Is programming as a job boring?

Miscellaneous Topics
#21

My 2p from 13 years in the corporate world:

It wouldn’t be called work if it were fun all the time. The fun comes and goes. The longer you stay at a job, the more it goes. This is why it is good to switch jobs every 1-3 years. You meet more people and work on a wider variety of projects. Also you get the biggest pay raise from switching jobs because your current employer has less or zero incentive to give you a real bump – you already work for them. Working as a contractor either for yourself or through an agency is one way to have relatively short term (0.5-1 year) jobs and keep things interesting. You’ll also make slightly more and have no health insurance (in the US). Another way to do it is to go the homeless couch bum route. I haven’t had health insurance for 2+ years.

Personally I haven’t found that the job lacks rewards and recognition, if you are reasonable in what you expect. It’s best to set limits for yourself so you don’t overwork. You have to realize that overwork does not lead to greater rewards and recognition. If you do it, you have to be doing it for yourself. That is not recommended, I prefer to channel my extra energies into my own projects.

#22

Not being offered a payrise when you say you’re going to leave really rather cements the deal and confirms the opinions that you should probably expect your employers have of you: that you are a worthless, replaceable cog in a giant machine and your umpteen years of wisdom and continued happiness aren’t worth shit. So treat them as they treat you: the moment conditions become remotely unfavourable, look in earnest elsewhere.

Cas :slight_smile:

#23

Agreed. Even if they offer you a raise, it is unlikely to be as much as you could get starting new elsewhere. Besides, you already need to change jobs to keep things interesting so there is no point in letting yourself get stuck doing the same work for small raises. Change is scary, so a lot of people end up doing it wrong. :slight_smile:

#24

Even if you love your current job shopping around is good thing.

#25

Agreed here too, but is it not also true that any good manager would also realize just that - an employee looking for another job probably isn’t happy with what they do, and giving a pay raise might keep them there in the short term, but ultimately they’ll still end up leaving?

I’ve had a manager offer to find me a position in another group doing work tangential to what I was currently doing, so I’d stay close and my domain experience wasn’t completely lost. I thought that a clever alternative. No pay raise offer though, don’t think we really had the money (or maybe he thought I just wasn’t worth anything more :P).

#26

A good manager? Unheard of. :wink:

#27

My last position I was in, for a little shy of 4 years. Most people in that position often stayed only 4 years.
A few months prior to leaving, they came to me with the option of them making a ‘new job position’ with new salary and new responsibilities for me. 10% pay raise(in a department that hasn’t seen even a 1% pay raise in over 4 years). They offered it to me, before I ever even mentioned leaving.

I took it, and stayed a bit longer. (Though I still believe I was underpaid)

Then not that long ago, I finally put in my notice in this new position, and the same day I put in my notice, (to pursue education and other things full time) My boss came back and offered me a different job, with 100% flexibility on schedule. I could choose to work between 0 and 20 hours a week, with no notice, and no set time structure. So that I could pursue education and other interests and only work there as needed.

Although I really want to leave/escape, and that is what I am doing, I think the multiple attempts to keep me, even partially and in various ways showed decent good bosses/leadership

Although I am moving on with my life now, I think there are good bosses and supervisors out there, and some do recognize talent and hardwork when they see it. Not all of them wait for you to say you are leaving to reward you, though that does seem to be the general trend. A few very rare ones out there, try to reward you prior to you leaving.

#28

Definitively boring! Now I’m an Software Automation Engineer (showy title, isn’t it?). I work with java and Selenium (Webdriver) to automate web application for testing purposes. As everything else first time is great (well maybe not everything… :persecutioncomplex:) but after a year or 2 doing the same job everyday is really really boring. New applications appear to be automated but the task is always the same. Find that damm fields put data on it and make the application work. Write positive tests, write false tests, blah blah.

Work 9 hours a day closed in a room with artificial light 5 day a week, yes it’s boring! But since I don’t know anything else to earn money I have to lower my head and code code code and code. >:(

#29

Request a room with a window or more ‘open’ or look for another software related job in the area??

