Are changes good for you?
I have been told many many times that changes are supposed to be good for you (or me, since it’s my situation that we are looking into). I have been a coder for quite some time now. I can’t say that I am absolutely ecstatic about programming. It does not influence my life outside of my office hours and time that I spent at home trying desperately to improve myself. For instance, I don’t watch Star Trek or build some kind of crazy contraptions which could loosely be called a robot in my basement, although come to think of it, that sounds like a good idea; the robot one, not the Star Trek. I don’t wear nerdy t-shirts with BSOD on it. I am not participating in heated discussions like “My IDE is bigger then yours!” and “My OS can kick your OS’s butt” and so on. I can’t say that coding is my passion, it is something I am interested in and it pays my bills. Another factor would be my formal training – I have some in development, but as for the other areas I can’t say that I am properly trained. Lately something had changed in my work – I am doing more managerial things then coding.
When I realized for the first time that this was happening to me, an image of a Pointy Haired Boss came to my mind. I quickly dismissed it, since I got most of my hair intact and there is no boldness that runs in my family. But I assured myself that I will keep on coding despite the changes. It becomes more and more difficult with every day. I still see a lot of code written by the developers on my team, I get to answer whole bunch of questions from developers as to how should they proceed with their task. At times it makes me want to ask them if google is down, but that’s not the point. Even when I get a chance to code, I have to give projects that interests me to some other people. These projects are more complex, take more time and require full concentration, and simply put, I can’t guarantee that I will be able to give these thing time and effort they deserve.
I’ve tried coding for myself – invent some little projects and making them happen – these things simply don’t work for me. I guess there is no pressure, no drive and ultimately no purpose other then to stay afloat. I still read about programming and related fields, and I read a lot, but it will never substitute the real deal – getting down and writing real life code, with all the stress, cursing, coffee spills and the rest.
To be honest, I miss the programming part of my job, but I still can give an honest question to that answer – ” Are changes good for you?”