Alex, the youngest engineer on his team in both age and experience—and probably in the entire company, he hasn’t checked, glances up at the string of grumpiness catapulting over the divider between the row of desks where he sits and the mirror-image row of desks on the other side. Well, someone isn’t happy.

Curious, Alex moseys down his aisle, around the end, and homes in on the continued sounds of unhappiness. Not Cathy, not Jacintha, not William…who else sits here? Oh, right: Gerald, the architect for the product Alex and everyone else on this floor and the next one down work on. I always forget Gerald sits here. He’s typically so taciturn.

“Knock knock,” Alex says as he knocks on the divider demarcing Gerald’s space.

Gerald looks up. “Alex, right?” Gerald asks.

“Yep. What’s going on? You seem to be having a bad go of it.”

“You can say that again,” Gerald acknowledges. “I can’t make this dialog layout do what I want it to. Everything is two steps forward, one step back.”

“I know that feeling,” Alex says in empathy. “CSS [Cascading Style Sheets, a common way to define the look and feel of websites and applications] is the worst. You should talk with Cathy.”

“Is she our local CSS wizard?”

“I’d call her that. She’d deny being a wizard, though. ‘I just love tinkering,’ she always tells me.”

“I’ll ask her to come over.” Alex watches in amazement as Gerald fires up the team’s messaging app and starts a new conversation with Cathy. “I hear you enjoy a good CSS puzzle? Boy do I have one for you 😖”

Cathy pops her head up, glances inquiringly at Alex, who shrugs his shoulders in a silent, “No idea why he messaged you when you sit only three desks away,” then sits back down. “brt,” she messages back.

Cathy arrives a moment later. “What’s up?”

“Gerald is mired in one of those two-steps-forward-one-step-back situations,” Alex fills her in.

“Oh. Well.” She peers over Gerald’s shoulder. “What have you learned so far?”

Gerald starts running through everything he’s tried over the last few hours. Thirty seconds in, Cathy interrupts him. “Those are all things you’ve tried. What have you learned?”

“That I bloody hate CSS.”

Cathy laughs. “Fair. It’s not for everyone. What else?”

Gerald opens his mouth, closes it, thinks for a moment, then launches into five minutes of nonstop explanation about everything he’s noticed about the outcomes of the various experiments he has tried. “Every time I solve one problem, either a new one appears or an old one reappears. Two steps forward, one step back.”

“How much of what you just related did you know before you started working on this?” Cathy asks.

“Umm…none of it?”

“You’re not certain?”

“Oh no, I’m certain. I knew none of this before I started work today.”

“So you’re much further along than you were an hour-and-a-half ago.”

“Absolutely.”

“So where are the two steps back? All I see are an abundance of steps forward.”

“The steps back are from all these failed experiments. From always have a new problem to solve. From having existing problems bounce around from one place to another. From still not having this bloody flipping dialog laying out properly.” Gerald, whose voice had become increasingly louder and more vehement as he related his frustration, blows out a big breath.

“That’s right, deep breaths always help,” Cathy says, patting Gerald comfortingly on his shoulder.

“Hey, can I try something?” Alex asks Gerald, who scoots his chair over and makes a “go right ahead” gesture. Alex grabs Gerald’s mouse and keyboard and adjusts a few settings. “Is this what you wanted?”

Gerald’s mouth drops open in amazement. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do. How did you do that? Why did you have me ask Cathy for help if you knew what the problem was?”

“I didn’t know what the problem was. When you took us through everything you have learned, though, I noticed a pattern. That’s what told me what might work.”

“Huh. So what was holding me back wasn’t a lack of knowledge, necessarily, but my belief that I wasn’t learning anything. I was so focused on what felt like sliding backwards that I didn’t notice the data I was gathering and the information it was giving me, which was moving me forwards.”

“Exactly. Nicely summated, young Padawan,” Cathy praises Gerald. Then she turns to Alex. “And you, my young Jedi, are ready for your trials.”

As Cathy returns to her desk, Gerald gives Alex a puzzled look. “What was that all about?”

“I believe that means I said something smart,” Alex explains. “And have done so enough times that Cathy will start mentoring me one-on-one.”

“Congratulations?” Gerald says uncertainly.

“Oh, definitely congratulations,” Alex replies. “Everyone Cathy mentors goes on to do amazing things.”

“Huh.” Gerald ponders this new data. “That sounds…useful. How do I become part of that select group?”

“Keep doing what you just did: recognize an opportunity to change your mindset and jump on board. What Cathy cares about more than anything else, I believe, is a willingness to change.”

“A willingness to change, huh? Not my favorite thing. But, to gain access to the wisdom Cathy apparently has? Maybe I can deal with some discomfort.”

“From what I’ve seen? It would absolutely be worth it.”