It’s Halloween today, which is a day when children typically dress up and go looking for candy. It’s supposed to be trick or treat, but I’ve seen relatively few tricks and lots of treats with my kids. No Halloween for me, and likely a quiet day as I get ready for travel to Seattle and try to relax at home for a few days. My kids are grown and no others come to my house out in the country.
More than a few adults will dress up in costume today. Some will come to work in an outfit, which is something I’ve done in the past. In my 20s, I’d wear a gorilla mask and hands, frightening more than a few people who weren’t expecting a hairy hand to fall on their shoulder or hand them a report. I haven’t done that in years, and I think those days are behind me.
Some people will dress up at night, going out to have fun at a party. Surrounded by others that are enjoying themselves, or competing to see how creative you can be is fun. Perhaps you dress up to take your kids out and enjoy the night with them.
Many of us do need to work today, as Halloween isn’t a holiday in most organizations. We’ll have various experiences at work, maybe a horrific day when we break something with the wrong click or poorly structured code. Maybe we’ll do something heroic that saves the day, or at least helps someone else.
With today a costume day, I want to ask you which character, hero, icon you’d like to emulate in your daily work. Is it a computer scientist like Alan Turing? Maybe Iron Man that flies in to rescue a disaster? Maybe you’re the fireman that shuts down a problem. Let us know what costume you’d like your work to wear.
Steve Jones
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