One day as we sat at our terminals, listening to the dots and dashes through our headphones and banging on our keyboards Typing Tutor-style, I decided to pause to take a big swig of coffee. If you've ever done that and had it go down the wrong pipe, you know what happened next. I started choking and sputtering and spewing coffee all over myself, compelling several of the girls to come to my rescue with whatever they had handy to wipe me up with. When my coughing and hacking finally subsided, I realized that, in a matter of seconds, my Bondesque persona had vanished. I was Loser. Larry Loser.

It's been fairly difficult to take myself too seriously since then, and it's just as well. It's a lot easier to laugh that way. Over the years, I've found that the people I admire most are the ones who, though they may carry a seemingly crushing burden of responsibility, are still able to laugh. That's a trait we'd all do well to work to have in common.

Don Tennant is editor in chief of Computerworld. Contact him at don_tennant@computerworld.com.