#30

[quote]Request a room with a window or more ‘open’ or look for another software related job in the area??
[/quote]
I think it’d be easier to paint a window with beatifull apple trees outside and a shinny sun and fix it in my cube :stuck_out_tongue:

#31

I think it’d be easier to paint a window with beatifull apple trees outside and a shinny sun and fix it in my cube :stuck_out_tongue:
[/quote]


Make a little town/view and put a smart window in front of it :smiley:
Or get a cheap flat screen tv, add a camera, and program in a ‘window’ that adjusts the view depending where you are :smiley:
Also they make ‘ambient light lamps’ that emit higher quality (color temperature closer to the sun) specifically designed for the ‘dark closed off rooms’ that some of us have to toil away in

http://www.amazon.com/Sunlight-Spectrum-Simulates-Daylight-Touch/dp/B003DRBOJ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357582104&sr=8-1&keywords=daylight+lamp

I’ve used this 2nd one before, its insanely bright, but it does emit a ‘sun light’ feel.
http://www.amazon.com/NatureBright-SunTouch-Plus-Light-Therapy/dp/B000W8Y7FY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1357582104&sr=8-2&keywords=daylight+lamp

#32

I read that a job is not boring if it’s always fun.
But i will take my 10 years in the same company for providing my position on it:

  1. I love my job
  2. It’s not always fun. It’s a Job and even if the mains tasks maybe fun, you have responsabilities, dead-lines , and you must handles theses and it’s not a fun time
  3. It’s difficult… A job is not easy (i assume this as a true assertion in computer science at least :P)
  4. Some day i don’t want to go to my job because i know it will be a hard day

But with all of theses statements, i continue to love my job even if there are boring period on it…

In a “freetime” developpement process, you are developping only when you want. in other words, only when it’s fun for you.
It’s very different with a Job, you must work even if it’s not “your” day and even if you don’t found it fun

#33

I rearrange my furniture every 3 months or so. I love change =D

#34

Interesting I think I’ve had more positive experiences than most of you guys. I’ve worked professionally in games for… coming up on 5 years now. For the most part, I feel appreciated when I do good work, and not like a cog. That’s not to say I haven’t had issues. But when I felt I wasn’t getting paid enough I asked for more, and they gave it. When it came time to leave for reasons related to organization and red tape, I was offered a substantial raise to keep me there.

In terms of getting bored, I definitely do, all the time. My last two jobs were very gamey and I had a lot of responsibility, but I got extremely frustrated with being more or less stuck in the “doer” role and having little say in the design. Really it can be very frustrating at typical game companies where 50% of the employees don’t seem to directly contribute anything to the product, instead they plan things and do stuff that you aren’t privilege to being told.

At my current company, there isn’t any of that, but I’m not really doing much in the way of games anymore. And the games I do work on are pretty simple and are meant to train your brain, not necessarily to be fun. I have a big hand in design and people respect my opinion now, but now I’m bored with what I’m actually working on.

Can’t have it all, I guess. I’m attempting to go full indie in the near future, we’ll see what happens. That way I can at least get bored with myself, but if I don’t do the work there is no meat getting on the table.

I think the ideal situation is to be Markus Persson.

#35

I currently work at a fast food restaurant, earning minimum wage. I envy all of you with programming jobs so you complainers better shut up. ;D

#36

No! you to shut up! I am unemployed now! no wage at all!

#37

When you’re all grown up in a few years (ahem) you will look back at this job and think it’s not so bad…

Nothing is worse than seeing an incompetent manager, boss or co-worker ruin a project you’re invested into. Then when it’s falling apart, they blame you. The simple life in a fast food restaurant is not that bad. At certain points in my professional life I wished I had an office cleaning job - a lot less frustrations, I’d imagine.

#38

Sometime you need to value a job not from the wage, but wage/stress ratio :wink: I agree with Riven, I don’t mind simple job like that as long it leaves you enough energy for your own project at home/night.

#39

I wouldn’t mind flipping burgers at my current pay … as it is in the real world, I do prefer the money.

#40

I worked at a fast food restaurant during the summer break 4 years ago. I earned around $9 an hour since I was only 16 at the time. When I had 8 hour passes, I had an unpaid lunch break and the discount I got on food was the same as my student discount so I basically ate up an hour of work by simply having lunch. The manager had this way of talking to people like you were about to be fired any minute. All tasks were perfectly timed so if the ketchup ran out or anything unexpected at all happened, something got burnt and someone got angry. The people I worked with were people I felt like I had nothing in common with at all so we had nothing to talk about at all during lunch breaks.

The only good thing that came out of it was this computer and, well, the experience so I’d say it was worth it. At least it keeps me motivated to study since I know where I’ll end up if I were to drop out.