Karma Police

OK Computer is the soundtrack to the part of my life where I lived in airports, hotels and temporary server rooms. I did web consulting from the time I was 22-26. I bought the record at a Tower Records in a strip mall in suburban Washington DC, walking distance from my hotel. On top of working in strange cities and eating bad room service every night, I was too young to rent a car in Virginia at the time. Disaffection, thy name is Radiohead.

I was working on the most difficult project I'd ever been on at the time. I had no backup, no safety net. I was me and the project manager (Merz!) vs. the data and the deadline. I remember working a 23 hour day right at the end. I slept an hour on a conference room table. At some point around 3 AM, this song came on over the tinny computer speakers. Merz was working on something else in the corner, not paying attention to the music. The song's ending sounds like the world disintegrating. That caught his attention. He thought it was the sound of the hard drive dying in agony.

My favorite line in the song? "Phew. For a minute there, I lost myself." Sort of sums up that whole work experience for me.