Developers have feelings too

Edem Kumodzi

I went to town with my old man one day and he introduced me to a friend of his we met as "that's my small boy". Heyyyy I felt like dying. I so hate it when labeled with that tag. Small boy!! My mum too. She calls me on phone and goes like "where are you? What are you doing?". Ah!! Those are questions you ask kids and teens not a gray haired young man like me heading for extinction. I don't know about other professions but in my line of work I have heard things that made me almost jump off 5 storey buildings. The only reason I didn't jump was because I had debtors to chase. I had to get help from another developer on this article to tell us what he also dislikes most about this profession. Let me set the ball rolling.

So Michael what exactly do you do. I am a web developer. Oh I have this printer that's not working, can you check it for me? Oh my goodness!! Such fabulous display of idiotic ignorance. It's just like telling the bank manager the security guy called in sick so he should forget his swivel chair and do the watching. How dare you. No please I don't fix printers not even when I am showing off to a girl.

I met with a client to discuss work he wanted me to do for him and his opening statement was "I have this thing I want you to do for me. It's something easy so don't charge me plenty." Oh no no no no not again!! If it were that easy you would have done it yourself instead of getting me out on a sunny day to just listen to, listen to, listen to... I am so angry it just turned me into a stammerer.

Let me make room for another developers' comments before I cause more havoc. Edem Kumodzi works with Ringier WA as lead developer and has feelings too. These are his words not mine. "I hate dressing formal. Thats the main reason why I never fancied working in a corporate environment."

"I hate working with non-technical managers who cannot effectively manage technical projects. They have no clue what I do, pretend to understand when I try explaining and yet make the most noise when the time to blame the technical team comes."

"I hate Clients who can't effectively communicate what they want. They let you dig your entire brain trying to come up with something only to tell you later that, that's not what they asked for. (What did you even ask for in the beginning? Nothing!!!!). "

I really feel your pain on the last point but I guess that's our occupational hazard.