Speaker 1: Welcome to On the Job. This season, we're focusing on
Speaker 1: how people and businesses are getting back to work. Let's
Speaker 1: call it a great transformation, a change in the way
Speaker 1: workers are thinking. Employers need people to work more than ever,
Speaker 1: putting laborers in a sort of position of power. We'll
Speaker 1: be hearing from people navigating this new normal for themselves
Speaker 1: as they find their life's work. COVID forced a lot
Speaker 1: of people to face their demons in a way they
Speaker 1: might not have expected. The loss of work took away
Speaker 1: daily purpose for many and left a lot of us
Speaker 1: trying to fill that void with whatever we could well. Today,
Speaker 1: we talked to Spencer, who lost his job when COVID
Speaker 1: hit and found new work in cybersecurity, a rapidly growing
Speaker 1: field that's desperately needed as hackers get better and better
Speaker 1: at what they do, and it's a job that gave
Speaker 1: him the opportunity to help others as he dealt with
Speaker 1: addiction struggles that many people faced in the isolation of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. After many remote interviews to make this season,
Speaker 1: I had the fortune of meeting up with a friend
Speaker 1: of mine in person for this episode. My name is
Speaker 1: Spencer Landing. I am an information security analyst for the
Speaker 1: State of Vermont. Spencer's fifty two years old, got a
Speaker 1: clean shaven head, glasses, a mustache, address shirt, and the
Speaker 1: background in chemistry. This is that kind of why you've
Speaker 1: got to Walter White look going on. Yes, I I
Speaker 1: do math on the side, That's what this is really
Speaker 1: about you. I'm trying to sell it on the on
Speaker 1: the on the state level, we'll never know for sure.
Speaker 1: Security analyst is a pretty good front well in that job.
Speaker 1: Working for the state, Spencer's primary job is risk assessment,
Speaker 1: So we have to look at everything that we do
Speaker 1: because we do use personal like infallible information such as
Speaker 1: people SoC security number, their names or addresses, all of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. If you do your job poorly,
Speaker 1: what happens. Well, If if I do my job poorly,
Speaker 1: then we have the possibility of having a security leak
Speaker 1: that can harm potentially tens of thousands of people. So
Speaker 1: he spends every day working to improve that security so
Speaker 1: Vermonters don't have to worry about their information being stolen.
Speaker 1: And he says that at his core, that's all I
Speaker 1: t workers and cybersecurity people want to do. They want
Speaker 1: to help and they want to make your life easier,
Speaker 1: better and safer, or to protect you from yourself, because
Speaker 1: there's an awful lot you don't think about when you
Speaker 1: do things, and uh, it's my job to think about
Speaker 1: all the things you possibly could do that could make
Speaker 1: your life really bad, really bad, really bad, because when
Speaker 1: a hacker has your information, they can sell it and
Speaker 1: that can really mess with your life. You can get
Speaker 1: your identity stolen, you can have your credit cards maxed out.
Speaker 1: You've heard all the stories. Well, Spencer, make sure that
Speaker 1: the people who work for the state are being safe
Speaker 1: online and not opening sketchy emails because if they got compromised,
Speaker 1: hackers could have a backdoor to the state databases. There
Speaker 1: are safeguards in there in between, but um, it is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's how this sort of thing happens. That is,
Speaker 1: nine of the attacks happen through email, and all it
Speaker 1: is is just you click a link and poof there.
Speaker 1: It is Vermont of small state, so they might not
Speaker 1: see as much action as other states as far as
Speaker 1: fending off hackers goes. However, the threat is constant and
Speaker 1: a breach has pretty dire consequences. So the only real
Speaker 1: things that people would probably glean from it is the
Speaker 1: ability for them to them to actually go through the
Speaker 1: state government to infect federal government. By law, state governments
Speaker 1: are required by the I r S and other federal
Speaker 1: agencies to have a certain level of security, a number
Speaker 1: they have to hit to pass regulation. As he's in
Speaker 1: risk management, Spencer and his team use software that assigns
Speaker 1: risk numbers to everything, like the software, employees are using,
Speaker 1: the equipment, they're using, lots of other factors. So we
Speaker 1: add all of those things up and give the agency
Speaker 1: basically a number that says, this is what your risk is. Now.
