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As my oldest matures, she\u2019s starting to guard her emotional state a little bit more carefully than she did even a year ago. However, if there\u2019s one thing I can count on with all three of my kids it\u2019s that they\u2019re not afraid to let me know how they feel. In fact, I\u2019ve got one of them staring at me right now, screaming her lungs out because it\u2019s bedtime, and she always<\/i> fights bedtime loudly and noisily.\\n\\nNow, that\u2019s not to say you should go march into your boss\u2019s office and start screaming in his face. However, making sure you\u2019re in touch with your emotions (even the strong ones) does have important implications for how you interact with your teammates and your management.\\n\\nUnless you work in the completely wrong field (which it sounds like a good chunk of the U.S. workforce does<\/a>), then for at least some of the time, you\u2019re going to find yourself passionately absorbed by your company or team\u2019s mission. Possessing passion for the workplace brings with it many emotional states.\\n\\nWhen things go well, happiness abounds. When people act like morons, it\u2019s easy to get angry. If you\u2019re on a solid, well-groomed team, and if someone experiences sadness in their life, you\u2019re going to experience a little of it, too, through empathic bonding. However, there\u2019s definitely one emotional state it\u2019s important to avoid: apathy.\\n\\nAll of these emotions matter a great deal. However, I’d like to dive in a bit deeper into happiness, anger, and apathy to explain why I find them so critical.\\n\\n<\/p>\nIf You\u2019re Happy and You Know It<\/h2>\n
\\n\\n \\n\\n \\n\\nWatch out for apathy in your workplace. It\u2019s a sneaky little demon, and it converts effective, well-oiled, and passionate teams into \u201c9-5, earn a paycheck, and go home\u201d types. They also tend to start sounding quite a bit like C-3PO. Tinny, annoying, and always showing up at the worst possible time.\\n\\nI\u2019d hardly call any of my daughters apathetic. Far from it in fact. They\u2019re always letting me know how they feel about everything<\/i>. From our choices of dinner time food, to what\u2019s on TV, to how I need to go take a shower. Like, now. They\u2019re never afraid to let their emotions come out and lead the way. Apathy kills that pretty fast.\\n\\nApathy is a really tricky thing to spot in the wild, because it starts out masked as sadness, anger, fear, and other negative emotions that we can easily write off as \u201chaving a bad day.\u201d\\n\\nIf someone has too many bad days in a row, though, they\u2019re liable to stop caring at all because apathy is easier than heartache. I realize this doesn\u2019t sound very \u201cprogrammery\u201d (is that even a word?), but we have to realize how our emotions impact our ability to be part of a healthy team.\\n\\nThere\u2019s plenty of good advice for getting the best intrinsic motivation out of yourself and your teammates, but I still have to say one of the best resources for this is Team Geek: A Software Developer’s Guide to Working Well with Others<\/a><\/i>.\\n\\nAs programmers, sharing our emotional state removes some of the robotic nature of our jobs. One of the most critical things we can all share is our humanness, and the best way we can do that is by getting appropriately emotional at the right time. Otherwise, we\u2019ll likely become as inhuman as the machines we work with. Just ask Alan Turing<\/a> how that\u2019s going these days.\\n\\n<\/p>\n \\n\\n \\n\\nSome people call this sloppy. Sometimes I think it\u2019s not sloppy at all, but just my oldest daughter\u2019s way of expressing her creativity. In fact, she usually prefers drawing on a blank sheet of paper to one that has lines on it. That way, she gets to decide what the end result looks like from the start.\\n\\nWhile we don\u2019t really \u201ccolor\u201d as programmers, as John Sonmez put it: Sometimes It’s OK to Break the Rules<\/a>. Just remember to be aware of his follow-up to this, too: You Have to Master the Rules Before You Can Break the Rules<\/a>.\\n\\nA great post about the inspiration brought on by creativity just recently showed up on this blog: The Necessity of Creativity<\/a>.\\n\\nFor me, I feel more connected to my ability to problem solve when I step away from the IDE and step into the world of being creative. My creativity comes in the form of writing, and also in the form of drawing. I don\u2019t have any drawings good enough to hang on someone’s mantelpiece, but when I draw I feel like it lets the problem solving logic side of my brain have a much needed respite. It recharges and re-energizes the bit-wise side of my brain.\\n\\nI have yet to meet a good programmer that thinks any problem we solve has exactly one right answer. In fact\u2014because there are so many right answers to the question \u201chow do we solve this problem\u201d\u2014we find ourselves in a bit of a software engineering renaissance. There\u2019s so much discovery to make about the right way or the best way of doing something; I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve even scratched the surface.\\n\\n<\/p>\n![\"Depositphotos_10295190_m-2015\"](\"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Depositphotos_10295190_m-2015.jpg\")
