Friday, April 11, 2008
Plastics
A colleague of mine is leaving the department. A group of us took him out for a farewell lunch yesterday. We're going to hire a replacement, so on the way back from the restaurant, my boss, another co-worker and I discussed the challenges of finding qualified applicants and, more importantly, what exactly makes someone qualified and how we, as interviewers, can best determine that. My boss studied economics in college but is a spectacularly knowledgeable, skillful and dedicated software developer. He holds an enormous amount of knowledge in his head both about the systems we build and work on every day and the state of our art in general, and is able to pull most of that knowledge up at a moment's notice. He is passionately interested in his work. His comments during our conversation were something along the lines that having a computer science degree is not what determines whether someone is a good developer. That is not news. What he said immediately afterwards, however, was that you don't want to hire someone who majored in computer science because that's what his adviser told him to do. You want to hire someone who learned to code because he liked it and has a project in Source Forge because he is interested. Well, I do not have a project in Source Forge. And while I didn't exactly decide to major in computer science because my advisor told me to, I didn't do it for the love of the work either. It was simply something that promised plentiful employment without boring me to tears the way something like finance would, and I fancied myself decent at mathematics. The scene from The Graduate comes to mind where one of Benjamin's father's friends tells him that plastics are the way of the future, and he should consider going into them. Well, computer science was my plastics. Is that good enough? Probably not.
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4 comments:
I'm signed in as Chris, but it's Aimee. I heard about this "opening" in the dept. I hope you find someone who can do the job, but I doubt he'll be as funny as...
...as the outgoing employee? I suppose not.
T.
So, what plans do you have in place to remedy the situation? I've not decided whether work is meant to be entertaining... I mean, if you happen to manage things so you have a job you love, that's great... I just worry that being *required* to do something day in and day out would make any avocation turned vocation tedious after a period. That's just the pessimist in me.
Ah, the $64,000 question. First of all, I am in agreement with the pessimist in you. When you become dependent on an activity you love for putting food on the table and clothes on your back, you are no longer free to pursue it with the freedom that made it so enjoyable in the first place. I'm simply not willing to make the sacrifices, material and otherwise, that would be required if I were to pursue something I feel passionate about full time with no regard to anything but my own satisfaction.
Second, I do not hate my job. There are even times when what I do is mildly enjoyable. I could think of many worse things that I could be stuck doing. I also like my place of employment, most of my colleagues, and the environment there, and that's no small achievement. Combine that with the fact that it allows me to have a comfortable existence, materially speaking, and I just can't avoid the conclusion that I have to be pragmatic and appreciate the positives this job brings. Pragmatists are rarely passionate, and I am no exception.
And finally, to answer your question directly, my plans, which I have been carrying out for many years now, is to have an interesting, varied life outside of work. By doing lots of things I really like without depending on them for income, I manage to achieve some balance most of the time, and frankly I think that's the best I can hope for. So far, it has mostly been good enough. Hopefully, I can maintain it.
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