work-life balance

Musculoskeletal Disorders and the Programmer

Historically over the last 20 years I have spent the greatest part of my days in front of a computer and keyboard — sitting.  Of course I was sitting, how else would I be able to type and produce the works for which I was being paid?  It’s an occupational necessity to be able to sit!  Well, I’ve (obviously) not been blogging OR programming much over the last month as my “Musculoskeletal Disorder” in the form of sciatica has pretty much disabled my ability to sit without severe pain.  Specifically, my ability to sit in front of a keyboard with an ability to “think” (clearly or otherwise) has been generally non-existent in recent weeks.

Finding a workable pain management procedure has taken much more than I ever would have suspected.  While in one of my periods of relative “feeling good” I checked out the OSHA website and found an article on ergonomics.  In the referenced article it is stated that “Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) currently account for one-third of all occupational injuries and illnesses reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by employers every year. These disorders thus constitute the largest job-related injury and illness problem in the United States today.“  Finding data specific to those of us who sit for hours in front of our computers as programmers was not a quick find, and therefore I don’t have specifics.

What I do have to say is that MSDs are real, can be very painful, and get in the way of living ones life to the fullest!

The Wonders of the Technology

When it all works — it’s great.  I can’t help but continually be amazed at the changes I’ve seen in the technology over the span of time that I’ve been involved.  For me it all started in the U.S. Navy - communications.  I remember thinking during my Navy training how much there was to learn.  I remember being amazed at the technology of the day (…mid-late 60’s), and while I was up-to-date on the technology of the day, and some advanced military technology, at that point I certainly never dreamed that in my lifetime I might be sitting in the ski lodge “working” remotely while my grandson attends his ski team practice.

The reflections of the sun onto my computer screen are somewhat of a distraction, but the beauty surrounding the area creates a wonderful work environment.  Neither did I (way back then), ever dream that I could be surfside at a tropical resort with the tropical breezes blowing, while I’m “working” on systems located thousands of miles away.   I wonder sometimes why I am so fortunate as to have todays technology available to me, I consider myself very fortunate indeed.  

Days like today help me to put my work-life in balance.  With child-like wonder I approach my “work” day from the lodge - nice work if you can get it!

Fighting Shutdown during Slowdown

Certainly these are trying economic times for us!  We’re all seemingly “trying” to keep our heads above water economically, or at least minimize our losses.  We’re “trying” to make sense of an economy gone into a spiral, and “trying” to maintain balance during all the turmoil.  These “trying” times can also make us “trying” to be around as we’re not fun to be with as a result of letting the “trying” times get to us!

Even the most high-energy type “A” personalities can appreciate times of slowdown as they may provide an opportunity to not be “pushed” or to “push oneself”, but rather provide an opportunity to slow the pace down, smell the flowers or just work to live rather than living to work.  Slowdowns not affecting ones economic security and well-being can actually be nourishing.  Welcome to 2009 and economic insecurity!

So now what?  Some of us will completely destroy any economic security by upsetting the work-life balance so drastically as to destroy relationships with spouses and children.  This seems to be one of the first changes that I’ve seen workers make (…voice of experience here…) — they’re gonna’ work longer and harder — the better thing to do would be to work smarter!  (…easier said than done I agree! )  Now that I’ve mentioned working smarter you might wonder just how you can work smarter - what might working smarter look like for you?  I’m glad you asked.

I believe that for the independent developer working smarter might just look like finally getting into the “project” that has been dwelling in the far recesses of the brain for a long time — something like perhaps “..learning how to …”, or “…re-writing something to make it more manageable” — that kind of project - something for yourself and your own peace-of-mind.  It may not bring about any immediate income, but a project like that can provide peace-of-mind, confidence and some sense of security as it strengthens your own sense of capability.  It can also help you shut out the negative “voices” trying to get you to despair.  Heck, it may open doors never seen before - areas that you can eventually delve into profitably.

In my opinion (I get to voice it here as this is my blog ), the most dangerous of all ways to handle the times we’re all going through right now is to shutdown.  Don’t shut down!  Shutting down just gets one deeper into the spiral, the black hole so to speak.  Keep active, strengthen your relationships, be creative.  These are times to become creative if you are not naturally that way, or to activate your inate creativity to its fullest!  “Yankee ingenuity” isn’t only for us Yanks!

