Programming is not a Glamorous Job
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I love my job, I work from home in an amazing home office I designed. I filled it with plants, little bonzai trees, art on the wall, inderect lighting for the evenings, and all the best work equipment money can buy. My environment is pretty much an extension of me.
I have awesome clients that invite me out for events, I go to programming conferences and have a great time, I can buy pretty much anything I need to (not a rolls royce, or anything that expensive, but anything I realistically need is mine.)
and it even sounds cool. I tell people what I do and they're really interested.
I can travel whenever, wherever - as long as they have internet and I can bring my laptop.
And if you aren't known... then make yourself known. No brainer. It's tricky but not that bad to build a small network, just interact with the people you look up to in your career on twitter, go to events and network, build something that a lot of people use and love. If you love your job you may have quite a lot of failures building this 'thing' but eventually you'll hit on one that people really love.
Lastly but not least, its FUN. FUN FUN FUN. I wake up some days at 8am, eager to make some french press coffee, heat up a danish in the microwave and just look at some code. It's really probably the best job in the world I think.
Disclosure: I am not a corporate programmer -- I would imagine in that exact scenario you are treated less than you are really worth, so I'm not trying to downplay the frustration I'm sure many of you guys face. I'm talking from my point of view that the statement "programming isnt glamorous" is just silly.
Programming is fun because I derive a lot of my satisfaction from solving problems using a computer. Seeing end-users enjoying my creations is just icing on the cake.
I get that satisfaction when I worked at a startup, now in my cubefarm, and I imagine even if I were a consultant.
If this is not sarcasm, then in any case it does not put a dent the "programming is not glamorous" notion a notch.
An "amazing home office"? With "little bonzai trees and indirect lighting"? "Invited by clients for events" and "programming conferences"?
That's not glamorous in any common use of the world. At best it's a geeks idea of what glamorous is. And even that trailer-park idea of glamorous is far from most programmers reality (as one can tell from programming median salaries).
But even if that was "glamorous" (which is not: by glamorous, common folks AND the movies TFA describes, mean the Ferrari, red carpet, model dating type of startup millionaires), the whole premise of the comment would still be a classical geek misunderstanding.
When people say "X is Y" they don't mean "ALL X is Y and only Y", they mean "most X are mostly like Y". And it's true that most programming jobs not only are not glamorous in the Ferrari sense, they are also not "glamorous" in the sense you describe above. So the "sweeping generalisation" is perfectly accurate in normal conversation sense. TFA never used a universal quantifier in the mathematical sense.
My definition of glamour is (and I'm sure what most of the normal world considers glamorous outside of celebrities)...
1. I can travel, where I want, when I want
2. I can buy nice things. MAYBE even a ferrari, in good time. Not right now, but it is absolutely in the realm of possibility
3. I can work from home, I can work in an office. I can work wherever I like. I can move to different states, and different cities at the drop of a hat.
4. I can take a break if I want to, and I can resume when I want to
5. I have true FREEDOM.
I mentioned my desk and working area because (although it's trivial, and not one of my main points), most people are chained to some slave job, so when they walk in my house their first reaction is usually .. "wow! this would be great to work here!"
And that to me is glamour, hardly a "trailer-park idea of glamour". That just makes it sound like you are bitter. All of the points I reiterated are ones I said in my original post but that you graciously ignored in favor of challenging my one trivial answer.
I mean, which part of TFA's "depicts a tale of the less than 1% of programmers who become extremely rich, famous and successful, practically overnight" is difficult to understand?
Not even telecommuting and having a good salary and "bonsai trees" is not the same at all as the kind of glamorous the media (and TFA) describes, it's also not representative of the 95% of programmers.
Most of the 1-5 points you note apply to a lot of professions. In fact you see all those benefits far more often in other fields than you do in programming. And it sure is not in the typical percentiles for programming jobs.
