I’ll admit that I’m very fortunate. I work in a field that is my true passion. I am a technologist, and more specifically, a software architect. I also work for a great company that allows me to be creative, efficient, and impactful.
However, a recent article I read just made me realize that my passion has been eaten away by something else.
I used to work late… just because. If I was working on some particularly hairy algorithm, or software problem, I would work until it was complete. I got a rush out of it, and a deep sense of satisfaction that I could turn something complex into something elegantly simple.
I would go home and read technical books, online articles, and samples about up-and-coming languages or tools. I would be constantly writing sample applications in new languages, or playing around with a new database schema editor or programming environment. I would also join discussion groups, and attend local user group meetings just to meet and talk with people who shared my passion.
Most of that is gone now.
Now, my overriding thought is my two girls. They are my passion. Growing up and in my early adulthood, I knew I wanted a family and wanted to be the best father I could be. I thought about how I would raise my children to be competent, intelligent, resourceful adults.
Now that I am actually a father, I’ve realized two things:
Gone are the days of coming home and reading books and magazines about technology. Now I come home and am welcomed by two little girls who scream, “Daddy!! You’re home!!” and want hugs and kisses.
How can you not be passionate about that?
My inspiration for this article is a conference call I had today with some teammates on a project at work. As usual, there’s a couple application developers, the project manager, throw in a couple QA folks, a BA, etc.
This is a complementary article to Antipimp’s “I could care less what they say.”. Read that first if you have a moment, then come back here and finish up. Take your time, it’s worth it.
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Now, let’s talk about the other side of the fence.
Once you get the awesome job that Asshat Antipimp lined up for you, trust me when I say that no one gives a flip how many lines of code you wrote, or what awesome application framework you used. They care that you solved their problem and that it won’t break in a month.
Software folks are notorious for their.
My least favorite trait of many of my colleagues is their mistaken belief that other people give a shit about the technology. Well, actually, they do, but only when it doesn’t work. Things can be sunshine and roses and kisses and hugs for years, but trust me, when you write an application that doesn’t work, then be prepared to kiss your technology goodbye – or end up on the street.
The 99% of the world that doesn’t know how to write a ternary operation sees software as a means to an end, and that’s it folks. Writing software is “magic” to them and I hate to see application developers exploit that fact.
They aren’t amazed by your ability to use an ORM package.
They don’t care that you squeezed a few more cool aspects into your IoC architecture.
Then even don’t care that you’ve taken the painstaking effort to apply industry-standard usability practices to make it easier for them to work with it.
They. just. want. it. to. work.
Therefore, if you find yourself taking 20 minutes to explain to the eyes-glazed-over, bored-beyond-tears business folks how awesome you are, then it’s time to shut the hell up, sit down, and let them bicker about the fact that you used the wrong shade of blue in the application header.
Your job is to solve problems and make the lives of other easier. They don’t understand what you do, and no matter how long you try to explain it to them, they’ll still only care about having a picture of their dog on their web site.