A couple of conversations recently have caused me to reflect on how my normal, everyday life as a creator of software looks rather odd to people outside of the profession.
Conversation with my 7 year old after the usual attempts at getting him to actually talk about what he did at school that day, and his claims that he doesn't remember:
me: I remember everything I did today and could tell you all about it. But I'm probably more interested in your day at school than you would be in my day at work.
him: I already know what you do at work
me: really? what do I do at work?
him: you just type on your computer all day long
Conversation with a good friend of mine (profession: folk singer)
him: did you invent anything today, Sarah?
me: Not today.
Some days I can claim to have invented stuff. In a conversation last week, I related that we finsihed up two different versions of our software on the same day.
him: I'm always interested in what exactly it is you do since it is so mysterious to me. What did you do today?
me: There are people who work with me, whose job it is to find everything that is wrong with what we make. Then they make a long list of problems. Today I went through that list and figured out when things needed to get done and assigned them to different people.
It's my birthday today, so I suppose it is natural to reflect on what the heck I'm doing with my life.
As I get ready to leave for the office, I choose not to think of my work as incomprehensible to my friends and family. Today, I choose to think of what I do as mysterious.
Posted by Sarah at January 18, 2006 7:35 AMI don't know about you, but I personally find cars and electrical appliances mysterious and intimidating. I have great respect for people who are able to delve into the depths of electrical wiring or car engines, figure out what is wrong and repair it, using tools, experience and a variety of other skills.
I always felt bad that I didn't know how to do those things, until not that long ago I had an epiphany - I work in just as mysterious and intimidating a medium, from their point of view. And I get paid a hell of a lot more to do it!
I mean, I bet you can properly analyze a computer problem over the phone. I bet you can hear a description of a problem in the software, and correctly guess where the problem can probably be found 80%+ of the time.
If you've done any hardware swapping, you probably feel comfortable installing drives, perhaps even diagnosing bad power supplies, or swapping out motherboards.
And, of course, you almost certainly know how to write programs that do interesting things, which is similar to building your own vehicle from scratch.
All of those things are intimidating and scary to most people.
Happy Birthday!