The IT Worker Telecommuting

Somehow or another in spite of my best efforts to escape computer-speak when I’m not actively at work it seems that even my personal “life” is laced with computer and IT geeks.  Of course, as I’ve blogged about previously, I don’t really try to separate my “life” into a “work-life” and “personal” life — but I find it interesting that so many of the new people that I’ve met in the past year are associated with computing to some extent or another.  (Of course living in New England with its high concentration of “techies” probably contributes greatly to my experience!)

At any rate, I found myself engaged in a couple of interesting conversations this weekend about working from home, the economy, job environment and IT careers in general.  Of particular interest in those conversations was the subject of “the home office” and “working from home”, and in particular the challenges that are presented with the “home” environment.  Not all of us engaged in the conversation were currently working from home, but a number of us have had the experience and could easily relate to the “stories” and experiences of others.

One of the topics which constantly came up (with associated “stories” ) was the experiences of the “worker” with their “family” during “work” time.  The number one issue that came up was related to the need when “working”, to be left undisturbed, as if they had driven off to an office somewhere.  Of course, for this to truly work for all of the relationships concerned, telecommuting from home cannot be a 24/7 operation.  Clear boundaries have to be set.

However, this is more easily said than done it seems.  Many of the participants in the conversation were feeling especially insecure about their current employment status — and the general consensus is that with such insecurity in the background, there is a tendency to try to work 24/7.  This does not work!  It was suggested by one participant that he thought perhaps that was what the company hoped for when they allowed him to telecommute!

Having employees who work from home certainly can save a company money.  The full-time telecommuter doesn’t require office space, the part-time telecommuter can often share office space — less office space required, less expense.  If on top of that savings the employer then gets greater productivity from the employee - it’s a win!

Goodbye to 2008

I don’t know about you, but this year has simply flown by for me!  It has been a year of challenges personally as well as professionally, I guess that means I’m “normal” after all

At the close of each year I truly like to take a look back at where I was at the start of the year, and where I am as the year closes.  At the close  of last year I posted A Developers New Year Resolutions  never thinking at the time that it would be useful a year later to look back at it, but it has been.  The year started off with a bang, and I was genuinely embracing each of the resolutions and taking them on with enthusiasm.

In May, however, my personal “life” had to take front and center as the result of a family medical issue.  The resulting detour was immense, taking its toll physically as well as emotionally.  Some residual effects linger as the year closes, although they have nowhere near the impact as that period from May through October had. 

As an independent developer and basically single person business such an event has significant consequences.  There is a hugh impact in ones ability to service customers well — an absolute priority to me.  I certainly wasn’t ready for the energy drain it would take on me.

As for my resolutions — for most I grade myself at a C or C+ for the year.  Not by nature being a planner, I grade myself as a “D” however.  My resolution list said “I Will Plan” — testing — my work.  Shortcuts were taken with my testing on agreement of my major client who themselves picked up on testing more thoroughly than usual, knowing that I was shortcutting.  That was a situation that we made work.

Goodbye 2008!  Thanks for the memories!  I’m looking ahead to 2009 embracing those same resolutions I posted a year ago!

End of Year Squeeze

I’ve never really established what phenomenon is at work come December but it seems that throughout my time as a software developer and IT manager, December has always been a particularly busy month.  This December has been no exception, although not all of the “busy-ness” has been due to programming that I’m invo0lved with.

At least some measure of the activity has often been around getting new equipment configured and the application installed, users created and all the various pieces of “technicality” that goes along with adding or replacing a server.   Come December many are able to “lighten up” their workloads and enjoy the holiday season with long lunch hours, after work “get-togethers” with co-workers, extra time off (catching up on vacation time not taken), or just plain “easy going” for a while.

However, IT never sleeps!  This economy which is demanding that we do more with less surely won’t help those of us in IT have an easy December.  What there is for us to do, however, is to just make the very best of whatever “breaks” we get during this holiday time — and enjoy every minute of the time.  One of my earliest employers used to quip “Work hard, Play hard!” — I’m up for that as soon as I figure out when play time starts!  

Weekends and the Independent Developer

There’s an old saying that goes something like “There is no rest for the weary!” to which I have been known to rephrase to “There is no rest for the independent developer!”.  The intro to my blog states “This blog deals with the questions and challenges of providing users with quality “custom” software programs…”, and over the past 15 months of writing this blog I’ve worked hard to stay at least somewhat on-target with that stated objective.  This weekend has actually made it easy for me to write my last blog post for this month — having provided me much in the way of “subject matter” to substantiate my “There is no rest …” statement(s) earlier.

