Not Fun? Why Do IT?

While doing some cleanup yesterday I ran across my “spare” bumper sticker which I purchased at a Ben & Jerry’s a few summers ago.  At the time I purchased 2 of the stickers because I loved the message so much - 1 for the car I was driving then, and 1 for my next car.  The time has come - next warm day I’ll clean the car (…or at least the bumper!) and install the bumper sticker.  “If it’s NOT fun - Why do it?” has really been very much a part of me all my life.

Even in my early career in manufacturing production control I expressed my thoughts very freely to my co-workers.  Imagine my surprise when it came back to haunt me when an employee I hired a few months previously walked into my office and told me something like this — “It’s not fun — so I’m not doing it any more!  I’ll be gone in 2 weeks!”  That was an eye opener!

Each time I see the phrase I’m reminded that indeed I do have choices to make.  As frustrating and difficult as IT (Information Technology in ths case) is, and as strong as my love / hate relationship with IT is, I remind myself that I am fortunate to have the choice of doing IT or not.  I also have choice as to how I do IT — every client I deal with, just as they interviewed and evaluated me for the work they wanted done, I also have evaluated potential clients to at least “best guess” how well I will be able to work with the potential client.  I can honestly say that such client evaluation has served me well since I can have fun with my clients - and we’re better off for it!  (Especially during those hard times of dealing with system failures or “bugs”!)