I no longer build software; I now make furniture out of wood.
There was a building site next to our office and I stood at the window and watched the workers. A colleague walked up next to me. We stood there in silence for a while.
Me: “Sometimes I wonder if I should just fuck it all and become a gardener.”
Him: “Me too.”
Me: “I’m serious.”
Him: “Me too.”
We briefly looked at each other with expressionless faces. In silence we watched some more. Then we went to the next meeting.
True story™.
I always thought about going to be a farmer. Then I watched some videos from farmers and realized they are also engineers.
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Who is saying that?
There’s too much virtue signaling here. No engineer thinks poorly of the trades. That’s the point of the conversation.
I just made a joke about how burger flippers can be called engineers, and I have a PhD.
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Again, who is saying that? I don’t find janitorial duty shameful neither do I find sanitation engineer shameful. That’s you
I guess you’d also rather be called butcher or barber than surgeon?
After all, rebranding implies you’re ashamed.
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I mean, that’s basically the main character’s arc in Office Space, right? Still rings true.
What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Can relate. With colleagues we have daydreamed about opening a bar, a bakery, a hostel on the beach, yet we’re all still here, pressing buttons to make the lights on the screen change.
The client says: sorry I actually wanted the table legs to be be longer… And curved… And- wait, no, actually I think I’ll tell you more later
Them: “I want one that looks exactly like this one on this website.”
Me: “Sure… but you can just get the one on the website, and it will be cheaper.”
Them: “Yeah, about that…”
They want exactly the one on the website except with every measurement multiplied by 0.893, corner angles that would make Escher blush, and also they want it to stand 4 feet tall with no legs.
Get to work.
Can we get it with five legs, with three on one side and three on the other?
Requirements have changed: we need all legs on one side.
It’ll also need AI.
I want a table that 100 people can sit around that fits in your average living room. It should also be affordable and made of really high quality materials
What do you mean it’s going to take weeks? Can’t you just use that agile thingy?
A large faction of engineers, especially software-type engineers, have these types of hobbies.
I’m sitting here right beside the heirloom quality (compared to most furniture) coffee table I made in my garage with my nearly complete wood shop.
I make stuff in two ways in my day job. I design something and someone else makes it, or it’s just some idea as software.
Engineers are a type. We’re just wired differently from most other people.
So. Many. DIYer/maker/woodworker/machinist/car mechanic/etc. Youtubers are former engineers, especially software engineers.
Agreed.
I might also argue that those people are all still engineers.
Engineer just means “problem solver”. Everyone gets paid for solving problems.
The real question in my head is how far does this go?
Sometimes the problem is that these burgers need flipping. Protein disk translocation engineers? I’m cool with that.
I’d argue that engineering, like science, is a mindset. If science asks “what” things are, engineering asks “how” to do things
A more standard definition in my tenure in academia is that scientists solve problems because they want to know the answer. Engineers solve problems because they want the problem to be solved.
In any case, the difference is just, heh, academic.
I’m very much the latter.
When I was studying computer science I worked couple of summer at a construction site in the USA (illegally, like a good polish boy). It was not nice. It was really boring. I don’t know about other people but I like programming because it’s a creative process. Solving problems is fun. In physical jobs there’s just to much time to think. And yes, programming can also be boring and some physical jobs really creative but in most cases programming is way more creative. If you’re programing job is as tedious as laying bricks change jobs.
In humans there’s a psychological phenomenon called “crowding out”, essentially it’s hard for our brains to attach multiple, powerful incentives to one activity. Generally the “lesser” ones get crowded out by the more important one.
I’m still young (26), and still feel the same way about programming, I deeply enjoy it. However, I know programmers who were passionate like me when they were younger, and that passion has been slowly drained as they continue to code professionally, and I’ve seen it come back when they move into non-programming roles (be it industry change or moving to management).
Generally you won’t find yourself wanting to program 40 hours a week, 48-50 weeks a year, for 50 years without a substantial break, and yet that’s what capitalism expects of workers. Yet you’ll continue to work because there’s a more important incentive than passion, money.
You need money to survive (food, shelter, etc.) and your brain understands those are more important than fulfilling a passion, that’s why you’ll go to work even if you’re drained mentally. You’ll continue to do that forever so long as you don’t have the financial freedom to do otherwise (which is the goal of capitalists, this is why we have COL-based incomes, so as not to overpay people who live in cheaper areas as it’d allow them the freedom to leave).
Totally agree. I myself switched to product owner couple years ago. Now I’m back to programming (I do both actually, come up with requirements and then do the coding) but I agree just coding got really boring. My point still stands tough: switching to a physical job is not a solution. It will be boring and depressing. Switching to more creative positions is better.