This has been a weekend filled with activity for me — and opportunity to correspond via email(s) with clients for whom I’m working.  Now, while I have had plenty of communication with said clients, the good news is that because all of the communication has been via email, it has truly been un-obtrusive and no threat to my efforts in creating a work-life balance that works for me.  In each case, the issues communicated have not been of a nature requiring an immediate response — hence they have not been disruptive.

Truly in this day and age of technology and ever-present communication channels, we who are independent developers working from our homes have to fight hard to maintain work-life balance.  It is very easy to be suckered into working through a weekend, holiday, anniversary — you name it!  However, we do not have to be a slave to the communication when it comes in the form of emails — I think of them as a quitely soft arrival (I keep sound turned off so that I don’t hear them arrive - unless I’m willing to know).  I look at them only when I’m ready to — some weekends I never look, most of the time I see them within a couple of hours after receipt.

I, like many other independent developers I know, seldom are not working on a weekend — and our client customers (many of whom are also working on a weekend) know it.  Using email as an un-obtrusive means of communicating works – and the end result is a high service level and opportunity for work-life balance that works.  Seems like a win-win situation to me!

Buried in Paper

I seem to go through this on a regular basis — feeling as though I am buried in paper.  Even though I am an independent software development consultant by trade, in trying to keep up with various requirements for accounting, tech articles which apply to my professional needs or personal items such as health records — it seems that a mountain of paper piles up each month.  Then, as I go through the months accumulation, invariably at least some of that monthly accumulation ends up being added to the stack of “save for future reference” that may be an accumulation of selected monthly paper.  The cycle never seems to end.

It is then that I realize once again that I have choices!  (Choices are a MARVELOUS thing!).   One of those choices is that I can throw away most everything, and then either access on-line as needed, or just do without — or hope that I can remember enough about something that came across my desk to be able to search it out and come up with it.  I’ve been working on this method over the last couple of days!

Recently I have been incorporating scanning functionality into many of my customers applications.  The functionality has proven very productive for my customers, and they love it!  Therefore I certainly have another choice — i.e. buy some kind of “document management” software and scan.   What a novel concept — using the very technology I use every day!  Hey — I could also create my own custom “document management” system and have just what I need available at all times - once scanned that is. 

Bottom line is this however, by the time my day is through there is neither interest or energy left to dig into either a project to learn some new software, or, to actually create something for myself.  I continually wonder what’s wrong with this picture!  Here I am, a reasonably technically savvy application developer, and yet I continue to work at least somewhat in the dark ages!  The fact is that I can either choose to work 24/7 and at best inefficiently produce, learn or otherwise develop what I need — or — I can choose to create some kind of work-life balance.  I choose to balance thank you!

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”!)

Reflections from an IT Guy

Somewhere around this time of year I always find myself reflecting upon where I am in forwarding my goals for the year, what I have accomplished professionally, and what I have accomplished personally.  I find myself also looking at the relationships built over the past year, and how I have or have not been a positive contributor to those relationships.  In short, I find myself deep in thoughts of what has recently been as related to what my perceived possibilities for the time have been.

Often I find that the past year has looked nothing like what I had expected, and also I often discover that what has occurred was in fact better than I could have imagined — even though it didn’t look like I thought it should.  Life in the IT business tends to be full of surprises!

In my last post I touched upon the importance of taking time to balance work and “life”.  This morning I received another newsletter from one of my favorite web writers — Bob Lewis of itcatalysts.com.   In his “Keep The Joint Running” newsletter for 11/23/2008 “Random Thoughts” I immediately sensed that he was about to write (once again) on “thoughts” which could have been the subject of what I might write.  I find that VERY often what he writes could have been written by myself.  Perhaps that is why I enjoy his writing so much.  The fact is that back in September of 2007 when I first started with this blog one of my hopes was that somehow I could find within me some measure of writing ability to keep readers interested in  the way that Bob Lewis’s writing always has for me.

Anyway, that aside, Bob’s writing for this week starts out with a poem ”Temporary Well Being” which alone is worth reading I believe.  However, Bob builds on the poem in a manner and with cleverness that I admire.  I recommend reading Bob’s latest — “Random Thoughts“.