real geeks die early

every once in a while i stumble upon an article from someone pointing out the dangers we geeks live in in terms of unhealthy work hours and our very own unhealthy mind set.

I am a developer for profit since the late 90s and a team lead since the early 2000s. i've seen a fair amount of problems and have done my fair share of work during nights, weekends and my holidays. it was expected as part of my work and i was immature enough to not turn it down.

when i look down the road i came from i've lost a very good friend due to depressions which were mainly coming from a very unhealthy work environment and some more not so close friends either to heart attacks or they suffered serious burn out syndromes that changed their ability to work entirely. only weeks ago a friend of mine died after a heart attack and he was only my age. our industry is seriously in trouble, we set the wrong incentives and we abuse our developers as if we were in the industrial revolution in the late 1900s.

the problem is that managers will never understand that programming is not like building a car, you take some parts and can roughly estimate when it is assembled. geeks invent cars (to stick with the analogy) and inventing things is not as predictable as simply assembling stuff. as much as we think we can judge things we are either way above or way beyond the real time spent. as we normally love what we are doing we take this risk and try to finish in time even if we are way off with what we estimated. the problem with inventing is that it can always go either way, we find that very simple solution simply like that or we can't see it till months after the deadline. a manager has to deliver in time - which is bollocks, it is never so time critical anyway - but a developer has to invent that thing and deliver in time. once you are behind schedule there is the pressure and the coding and normally this is when quality suffers the most and the most unhealthy time is spent. the manager keeps pushing you but he will not stay up till 2am sitting next to you and help you code that beast. he is the one that sits between you and the customer and has to fight off trouble - but he is doing that between 9am and 5pm. i am not saying that either one of the two is doing a more valuable job (i was on either side), i only want to stress that healthy working times are essential and neglecting social interaction which comes from long working hours will kill you.

it either kills you very directly with heart attacks or slightly less deadly but still killing your career with burn outs and nervous breakdowns or it kills you more indirect with depressions that can lead to suicide.

i changed my personal rat race some years ago with killing my career and deciding that life is more about living than piling up status symbols. funny enough since then so many new opportunities arose that i am way better off today than i was then. working only healthy hours is essential for your life and social interaction is key to survive as a developer!