The unemployed developer – a tale with expected end
Today is a great day for John. He has just got a job as a programmer in MegaCorp138. He is 22 years old and a whole new world opens up in front of him. He will meet a lot of new people, get good salary, and most importantly, program in The Language. John studied programming through The Language. He finds The Language as the best piece of software in the world.
Megacorp138 HQ
Time goes by, John is now 28 and he is a leader of a small team, working on a very interesting project, which they have just started. From scratch! Life could not be better…
Unfortunately, soon things start to become worse. The time passes by and the project is delayed many times. Eventually it goes into production, but the users are finding new and strange bugs every day. In time all of the developers get frustrated and quit. John is now The Man of The Project. He knows (almost) everything about it and is a master of The Language.
Now John has kids, a house, a couple of cars, and even a better paid job. The project he was in charge of is now cleared of bugs, he knows most of the pieces in it, but from time to time there are some surprises that he does not expect.
John is 39. A new start-up comes along claiming that they have better product than the one John has developed.
Aah, we can crush them! They have nothing better than us
— that was the mood in the company.
Few years fly by. The start-up is still doing well. The mood in MegaCorp138 has slightly changed to: We are much bigger and stronger than them. They have some extra features we don’t have, but we’ll beat them
. John is the Head of the programming department now.
After few more years and some mood changes, MegaCorp138 is near to bankruptcy. The owners of the company decide to sell it to that small start-up they thought they will crush. John gets laid off.
John is 51 now, looking for a new job in the programming world. But he is having a very hard time in finding a new job, and, most importantly – he has no clue why? All these people are asking for completely different skills. John has been programming in The Language. He knows every single part of it. Of course, while he was working in MegaCorp138, now and then, a young chap would come and told him:
xUnit Test Patterns
– You should learn at least one new language per year.
– Why should I learn a new language? I’m using The Language!
Another chap tried to convince him to write tests.
Tests? I know The Language and The Product from inside and out. I don’t need tests. I’ve tested it and – here – it works. It’s on my screen. I don’t have the time to write 50% more code. I’m way too busy.
Those were commonplace pieces of advice to John.
Here is John today, still looking for a job. At one of the interviews the interviewer tells him a story.
A man was walking through the forest when he noticed a woodcutter. The man went closer and saw that the saw of the woodcutter was very blunt.
– Hey, your saw is very blunt. Why don’t you stop and sharpen it?
– STOP and sharpen it? — the woodcutter responded rudely — Can’t you see that I have a lot of work to do?
What a stupid woodcutter!
, thought John.
Are you That woodcutter? Or That John?
___________
Many thanks to Nas OOD for reviewing this post.
“The unemployed developer – a tale with expected end”