What happens when the effort is not equal to the reward?
How are you comfortable getting paid for work you did not deliver?
I usually tell my roommate that I admire some lady in Nakuru town who makes fresh juice because before she makes any sales, she first has to make the juice. At the end of the day, her reward equals her effort. If her juice is not well made, she will not make any sales. If it is made well, she might even be rewarded more with tips and positive comments made about her juice.
I sometimes think this is what I should be doing - maybe, I will even be happier. I must admit that the work might not always be roses, but I admire the work.
In software engineering, you can do work and think you are almost done. Probably, you have even started to tell your clients, "By Friday, I will have a demo." It gets to Thursday and, you get a bug. And now your deadline has been affected for a week.
I have been in situations where I am doing work for a whole month and, in the end, I have nothing to show for my work. It is the feeling of not being productive, and on top of that, I get paid for that unproductiveness. It is the worst feeling ever. It makes you feel your boss is doing you a favor for giving you that salary.
In that case, I find the reward is more than the effort put into the work. Also, it is worth noting that this does not mean you did not work hard, just that there is nothing to show for that hard work.
How are you comfortable getting paid for work you did not deliver? That has made me in the past feel like I did not belong. It has also made me feel I owe people something. As a result, I am not allowed to move into other opportunities that present themselves until I repay this debt.
Who's to tell you that this is the last bug you will fix and everything else will work as expected? I made a tweet explaining this feeling when you think you finally figured out how to solve the bug, and it had a lot of likes, so it is safe to assume people related to it.
It is a demanding career path. People at times make it look so simple, but it is not. I even talk negatively to myself from time to time, "Maybe, I am not supposed to be a software engineer. I made the wrong decision." It has been five years plus of learning and, the progress is there; I am just not where I believe I should be.
I remember in 2017 when I enrolled for a one-month programming course and thought this was it. I will graduate and be able to create anything I thought of. How naive I was. There is a way that courses are introduced simply, masking the difficulty.
“This three-month course will be able to take you from a beginner and be the most sought-after engineer in the industry.”
Ha! After doing a few of these courses, you lose hope in becoming the most sought-after developer in three months. Some even lose hope in becoming developers.
I never lost hope in becoming a better developer. I sometimes think of a life not being a developer and, it is scary. Being a software engineer has always been my identity. I relate to it. I strive to be better. My roommate always says we don’t need to talk negatively to ourselves. I agree. We need to speak positively about the progress we make to better ourselves. The results might not be instant like making juice on the highway, but definitely, there will be a reward.
In 2017 my expectations were unrealistically high for my one-month course but ever since there has been undeniably a lot of progress. The errors that used to give me sleepless nights no longer give me sleepless nights. I have evolved, now I have better problems, scarier problems, and they don’t scare me because I have learned to deal with them.
I recently read a quote by Chrissie Pinney that inspired me that said:
“Personal Promise: Each day I have to make new promises to myself. To be braver than my past. To be stronger than my struggle. So that I may find a bigger adventure regardless of the risks.”
It inspired me because I related to it. This is what kept me going, even when the effort was less than the reward, even when I had nothing to show for the work. When I felt I was walking one step forward then two steps backward, I kept going.
At times, I would take a seat and recalculate my trajectory to see if I was going in the right direction but, I kept going.
So what do you do when the effort is not equal to the reward? You should keep going. You should be excited about this new journey you have started, this demanding journey that no one talks about. You should try to enjoy the process. Growth might not be noticeable, but it is there. Peter Norvig has a great old article that I think you might like, titled, “Teach yourself programming in ten years.” Read it, think about it, and reread it a few years later. I hope this article makes your software engineering journey better.
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Until next time.