When Gateway’s decline became inevitable, I could feel it. The excitement on the floor had shifted to tension, and every hallway conversation hinted at layoffs. I wasn’t going to be caught unprepared again.
A friend — a Domino Administrator at a human services agency — told me he was leaving his position and encouraged me to go after the job. “Get your Lotus Notes Domino certifications,” he said. “If you move fast, it’s yours.”
So I did. I studied nights, earned the credentials, and landed the position just as Gateway’s doors were closing. For the first time, I had my own office, my own projects, and a sense that I was finally steering my career instead of reacting to it.
The new role came with new lessons. I quickly realized that technical skill wasn’t the only thing that mattered — politics, communication, and timing carried just as much weight.
It was here that I learned what I came to call “The Patty Rule.” Patty wasn’t well liked. She wasn’t charismatic or talkative, and few people understood how she’d become so influential. But she held a unique position — reporting directly to the vice president. Her secret was simple: she took on every job no one else wanted and made herself indispensable. She would perfect each role until she was the only one who truly understood it. Those once-avoided tasks became critical to the company’s survival, and eventually, so did she. By the time I joined, Patty had become a vice president herself.
The lesson stuck with me: master what others ignore, and you’ll always have leverage. It wasn’t about ambition or ego — it was about quietly building value where no one else was looking.
Still, while I was learning politics, I hadn’t yet learned timing.
One day, my supervisor asked me to attend an executive meeting to explain the software I’d built. “Just tell the truth,” he said. Odd advice, but I didn’t question it.
When I walked into the boardroom, about twenty executives were waiting. They wanted to hear about a small AS/400 program I had written that billed the State of South Dakota directly. At the time, there were no clear standards for transmitting data between the state and private agencies. Working with the state’s IT staff, I created simple protocols that allowed billing to run smoothly. What once took six to eight months now took two to four weeks.
As I explained the system, one of the directors asked, “Do we need the entire system — all the Lotus Notes components — to bill the state?”
Following my supervisor’s guidance, I answered honestly:
“No, you just need the AS/400 and the state protocols. The billing runs off a simple text file exchange.”
The room went silent.
What I didn’t know was that the company had been selling complete systems, including my billing tool, for around one million dollars each. By telling the truth, I had accidentally exposed that the expensive “package” wasn’t necessary.
That afternoon, I was called into HR. No conversation, no warning — just a termination notice. I was walked out of the building for doing exactly what I thought was right.
It was a painful lesson — one that tested both my pride and my principles. I learned that honesty, while essential, needs context. In business, timing and awareness can matter as much as integrity.
Looking back, I realize the “Patty Rule” and that firing taught me opposite sides of the same truth: mastery gives you power, but awareness keeps you in the room to use it.
If my first iteration at Gateway taught me that technology can fail, my second taught me that people and systems are equally unpredictable — and that the only sustainable foundation for every next iteration is integrity paired with perspective.
The Next Iteration 