Reflections on The Battle of the Bids

The Battle of the Bids (or as I usually call it BoB), is a marketing game for the Ten-X platform. It allows people to guess how much a commercial property will sell for at auction. It’s initial development came when much of the Ten-X and LoopNet team were occupied with enhancing and launching a new and improved Ten-X with combined features between both Ten-X and LoopNet. Given this situation, many people (myself included) were pulled in to work on this game to promote the platform.

With season 2 of the game coming out this month, I have been in some meetings with one of the business analysts to discuss some last minute preparations for the launch. My manager mentioned that I was a member of the launch team, and I told the analyst that I built the player authentication. He quite literally thanked me. That while they did a re-write to shake things out for season 2, they had no need to change what I built. I had kept things simple, and that code will still be used by every player during season 2.

Since those meetings, I’ve been reflecting on the stress I felt during the initial development. It was a high priority project with a tight deadline. I was pulled from other projects as much as possible, though I think at one point I was on three separate scrum teams at the same time. There were attempts to use new technology, and deal with the extra learning curve as overhead for the project. While all of that seems stressful, it pales in comparison to the stress of my personal life at the time.

I had hope turn into tragedy. One afternoon, as I was on a call with a team lead about a technical issue for BoB, my wife burst into my home office to inform me that her mother, after years of waiting, was getting a kidney. I dropped everything, and we drove to San Diego to meet her mother at UCSD, where my mother-in-law was prepped for surgery.

The initial surgery was a success, and we were able to secure her a room at a longer term patient care facility on a satellite of the UCSD campus. She spent a month at that facility with my wife staying with her for two weeks, and my sister-in-law taking the other two weeks. Upon exiting the facility, she was surprised to learn that I had paid for her stay on my credit card since we didn’t have access to her cards or insurance when we checked her in. She also found out a lot of the cleaning and cooking that I had been doing to support bot her daughters through that month.

We didn’t have a bad relationship. More distant, and unacquainted than I would have liked. She was hard of hearing and reserved. I never really got the opportunity to truly know her. One glimmer of the relationship that we could have had shown through after she checked out of the long term stay facility. She wrote a hand written note thanking me for all of the support and care that I gave. In this note, she ultimately claimed me as her son.

Later in May, just after Mother’s Day, she contracted antibiotic resistant c-diff, and died. Her Mother’s Day gifts sat unopened. Only a brief dinner with all of children and her favorite dog marked the occasion.

My wife was in emotional shambles. She, and by extension I, did not take enough time for bereavement. I was even questioned on why I was working after such a personal tragedy: “if my wife is at work, what is there for me to do?”

I spent over a year balancing work and a grieving household. BoB released. The first season was successful. I shared in some of joy and accomplishment. Though such things were certainly muted.

That year was difficult, but I feel like anything that helps you grow as a partner, helps you grow as an engineer. I listened more. I sat through uncomfortable situations. I tried my best to give my wife the time, attention, and support that she needed. I can’t be 100% certain that these things bled over into my professional life, but I have to think the habits formed in this crucible would affect behavior in other contexts.