work stress get to him. When I hung up, Scott looked at me and said something to the effect of “That was a really good job of handling the conversation. You have matured a great deal.” I thought about it for a moment and said, “No, I’ve always been able to give good advice. I just never learned to follow my own advice!” I guess I got that from my dad, since one of his go-to phrases was “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Scott and I had several conversations about the lab team and burnout. He really disliked the culture we had created by allowing ourselves to do anything to get the job done. He wanted to fix it. A few months later, he applied for the management position of that very team, and got the job. He said he wanted to change the culture of the lab people so they could balance their work and personal lives. He saw an emotional intelligence problem and decided to see if he could provide some help. A few months after moving to that team, he talked me into coming back to the team as a consultant. I was still doing app optimization and load testing, and my current manager was used to traditional developer consulting so he was not able to help me grow my career. I had become frustrated with my situation, so I jumped at the chance to get back to my old group. I also looked forward to working for Scott and benefiting from his management style. He was an awesome boss. I spent my last nine months with Microsoft working for Scott. He was one of my best managers, and a close friend. I left Microsoft in the summer of 2017 and lost most of my contact with Scott. The only contact I had was through my wife who is friends with Scott on Facebook.

I needed to tell that story, to setup this story. In 2005, Scott and his wife Janet adopted a baby boy, named Shane. What they did not know at the time was that Shane had autism and had severe emotional mood swings. Over the next 20 years, Scott and Janet poured their lives into working with Shane, dealing with the problems, the need for treatments, the need for outside help, and so much more that I cannot even imagine. Through all of this, they NEVER gave up on Shane. They loved him dearly. They would find ways to balance the need to help him with the desire to accept him, and (despite all of the issues) they kept providing for him and his older sister. They endured things that would have ripped most families apart, but they persevered. They loved their children! I have not written a lot of detail here because Scott separated work and family. He never brought his personal trauma into the office. He talked about some good times, but rarely talked about the trauma.

Now, think about the mindset of a man who can have daily trauma at home of that magnitude and still come into work and deal with all the work drama that Scott had to face. He separated the two very well. I often wondered about how things were going with his family, but I never dwelled on it. I had met Shane and talked to him a couple of times, but I was not part of their family life. Therefore I didn’t see the most amazing part of this story…

A couple weeks ago, Peggy saw a post on Facebook from Scott and Janet that told of the passing of Shane. He had been killed while riding his bicycle. They planned a “Celebration of life” for Shane in Newberry, SC (where they had moved just a few years earlier). When I arrived at the venue, it was already full of people. I said hello to Scott who immediately hugged me and thanked me for coming. As I waited for the celebration to start, I watched more and more people show up. Soon the venue was standing room only. Many of the attendees were residents of Newberry and were friends of the Robinsons. Several people came forward and shared various stories of how Shane, despite all of his mental challenges, was so well loved in the community, and how the Robinson family had made a huge impact in the community. I saw time and again how their strength and love of Shane had given others strength to endure similar situations. I learned more about Shane that night than I had the entire time I worked with Scott.

Just like my dad, Scott and Janet took the cards they were dealt, figured out how to plow through the bad times, and how to relish and cherish the good times. They managed to stay true to who they were and always tried to lift up those around them. They loved Shane unconditionally, and it made a difference in his life. Despite all his challenges, I heard several people tell Scott and Janet that Shane was so grateful for their love and that he loved them. As I drove the two hours back home that night, all I could think was “Scott Robinson knows what true love is, knows how to share that love, and knows how to excel at his job without letting the job become his life. He puts family first, yet refuses to brag about it, or use it to gain anything. In my book, that is a true hero. Scott, I am truly sorry for your loss, but eternally grateful for everything you gave to me without ever asking for anything in return.