Plus point 5 is bogus. Either you have money to do anything you wont (including not working), or you don't have freedom. This has nothing to do with programming. It's not even orthogonal, as the vast majority of programmers are not rich and the vast majority of rich people are not programmers. If you mean you have "inner freedom", then that you can have also bumming in the streets.
>And that to me is glamour, hardly a "trailer-park idea of glamour".
It sure is not the general middle class idea of glamour. Which is what TFA is about (Ferraris, partying all night, red carpet events, etc).
People idealize freedom (money, traveling, time).
All things provided by programming. Or more specifically, things which can be reasonably obtained if you are a programmer.
Managing relationships in your team, building a rapport with your management and teammates, delivering products that match or exceed expectations, contribute to the bottom line profit pool and balance it all with a healthy time schedule and proper nutrition. All these can be flipped to be negative, which can turn a career into a miserable chore. Notice that I'm aiming to dissociate the programming aspect from the that list. I believe that a programmer doesn't face a unique set of problems.
I recently bought a large frame/large top geek desk. Apparently I'm behind in the times when it comes to this desk, as 4 or 5 of my friends have been using a standing desk for years and I never even knew.
It hasnt arrived yet, but I heard a standing desk will skyrocket your stamina, increase focus for most busy or easy work (usually write algorithms sitting down). It will also fix your posture and help your health greatly overall.
That should help a ton, I am going to write about it after a week of using it.
Most police don't get into firefights with mastermind serial killers.
The families of martial arts masters have a homocide-by-mobsters rate that is in line with the general population.
Aliens do not invade very often.
None of these facts make for good entertainment.
I blame it on our instructor not having a murdered wife. Just a wife few would miss if she were.
Who the hell ever cared about how TV portrays a job anyways?
My day-to-day involves taking the most powerful and complex invention in history, and bending it to my will in ever more elegant and sophisticated ways.
For my efforts I'm paid X times the average US wage and receive regular kudos from strangers on Twitter and blogs.
My friends and family assume I must be a genius to be able to do what I do. On my best, most satisfying days, I'm not so sure they're wrong.
I'm just an ordinary programmer at an ordinary startup, but from where I sit this job is amazingly glamorous.
Not to mention, the feeling I get from solving problems and creating things others (and myself) find useful (and fun) for a living.
Quit programming for a month and work as a menial worker. See how you feel. I dare you.
It's an awesome profession: the tiny chance of becoming rich and/or famous coupled with the safe odds of relatively good pay, benefits, job security.
Every other "rich/famous" profession is completely all-or-nothing: actors, musicians, artists, athletes, etc...
So no, programming is not glamorous, but it's a damn good job (at the right companies) if you can get it.
I would think most career programmers work for corporate entities, but neither I nor the author have any statistical evidence presented.
I say stop worrying, not because I simply don't care, but because no matter what we're needed now and will continue to be needed in the future. If public perception sways a bit and begins to define us as 'lazy slacker partiers', then we should just get back to the keyboard and create something. It's just a function of society trying to come to terms with something that many of them don't have the slightest clue about. We all try to categorize the new and unknown using simplistic stereotypes. It's part of how we build mental models of how the world works.
With time, people will begin to understand more realistically what we do. Until then, let's just enjoy our relatively high job security, satisfaction and compensation while continuing to push technology forward.
Most lawyers don't try high-profile murder cases. Most doctors don't save countless lives during their day-to-day work.
Even the most glamourous job of all - being a rock star - isn't really all that glamourous if you take a closer look at it. Those rock stars who ultimately love what they do and hence take their work seriously have to work very hard and be very disciplined to make it.
Same thing applies to programmers. Sure, most programming jobs are in a corporate environment and working in such an environment can suck quite a bit. However, the more your work sucks the more potential there is for actually changing something for the better, even more so if you're a programmer. Programmers can create wonderful designs and feats of engineering with little more than a bright mind and a computer.
God knows that, as well as other STEM careers, we need less social stigma.