Mike was my team leader at the time. He was maybe three feet tall and walked with sticks, moving with the deliberate care of someone who had learned to negotiate the world differently. The remarkable thing — the thing everyone noticed — was how quickly his disability vanished. Ten minutes in his company and you stopped seeing it. You saw the wit, the mischief, the intelligence, the warmth. His disability never defined him; it was simply part of the scenery he refused to let matter.
Gerald Weinberg was leading the course — The Psychology of Computer Programming — with Don Gause 1 and Thomas W. Plum as his wing men. Plum had given a crystalline talk on data structures earlier that afternoon, the kind of exactness only he could manage. But the moment that stayed with me most happened afterwards, in the lift, and it belonged entirely to Don Gause and Mike.
That evening, the three of us happened to enter the lift in the course hotel together. Immediately, Mike suggested we throw a party in the lift. Don had that particular glint — the one that meant he was about to turn a mundane situation into a behavioural study. His counter‑proposal was simple: we should all stand facing the back of the lift and see how people reacted.
Up and down we went. No‑one who entered the lift lasted more than two floors before they conformed. They hesitated, glanced at us, and then — inevitably — turned to face the same way. It was a perfect demonstration of Weinberg’s thesis: people respond to context long before they respond to instruction.
Soon, an American joined the experiment. He decided it would be a good idea to fetch a tray of drinks. The evening deteriorated, as these things do, in alcohol and laughter.
The following morning there was a sign on the lift door saying “Out of Order”.