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example.com0 points · 0 comments · 12 years ago · Supermighty
When the realization set in I got angry. First at the job then at myself. I held it tight knowing someone was to blame. Anger lead to depression which sparked more anger. But depression won, and eventually lead to a calm realization that programming wasn't the magical world I wanted it to be. So it became just a job.
I never wanted it to be just a job. I work with people who don't know a bit from a byte. They could care less what I code as long as it works. For a long time I believed them. I just made it work. Recently I've started to believe again.
I've started to believe in the magic again. I'm learning that within the boundaries of my job I can create little realms of beauty. No one cares how I code so I can code to my own enjoyment. I've stopped caring what other people thought. And I've stopped looking to the job and outside world to give me enjoyment and I've started looking inside myself. To find the joy in my own actions, in the moment.
avenger123
aaronem
If you know a trick for maintaining a sense of satori in such conditions, you would oblige me enormously by describing it.
gshubert17
It's not just a job for you; you never wanted it to be just a job.
It looks like you have found the cathedral in your job.
I would say that if you work on a very large scale system with an explicit way of how things are done and there is extreme rigidity in doing anything differently than the job gets tedious quite fast.
I would venture to say that most developers do not fall into this category and have more autonomy (even if that is just building a CRUD web app). Most code isn't peer reviewed and the emphasis is on getting results. Within those boundaries one can do so much to keep things interesting.
I also find it interesting that as developers we sometimes feel frustrated that the end users don't understand or care about the complexity of the implementation and how much may have gone to just that single push of the button on the screen.
How much do you care about the complexity of your car, or the countless bridges that one may drive through? I can sense the complexity behind it but at the end of the day, I enjoy that is come down to turning on the ignition.
Every profession has these issues. Ask the newly grad civil engineer who's tasked to work on a bridge. What do you think they get to do? They get handed the mother of all books on how a bridge is built and everything important that needs to be considered. Their job becomes one of plug and play as there is only so many ways one can build a safe bridge. I had one of my professors relate this story and he couldn't handle it. He went on to graduate school and become an engineering professor.
For better or worse, we get some say on how that bridge gets built, as long as it stays and functions as a bridge by the end of it.
I find a lot of developers just give up, shifting responsibility from internally to external factors. It's hard to see someone just going through the motions, not evening really trying because the job has become "boring". It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the company starts to recognize this and eventually puts someone more inclined in the same position.