Speaker 1: The I r S wants this number. So how are
Speaker 1: we going to get from this very large number to
Speaker 1: this very small number? How are we going to mitigate
Speaker 1: this risk? Do you always want to do something like
Speaker 1: this not security? I'd always I've always been a nerd
Speaker 1: from the ton nozzle small and fell in love with
Speaker 1: computers and and science. Those are the two Those are
Speaker 1: the two things math, science and computers. Those were my
Speaker 1: those were my strengths. Spencer grew up in West Texas,
Speaker 1: real small town near Lubbock. It was very rural. There
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot to do, so Spencer got lost in
Speaker 1: other worlds as early as five when he got his
Speaker 1: first library card, which the library didn't normally do that,
Speaker 1: but I would go and check out five books and
Speaker 1: then read them all in a day or two at most,
Speaker 1: and then go back note five books. When he was
Speaker 1: in sixth grade, his school brought a couple of the
Speaker 1: first Apple two computers into their library, and the librarian
Speaker 1: to old Spencer to check them out. So I went
Speaker 1: in there and played with them, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is actually really cool, and then started checking out
Speaker 1: books and starting to learn how to program, and you know,
Speaker 1: I can do this, and I can do this, and
Speaker 1: I can do this, and so it was just a
Speaker 1: natural love for things like you went out of your
Speaker 1: way as a kid to learn how to do all that,
Speaker 1: like original rudimentary coding for the old computers. Yes I did.
Speaker 1: I spent my lunch periods in the library on those computers.
Speaker 1: I must You must have stood out, Yeah, like a
Speaker 1: sore nerd thumb. Spencer was definitely different. He didn't fit
Speaker 1: into the normal crowd the way some other kids might.
Speaker 1: So the books, the coding, they were a refuge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was definitely escape. You know,
Speaker 1: didn't have a happy childhood. Perhaps we'll say that anyway. UM.
Speaker 1: And so that wasn't It was sort of an escape, UM.
Speaker 1: And it was something that I could control, you know,
Speaker 1: you can control everything that the computer does. And uh,
Speaker 1: I liked that. That was that was you know, it
Speaker 1: was one of those moments of I can own that
Speaker 1: he loved coding, loved it, loved it so much that
Speaker 1: by the time he was about to go to college,
Speaker 1: he knew that he couldn't go into computer programming because
Speaker 1: I can remember in high school when I was programming,
Speaker 1: I would lose days totally just trying to find the
Speaker 1: two or three bugs that were in there that I
Speaker 1: missed a semical in here, and I missed you know,
Speaker 1: spacing here, and I would I would just dive into
Speaker 1: the code and just I would lose absolute track of time.
Speaker 1: Coding was a refuge for him, but it was also
Speaker 1: an obsession, why is this not working? Why is it's
Speaker 1: not working? Wise it's not working, and trying to find
Speaker 1: that one little, one little mistake somewhere that that was
Speaker 1: causing the whole thing to not work. And you're the
Speaker 1: kind of person you had to know, had to know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't just let it go. It was a mistake.
Speaker 1: He decided instead of going down that road, he'd get
Speaker 1: a degree in chemistry, one of his other passions. He
Speaker 1: did that, got an internship at Dow Chemical while in college,
Speaker 1: but he didn't love it. He left school for a bit,
Speaker 1: not thinking it was right for him, but then he
Speaker 1: got pulled right back in by his love for computers.
