Blogging My 3am Flash of Hindsight

It's funny the things that come to mind at 3am when you wake all hot, feverish and coughing.  I think I was having one of my frequent "work" nightmares.  Yes, even after being semi-retired for 10 years, I still have dreams about work.

This time, rather than a nightmare about being late for a meeting , parking my car in a rush and realizing I am only wearing my underwear - I had a rather insightful thought.  Roughly 10 years ago to the day, I was tasked with presenting to several high level AT&T executives about Spyware/Malware.  I was a newly promoted B level manager working in a new group doing web development.  I was one of the few "techies" in our group. Most came from other backgrounds, like Marketing.

Naturally, given my background and having personally fought in the war against Spyware, my presentation took the tact that Spy/Malware was BAD. Very bad. Evil, evil, bad, naughty spyware.

It just occurred to me, 10 years later, at 3am, in my feverish delirium, that those executives asked for a presentation on Spyware because they wanted to know if AT&T could USE it to track consumer buying trends and whatnot.  Duh. 

It's funny what years of maturity, a healthy dose of corporate cynicism, and a fevered brain will make you realize. Makes me glad I'm a Mom now and not a corporate tool. Just imagine if they'd tasked me to implement the use of some kind of spyware. At least I can hold my head up high safe in the knowledge that I never compromised my own ideals. Ha!  My over active subconscious mind can put that in its pipe and smoke it.

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