I’ve worked with computers since I was a teenager. But to be frank, that has always been my fallback career. There’s one job I’ve wanted since I was a kid on a field trip. A job that I’ll never be able to do because it’s now performed by machines. I’ve always wanted to be a lighthouse keeper.

Look at it! Doesn’t it look majestic? There on the rocky shore, warding off the weary mariner, protecting the vessels that ship goods all over the world, or the fishers who provide your precious Filet-O-Fish?

A year or two ago we toured a whole lighthouse compound that was built on the Washington coast almost 150 years ago. There’s this cool lighthouse, obviously, but there’s also a fabulous house for the lighthouse keepers family. There were gardens. There were rocky trails along the shoreline where one could gaze into the abyss and contemplate the beauty and brutality of mother nature as the salty breeze whips your Makintosh until you pull it close around you to ward off the chill of an approaching winter storm.

Or whatever! What do I know?

I never got to be a lighthouse keeper because that’s not a thing that people do anymore. If I’m being completely honest, I should’ve known that I would never achieve my dream, seeing as how the last lighthouse keepers in the US were all retired by around 1940.

But I would’ve been perfect for it! Because I love my family, I love hikes on the coast, I love staring out over the water, I love feeling like I’m helping other people and, most importantly, I would love to spend more time in forced isolation!

Alas, it was not to be.

Working with computers has served me well, but they’re also undergoing a seismic shift as much that has been done by people WITH computers can now be done BY computers WITH, well, other computers.

But what did the lighthouse keepers do when they automated the last lighthouse?

Well, I imagine lighthouse keepers didn’t get into the business for the stupid reasons I wanted to. They almost certainly didn’t want to stand at the base of their lighthouse, narrowed eyes looking through binoculars at a boat drifting too close to the rocks, with an outstretched hand ready to signal their son to blast the foghorn, wiping the salty spray from their majestic beards as the waves crash into the rocks with the sound of a herd of trampling elephants intent on —

— What was I saying?

Oh right, they probably weren’t in it for all that. They probably wanted to help and protect people. I imagine when they closed the lighthouses, they found other ways to do that. And it turned out there were lots of ways.

As I think about the transition in my industry I’m comforted by the thought that most people didn’t get into IT to write scripts. They got into IT to solve interesting problems, maybe to help other people. And luckily those needs aren’t going away.