Speaker 1: Eventually wound up with a technical writing degree, actually with
Speaker 1: a modern computer science you know, it made me a
Speaker 1: happy person. He got a job at a nonprofit within
Speaker 1: the university as a computer analyst. Then he jumped from
Speaker 1: there to New York City to work at the World
Speaker 1: Federalist Movement, another nonprofit. He was coming up with I
Speaker 1: T plans, helping them acquire their software, helped them with development,
Speaker 1: anything computer related. I became basically a system admin for them.
Speaker 1: So you were the I T guy that like, if
Speaker 1: there was anything wrong in the company in the building there,
Speaker 1: like call Spencer, yes, because there was only me I was.
Speaker 1: I was the I T. That was a eighteen year job.
Speaker 1: During that time, Spencer and his wife, Ava had a daughter.
Speaker 1: Ava got offered a job in Vermont, which they loved
Speaker 1: every time they drove through it. So they decided to
Speaker 1: move there, and Spencer kept his job at the nonprofit.
Speaker 1: I was like, I can still do my job no
Speaker 1: matter where, as long as I have an Internet connection.
Speaker 1: Um and so I did. I did. I did that
Speaker 1: for quite some time, right up until Spencer was doing
Speaker 1: this remote work. But then, of course, in March COVID happened.
Speaker 1: The non property worked for was pretty much held up
Speaker 1: by big grants which went away pretty quick, and the
Speaker 1: staff started dropping off one by one. I was able
Speaker 1: to hang on for a little while, and then, um
Speaker 1: and May, the majority of the funding went away, and
Speaker 1: so it dwindled down and dwindled down and dwindled down,
Speaker 1: and finally I t became not a necessary component, but
Speaker 1: something that they just couldn't afford. Like many people in
Speaker 1: early Spencer was very suddenly out of his stable job,
Speaker 1: and also, like a lot of people around that time,
Speaker 1: was facing isolation that would become a reckoning for him,
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't in the best mental state, and
Speaker 1: things kind of went downhill for me. Um, after I
Speaker 1: lost my job. We'll be right back with Spencer's story
Speaker 1: after the break. A strong work ethic takes pride in
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Speaker 1: dot com or on the Express Jobs app. Back to Spencer,
Speaker 1: he just got put out of work and like a
Speaker 1: lot of people, he's having a hard time with the
Speaker 1: isolation and began to have a bit of alcohol problem
Speaker 1: and things kind of went downhill from me. Spencer admits
Speaker 1: that he was a habitual drinker before COVID, but a
Speaker 1: few years into the pandemic. Now I feel like looking back,
Speaker 1: when the world really closed down, people had to face
Speaker 1: their habits in close quarters, and there was a real
Speaker 1: fork in the road where some people got shaken up
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, I'm gonna start doing yo good,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get my dream job, and like basically using
Speaker 1: the isolation to I don't know, clean themselves up or whatever.
Speaker 1: And then there was the other direction where the isolation
Speaker 1: was just a place where you can go and self destruct.
Speaker 1: It definitely I did not go into the happy let's
Speaker 1: go do yoga and let's clean our lives up. Let's yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, the isolation really tore at me and gave
Speaker 1: me an opportunity to drink more. That was the thing
Speaker 1: that that really kind of seem in it. It became
Speaker 1: such such a daily obsession, such a daily obsession. Spencer
Speaker 1: doesn't blame COVID for his drinking, but says it definitely
Speaker 1: didn't help. He says he always knew their word demons
Speaker 1: that he hadn't faced yet. But I was able to
Speaker 1: shove that down onto a floorboard, way way down, deep
Speaker 1: into the dark crevices of my mind and did that
Speaker 1: for a really long time and was I guess successful
Speaker 1: at it um But it eventually eventually catches up because
Speaker 1: eventually you do feel up the entire basement and it
Speaker 1: starts overflowing. A lot of the things that he was
Speaker 1: shoving under the floorboards were from his rough childhood. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of trauma that he hadn't dealt with,
Speaker 1: so in this new isolation where a lot of it
Speaker 1: was coming back up, he drank more to bury it.