Clap your hands! Well, OK. Maybe give a high five or a thumbs up. Smile and cheer. Brag about the accomplishments of someone else on your team and build them up a little bit.\\n\\nMy daughters dance. And sing. And clap their hands and stomp their feet and otherwise raise a ruckus when they\u2019re in a good mood. Watching them play when they\u2019re happy is one of the greatest joys in my life. It\u2019s celebratory in nature, so don\u2019t hesitate to celebrate at work, too.\\n\\nThe programming field seems really contradictory. We\u2019re very defensive of the work that we produce and are very willing to tell someone else why they\u2019re wrong and we\u2019re right. But then, when we have a small victory, all of a sudden we become shy and say, \u201cAw, shucks. It really wasn\u2019t anything.\u201d The difference, mainly, is that when we defend our decisions, it\u2019s among our peer group.\\n\\nWhen we get accolades, it’s often not<\/i> among our peer group. If something goes really well during a demo, it makes the product team look really good. Maybe it even makes the CEO look really good. But they\u2019re not programmers. And interacting with those people<\/i> is scary and terrifying and, please, just don\u2019t make me talk to those people<\/i>.\\n\\nHonestly speaking, though, those people<\/i> need to hear about it when someone on your team hits a home run, scores a touchdown, or makes a hat-trick. (I know, sports metaphors in a tech blog. I\u2019m sorry. It won\u2019t happen again.<\/a>) If you don\u2019t take the time to publicly congratulate your hard-working team members on a job well done, they\u2019ll likely start finding a place that will. Even if they never speak of it out loud, one of the pure joys of this job is being told \u201cjob well done.\u201d\\n\\nMost programmers that I know don\u2019t ask for a pat on the back. Most cannot thrive without one, either. So tell everyone the reasons to be happy with the programming you and your team are doing. It\u2019s worth it.\\n\\n<\/p>\nYou Won\u2019t Like Me When I\u2019m Angry<\/h2>\n
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Back to that screaming toddler again. She never has any issue letting us know, in no uncertain terms, when she disagrees with a decision mommy and daddy have made on her behalf. Her tantrums even tend to include throwing herself on the floor and kicking her feet as hard as she can. I keep telling myself this is a phase\u2026 But I digress.\\n\\nHuman beings have instinctive tendencies to want to make babies stop crying. For some reason, we evolved to hate listening to little kids throw a fit. And boy, can they throw a good fit!\\n\\nHere\u2019s the fun thing. Instinct applies at work as well. When a kid throws a fit, the best parents immediately try to fix the problem. If you can throw the right kind of \u201ctantrum\u201d at the right time, you\u2019ll get attention, too. But be very<\/i> careful with this. With great power comes great responsibility.\\n\\nFor me, I wield it in the form of \u201ccolorful metaphors<\/a>.\u201d I guard my tongue very carefully and tend to only let the most nasty of the swear words come out when I really want to get people\u2019s attention. It doesn\u2019t happen often. Which is why it works.\\n\\nThe reason this takes practice, and caution, is that if you\u2019re always blowing up, people are just going to call you a hot-head. Which doesn\u2019t help.\\n\\nIt\u2019s great to prove to people around you that you\u2019re passionate enough about the work you\u2019re doing that you\u2019ll get mad about it if something is badly messed up. It\u2019s good to show everyone that you are human.\\n\\n<\/p>\nLook Sir, Droids!<\/h2>\n
Use Your Imagination<\/h1>\n
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Have you ever built a blanket fort? Or maybe one out of big twigs and other branches that fell out of trees? Did you ever build a snowfort in a shovel bank that showed up on one side or the other of your driveway? Or maybe you were just obsessed with Legos as a kid?\\n\\nHopefully, you know what I\u2019m talking about. Most everyone I know that works as a software engineer can recall dozens of memories where the only thing that really mattered was the unfettered freedom of childhood.\\n\\nBack to that Team Geek<\/i> reference again. This is where autonomy really sings. We need the creativity, spark, and drive to go after the solutions that aren\u2019t necessarily obvious.\\n\\nDoing something the exact same way as it was done twenty times before, but with different parameters and for different database tables, turns us into assembly line coders. I don\u2019t know about you, but that sounds dreadful to me.\\n\\nInstead, look around. Find places that are uncharted, and start charting them. Make a proof of concept. Find a way to make an open source library fit in your world (as long as it\u2019s well supported, or you\u2019re willing to support it yourself if it\u2019s not).\\n\\nMost important of all, make sure not to forget that we thrive as researchers. We never solve the same problem twice. So why problem solve the same way twice?\\n\\nWhile I think working for NASA (or SpaceX) sounds really freaking awesome, I feel like there\u2019s a frontier right in front of our noses that doesn\u2019t involve going into space. Software innovation is still in its infancy, having meaning as a profession for only a couple of decades at this point.\\n\\nCompare that to, say, materials engineering. Back in the good ol\u2019 days that might have been called alchemy. We have a long way to go in our world before we\u2019re done innovating. So open the cover. Tear it apart just to build it again. Make a palace out of blankets and pillows. And, most importantly, have fun!\\n\\n<\/p>\nColor Outside the Lines<\/h1>\n
There\u2019s a Nap for That!<\/h1>\n
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I love hanging out with my kids because they serve as a daily reminder to me of the most important things in my life. I don\u2019t live to work, I work to live.\\n\\nKids don\u2019t know what stress is. They don\u2019t know what bills are. Hopefully, they won\u2019t even know what severe pain or chronic sickness is. They\u2019re just happy and free. And I want to do my best to protect that happiness and freedom as long as I can, because it brings with it an amazing spark of life.\\n\\nFor those of us who embrace our inner child, I say, \u201cAwesome Sauce!\u201d For those a little hesitant to do so\u2014have a look in the mirror. When you were a kid, looking in the mirror, did you see adult-you on the other side? When adult-you looks back and sees kid-you, did you say this? \u201cLook! I\u2019m exactly who you wanted me to be!\u201d\\n\\nIf not, ask yourself why. And then find out if there\u2019s a way to help that little kid inside of you do a happy dance again.\\n\\nWhen we let ourselves connect with our more child-like instincts, we let go of some of the emotional baggage adulthood carries with it. And with that release, we can really start making some awesome progress on being the best coders possible. Even as good as our kids think we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"