The Erection of the Fence

The moment Sarah uttered the word ‘technical,’ she didn’t just express a lack of knowledge; she signaled a transfer of responsibility. She erected a fence. On her side of the fence is the ‘business vision,’ a land of milk, honey, and infinite growth. On my side is the ‘technical’ sludge-the cables, the protocols, the cooling fans, and the pesky laws of physics that say data cannot travel faster than light.

By labeling the implementation ‘technical,’ she has granted herself a license for willful ignorance. She has decided that the systems our entire organization runs on are a mystical black box, and I am merely the high priest who maintains the altar.

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The Quantified World vs. Metaphorical Ground

I’m Reese K., and I specialize in queue management. Usually, that means I’m obsessed with the way people and packets wait in line, but lately, I’ve been obsessed with the way we use language to hide from our jobs. This morning, I counted exactly 87 steps from my front door to the mailbox. I do this every day. It’s a habit born of a need to quantify the physical world, to ensure that the ground beneath me remains consistent. But inside this building, the ground is made of metaphors.

People use the ‘technical’ label as a social shield. It’s the professional equivalent of saying, ‘I’m not a math person,’ as if basic arithmetic were a genetic trait rather than a skill we all learned in the third grade.

The Hierarchy of Accountability

This divide isn’t about skill sets. It’s an unspoken caste system. When we categorize work into ‘technical’ and ‘non-technical,’ we are creating a hierarchy of accountability. The ‘non-technical’ group gets to dream without constraints, and the ‘technical’ group is left to clean up the wreckage of those dreams when they inevitably collide with reality.

I built a cathedral of code that no one could inhabit. We both failed because we stopped speaking the same language.

I remember a project three years ago-actually, it was 27 months ago-where I over-engineered a load-balancing system that cost the company $4777 in unnecessary hardware. I did it because I was tired of being told I was the ‘technical’ one. I wanted to build a monument to my own complexity.

Infrastructure, Not Ice Cream

Technology is not a separate entity. It is not a flavor of ice cream. It is the infrastructure of the modern world. Imagine a pilot saying, ‘I won’t pretend to understand the technical details of the engines, but I’m sure we’ll stay airborne.’ You’d be clawing at the emergency exit.

Yet, in the corporate world, managers, directors, and executives brag about their ‘non-technical’ status. It’s a badge of honor, a sign that they are ‘big picture’ thinkers.

But if your big picture doesn’t include the frame, the canvas, or the paint, then you aren’t a painter; you’re just a person standing in a gallery pointing at things they don’t own. This willful ignorance becomes particularly toxic when it comes to the logistical backbone of an office.

When we call it ‘technical,’ we distance ourselves from the reality that our business is built on these permissions.

The Bunker of Logic

There’s a comfort in the divide, though. It’s cozy. If I’m the technical one, I don’t have to worry about the ‘soft’ stuff. I can stay in my bunker of logic and complain about the ‘users.’ I’m just as guilty of this as Sarah is. I use my jargon as a weapon to keep people away from my work, to ensure that no one can question my decisions.

But this morning, as I walked those 87 steps, I realized that the mailbox doesn’t care if I’m a ‘technical’ person. It just requires that I have the key and the coordination to reach inside.

A New Vocabulary for Teammates

We need a new vocabulary. We need to stop saying ‘technical’ when we mean ‘the parts of the job I haven’t bothered to learn.’ We need to stop saying ‘non-technical’ when we mean ‘the parts of the job where I get to ignore the consequences of my decisions.’

I look back at Sarah. She’s still waiting for my answer. All 16 people are waiting for the priest to perform the miracle. I could cite the 37 different reasons why her request violates our current architecture.

But instead, I take a breath. I think about the 777 times I’ve done this before and failed.

Changing the Conversation to Trade-Offs

‘Sarah,’ I say, leaning forward. ‘Let’s talk about the speed of light. It’s a real bottleneck. If we want those offices to see the data by Monday, we have to change how we define ‘instant.’ We don’t have a technical problem; we have a physics problem and a priority problem. Which of these 7 features are you willing to delay so we can focus on the sync speed?’

‘The third one,’ she says finally. ‘We can delay the third one.’

It’s a start. It’s a tiny, 7-millimeter crack in the wall of the caste system.