Speaker 1: And that overflowing basement isn't really a metaphor for Spencer.
Speaker 1: The deciding factor for me was when my wife took
Speaker 1: me down into the basement and showed me all of
Speaker 1: the empties into it whole. Wow, it was. It was
Speaker 1: one of those clarity moments, and I had tried to
Speaker 1: stop and couldn't, and so I had to go get
Speaker 1: help um and I found a group who helped me
Speaker 1: out of like minded people who who gave me the
Speaker 1: strength and the ability to dig myself out of the
Speaker 1: hole that I was in and give me hope for
Speaker 1: the future. Spencer is far from a loan between the
Speaker 1: isolation and losing the purpose that comes with waking up
Speaker 1: every day for a job. Addiction rates and substance abuse
Speaker 1: drastically rose all over the world. I can attest to
Speaker 1: this because I was one of those people. I had
Speaker 1: always had demons too that I smothered with alcohol. But
Speaker 1: COVID gave me a place to self destruct in a
Speaker 1: way that I never really had. Took me to the
Speaker 1: lowest moments of my life. And I know this is
Speaker 1: weird to say, but I'm grateful it did because I
Speaker 1: got desperate enough to get better. Just like Spencer. That
Speaker 1: was a that was a good moment in my life
Speaker 1: in a bad moment of my life. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a it's sort of a bittersweet moment, but I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that it happened because I mean, it's such a
Speaker 1: much better place than I have ever been in before
Speaker 1: in my life. Same buddy, So he decided to make
Speaker 1: some changes. First, he had to get out of this isolation.
Speaker 1: He needed something to do every day, so for a job.
Speaker 1: I actually became the head brewer for a local brewery
Speaker 1: while I was trying to get sober. Uh, he admits,
Speaker 1: not the most beneficial place to be at the moment,
Speaker 1: but it was a job. It got him working. He
Speaker 1: left that after a few months when an I T
Speaker 1: job nearby came up, and then there was another one.
Speaker 1: There was a job that came up and it was
Speaker 1: like asking for a information security analyst, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about it, but I'll apply for it.
Speaker 1: But there this was the job with the State that
Speaker 1: he has. Now he's never done cybersecurity before, but he
Speaker 1: still had that attitude from when he was young, where
Speaker 1: if he didn't know something, he was a dog after
Speaker 1: a bone and he had to figure it out. And
Speaker 1: that helps in the security industry, um, because you do
Speaker 1: need to find those bugs you need you need to
Speaker 1: find those holes you need to find and what we
Speaker 1: need to patch and what we need to do. And
Speaker 1: after tier interviews, I got the job and here I am,
Speaker 1: you know, nine months later back to present day. He
Speaker 1: loves his job. He works every day to make sure
Speaker 1: of Vermonter's personal information is safe and if he's doing
Speaker 1: his job well, people probably never hear about it. No,
Speaker 1: And I t you typically don't hear when things work,
Speaker 1: do you hear when they don't work? So and that's
Speaker 1: just that's just a nature of the beast. But he
Speaker 1: says he still gets a ton of satisfaction out of it.
Speaker 1: It can be thankless and might be work that most
Speaker 1: people don't realize exists until it goes away. Spencer is
Speaker 1: also a volunteer firefighter on the side now and same
Speaker 1: deal unless your house is on fire and you're not
Speaker 1: gonna necessarily think a firefighter, but when your house is
Speaker 1: on fire, that's the first person that you're gonna turn to.
