She laughed.
"What kind?"
I shrugged.
"Something at the airline. Something where you get to travel."
She smiled.
Then looked toward the ceiling.
"Baby, I like helping people start their journeys."
I didn't understand what she meant.
So she explained.
"Some people come through that airport because they're going to a wedding. Some are going to funerals. Some haven't seen their families in years. I get to give them a little kindness before they go."
I remember rolling my eyes.
"Mom, you're selling sandwiches."
She laughed so hard she almost spilled her tea.
Then she pointed at me.
"Exactly. And you'd be surprised how much a sandwich matters when somebody hasn't eaten all day."
Years later, those words would return to me in the first-class cabin of a commercial aircraft.
Not because I needed a sandwich.
Because I was beginning to understand how easily a person in a service position could either protect someone's dignity or help destroy it.
I was good at computers.
Not in the way children sometimes claim they're good at technology because they can play games.
I liked finding out why systems behaved differently from what the people who designed them expected.
By twelve, I was fixing old laptops for neighbors.
At fifteen, I was teaching myself programming.
At seventeen, I built a simple application that helped local businesses manage appointment schedules and reduce missed bookings.
My mother didn't understand most of the technical details.
But she understood what the program was supposed to do.
"It saves people time?"
I nodded.
"Yes."
She smiled.
"Then it's useful."
That was her measure of technology.
Not how impressive it looked.
Not how complicated it sounded.
Whether it made an ordinary person's life easier.
I studied computer science and operations research with scholarships and part-time work. During college, I became fascinated by the technology behind airline reservations.
Millions of people booked flights.
Selected seats.
Changed itineraries.
Received upgrades.
And boarded aircraft through systems that had to coordinate enormous quantities of information in real time.
Most passengers assumed that when they paid for Seat 2A, the airline would either provide Seat 2A or clearly explain why that was impossible.
But reservation systems weren't always as straightforward as passengers imagined.
Airlines used multiple databases, airport control systems, ticketing processes, and automated assignment tools. Some information synchronized instantly. Other changes moved between systems through scheduled updates or special workflows.
I spent years studying how those systems interacted.
Eventually, I developed software designed to detect inconsistencies between confirmed seat entitlements, gate changes, and the final passenger manifest.
The original version was a college project.