particularly rough days, I’d read quotations from Fred Rogers, whose gentleness was, at times, the only thing that made me feel like my life was going to be okay. The thing he wrote that gave me the most courage was this: “Try your best to make goodness attractive. That’s one of the toughest assignments you’ll ever be given.” I made up my mind that even though goodness was considered a vice at Uber, and aggression considered its greatest virtue, I would still care about goodness, about kindness, about gentleness. I was determined to bring those virtues into work every single day, into every one of my meetings, into every moment of my life. I would be in the world, but I certainly wouldn’t be of it—just as my father had counseled, all those years ago. It wasn’t easy. Whenever people at work insulted me, I had to keep my cool; I’d take a deep breath and tell myself that they were merely ignorant of the fact that what they were doing was wrong. But my renewed Stoicism wasn’t just about turning the other cheek. It also came with responsibility: as someone who knew what was right and wrong, the Stoics taught, I was obligated to always do what was right. I began calling out sexism, racism, and bullying when they happened, just as I had back when I was a bar raiser. If I noticed someone being a bully toward others, I brought it up to management and insisted that they take action to stop it. Every time something ridiculous happened, every time a sexist email was sent, I’d send a short report to HR, just to keep a record going. When coworkers came to me for help, I tried my best to coach them on how to address the mistreatment they received from sexist and racist managers, how to document discrimination, how to escalate things to HR, how to escalate things to Uber’s executives, and—when that failed—how to escalate things to government and legal authorities (by contacting, for example, the EEOC). On days when I felt afraid, when I was worried for my coworkers or my job or my mental health, I would open my copy of Epictetus’s Enchiridion on the BART ride home. “When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it, never avoid being seen doing it, though the many shall form an unfavorable opinion about it,” Epictetus said. “For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly?” His words gave me courage to stand up against the bullying from Uber’s management. On really bad days, I would pull the book out in between meetings, reading as I walked up and down the halls of Uber’s headquarters, sometimes walking past Travis Kalanick, who would be pacing around the building, talking on his phone. I started to feel that I had more control over my life. By defining myself in terms of my character—which was completely in my power—instead of letting my managers define me, I was able to slowly repair my sense of self-worth. Though the way I and others were being treated didn’t change, I was managing to weather the abuse better, to remain focused on my work, to begin planning for and dreaming of a life after Uber. As always, there was plenty to do: software architecture to review, microservices to fix, code to debug, new engineers to teach, colleagues to help. In the evenings, I worked on my microservices book, hoping I could put it all together in time for its scheduled Christmas publication date. — 139: 1972-1997