Speaker 1: For better or worse. As technology becomes vastly more integrated
Speaker 1: with our personal lives day by day, that means they're
Speaker 1: just going to be more bad actors out there looking
Speaker 1: to take our information and sell it. There's always going
Speaker 1: to be somebody who's looking to make a buck off
Speaker 1: somebody else and the easiest way possible, and not everybody
Speaker 1: realizes that it's up to me and other people just
Speaker 1: say you've got to think about this or make sure
Speaker 1: you're doing this so you don't expose yourself and any
Speaker 1: information that you might have. Spencer says that even a
Speaker 1: decade ago, anti virus software and hiring a cybersecurity person
Speaker 1: for your business was a good idea something you probably
Speaker 1: should do. But now with how online all of our
Speaker 1: lives are, it's not even a question. These are things
Speaker 1: that you have to think about and and you have
Speaker 1: to think about where's my information if I if I
Speaker 1: put my credit card number in on a website. Is
Speaker 1: that safe? If somebody asked me for my Social Security number?
Speaker 1: Is that safe to give them? Is my health information safe?
Speaker 1: So you know, security and and and people's personal information
Speaker 1: has become the forefront of what computer science now has
Speaker 1: to battle. And with that being the case, there are
Speaker 1: tons and tons of jobs and cybersecurity right now everywhere
Speaker 1: for big companies or corporations, startups, or if your main
Speaker 1: drive is just helping people, there's tons of work with
Speaker 1: nonprofits and state organizations. Whereat the pay admittedly might be less,
Speaker 1: job can be more than that. A quality of life
Speaker 1: is important, and working for this state of Vermont is
Speaker 1: it's about quality of life and has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the job. Just has to do with making you
Speaker 1: a better human, being a better person. A job is
Speaker 1: not necessarily about the paycheck. Part of what drew me
Speaker 1: to working for nonprofits is that that satisfaction of knowing
Speaker 1: that when I went to sleep at night, I knew
Speaker 1: I had done something for something more than myself. It's
Speaker 1: kind of funny that, you know, when you first start
Speaker 1: up coding and diving into literature and computers and stuff.
Speaker 1: Kind of the point of that was that it was isolation,
Speaker 1: and now you do it, but you do it for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. It is something that I do
Speaker 1: think about and it helps me come to terms with
Speaker 1: that I'm giving back somewhere and giving back as an
Speaker 1: important part for my sobriety. It's also an important part
Speaker 1: is a human being. If we all gave back more,
Speaker 1: things would go a lot smoother. Do you feel now
Speaker 1: like you're recoding yourself? Yeah, I guess you could say that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm fixing some of those bugs that were there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely fixing some of those bugs. And you know things,
Speaker 1: things are running a lot smoother than they ever have
Speaker 1: been before. COVID brought a lot of people to their knees,
Speaker 1: myself included, and put people out of work. It's put
Speaker 1: people in really tough living situations. It's put people in
Speaker 1: a room with everything that they are. It's made some
Speaker 1: of us come to terms with who we are in
Speaker 1: a much shorter time frame than we might have liked.
Speaker 1: But as we come out of this storm with new values,
Speaker 1: new morals, new ways of living, and new habits, we've
Speaker 1: had the fortune of having had the time to think
Speaker 1: about how we can help ourselves, and it turns out
Speaker 1: as a lot of people go back to work, they've
Speaker 1: realized that the best way to do that is by
Speaker 1: helping other people, even if they only call you when
Speaker 1: something's wrong. What are the next bugs you gotta fix
Speaker 1: for yourself? Oh, there's always something to fix. But yeah,
Speaker 1: learning to be more patient, learning to be more kind,
Speaker 1: and you know, to know that there is hope. There
Speaker 1: is hope always, there's always hope, and there's always a
Speaker 1: chance out there makes life worth living. It's not always
Speaker 1: it's not always a bullet chair, he's but it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to always be the pits. Yeah, you saw what
Speaker 1: I did there. We're ending on that for on the job.
Speaker 1: I'm Otis Gray. Thanks for listening. If you or someone
Speaker 1: you know is struggling with addiction, help is out there.
Speaker 1: You can go to find treatment dot gov or call
Speaker 1: their national hotline one eight hundred six six to help
Speaker 1: for more information. That's one six six to seven. We'll
Speaker 1: put this info in the description of the show.