All Work And No Play
Clint Lewis, CI Editor
I think most programmers work too hard. I think I work too hard. I think you
work too hard. Why the hell did they invent the toaster, the bread slicer and
the washing machine? So you could program a few more hours?
OK, So you love your work. I do too. But do you know what sitting on your rear
end all day does to your internal organs? What staring at a monitor does to
your eyeballs? Zzzzt!
Think of all the dot.coms that are now gone. Vanished. How many beautifully
crafted, but now useless applications sit in storage boxes at U-Store-Its
around the country? Are you working on one of those projects right now? Is that
OK with you?
Do you eat at your desk? I do. Often. Why? Is it the money? They pay us pretty
well. You can buy pretty nifty stuff with all that dough. Maybe it's the money.
I'm concerned especially about the younger programmers. I predict that most of
you are going to burn out before you are 30 years old. You're going to wake up
one day and walk out of your building in which the windows can't open and say
to yourself, "What the hell am I doing?" You will contemplate
starting a new career as a scuba dive instructor, but it will be too late.
You'll have kids and big house payments. You'll walk back in the building and
return to eating at your desk.
Let's do a mind experiment. You are 80 years old and at the end of your life.
The powers that be have given you a bonus day on the planet to do whatever you
choose, wherever you choose, and at whatever age you choose. Can you look me in
the eyes and tell me you'd want to be at the office, coding one last algorithm?
If you answered yes, read no further. You are lost my friend and there is
likely no hope for you in this life. Otherwise, listen up. Stand up, get up.
Put on your running shorts and take a run around the lake or along the beach.
Get on your bike and take a ride. Break out the camping gear or the surfboard.
Then breathe in that moment like there is no other. And while you are there,
think about what you are doing with your time. Note to self - the supposedly
cool image of the coder who sleeps under his desk at work for the cause is
bogus.
As Tennyson said, "Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer
world." Every day has the potential to be that bonus day if you take it.