On the SitePoint PHP blog Christopher Pitt has written up a new article, a story about "John" a developer caricature that's all too familiar in the development world and how you can grow up from "being a John". It's all based on Christopher's own experiences too.
John was a developer. To be specific, he was a young, white, straight, young, self-taught developer. He wasn’t rare, but he was special. John grew up with a couple parents, who paid for everything he needed.
[...] John got average grades, but it was ok because [according to mum]; “he’s just bored of schooling, and too clever”. He walked right out of high-school and into a programming job. The pay wasn’t great; only enough for a small apartment and modest groceries [for one]. In time he’d earn more. [...] Over the years, John quickly got bored of programming. He loved the thought of the career, but it was all so boring. He moved jobs every year or so, and only then when his idiot bosses stopped seeing how much he mattered to their company.
He talks about his own past, how he realized he was a "John" and how he made the conscious decision to grow up and out of that situation. He talks about those being born into comfort and how they're not always forced to grow up or to really struggle. He mentions other common "John" points of view ("we can always just move jobs" or "meetings are just a distraction"). He's angry with himself for seeing so much of his previous life in these examples. He's also angry to see these same patterns in other developers around him, other "Johns" that treat him the same way with excuses, failed promises and delays.
I think of all these clever little things I could do, to force John to work. All these processes and mantras and check-lists. Then I despair. The only thing that’s going to make John realise he is wasting away is wasting away enough to fall through his safety net. He’s going to have to grow up on his own, and maybe then he’ll pay it forward to his future employers and clients.
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