Perspective and the Eternal Optimist

January 10, 2006 on 12:51 pm | In General Nonsense | 3 Comments

I’ve been looking at my situation the wrong way. I’m not an unemployed software engineer, I’m a retired software engineer. I wonder if that would “work” in an interview?

When I worked at Verifone a few years ago I decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life behind a desk, rotting in some cubicle writing shitty code for The Man. I had a weak plan to retire by my 30th birthday. I used my savings to buy a motorcycle instead. heh.

It’s been three years since they laid me off. I look for software jobs every week, sometimes I even interview. I’m pretty sure I won’t like the work though. Programming computers is boring. Especially when you’re on a team that works on a small part of a large application. You hack on the same tiny bits of code every day until it comes time to release to your customer. Then you work on the next version of the same tiny bits of code. Ugh! It’s also fattening.

So now I go to DisneyWorld almost every day and play with a 14-mile-long electric train set. The hours are sometimes tough, but so what? I get by ok and I have a social life. I do what I want. I’m fortunate to have a 4-bedroom house to myself most of the time. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been and I’ve got great friends.

Why would I want to go back to an office?

3 Comments

  1. Phew, you got that right. When I was at Disney it was a lot less tiring for me to work 0545-2330 than it is for me to go in at 10 AM and bang out code for 7-8 hours. I’d come home from a rails shift physically tired, but always cheerful and not mentally fried like I do now. In rails, every day was different and even though management could be a pain, the job wasn’t mentally/emotionally draining like having to deal with ridiculous deadlines and working on the same crap day in and day out for months at a time. Plus, in rails you get to interact with thousands of people every day, and that’s just not an option in an office.

    Now, if rails just paid a little better….

    Comment by SteveP — January 11, 2006 #

  2. Woohoo…first post…

    Anyhow, you’re living the dream…I think. I grew up in South Florida wanting to do nothing but work Rails at WDW, and now I code all day. Definately fattening, boring and high stress, but the money is good! Maybe when I turn 30 I can do what you’re doing.

    Great blog, keep up the updates coming. :)

    Comment by Ryan B. — January 19, 2006 #

  3. I do miss the money. I just don’t feel like it was really worth it.

    Of course if an interesting job were to fall in my lap I’d take it :-D

    Comment by Bill — January 19, 2006 #

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