PROGRAMMER BLUES: About 6 years ago, I decided that I’d had enough of trying to save the world. I didn’t get any further with that than becoming a lowly grant writer for a non-profit agency that had seen better days. So I figured it was time to go back to my mathematical and engineering heritage, by becoming a computer programmer. I’d still be lowly, but at least I’d be doing something that I was good at. And maybe I’d get to do an honest day’s work; productivity at the non-profit was pretty much a joke. And maybe I’d also get an honest day’s pay. The pay at the non-profit was so-so (a bit better if you were part of the director’s cult, which I had gotten tired of), but the benefits were pretty bad. So I applied to Chubb’s “Top Gun” program, which was supposedly there to teach you how to program in the modern languages, and then get you a year’s internship with a big company. In return, you agreed to work for peanuts during that internship. If you did a good job, you’d become permanent and make a pretty good buck. Most people from the program supposedly did all right.

Well, my class finished just in time for the IT (info tech) crash of 2000. I don’t think that half of the class ever got a placement. Only the younger guys made it, what a surprise. Being an older guy, I had to go crawling back to the world of grant writing and management. This time it would be at a government agency, where the pay wasn’t much better, but at least the benefits were decent. (Unfortunately, the “human atmosphere” isn’t as nice; I do miss the people back at the non-profit).

But who knows, maybe it was all for the best. Back in the 60’s, 70’s and even most of the 80’s, programming was a pretty cushy job. The pay was decent, the job security was good, the work was fairly interesting, and you didn’t break your behind. By the turn of the century, this had all changed. Today, a programmer obviously faces the constant threat of having his or her job outsourced to India. Job security is nil. In fact, regular jobs with health and pension benefits are becoming scarce; more and more programmers need to get by on a short-term contract basis. This might be interesting for you young dudes in your 20s, but for a foggie like me, it just doesn’t work.

So I wasn’t too surprised the other day when I saw an article about “code jams”, another lovely way that modern business minds exploit the geeks. It’s a growing trend in the computer world today. High Tech company XYZ decides to look for programmers by having a “fun event”. You get to compete for the opportunity to get paid for your programming skills. You get an hour or so to solve a hard coding problem. Maybe 100 people get to compete. Maybe 5 get to stay for pay. As to the rest, well, thanks for whatever you got done during the hour or two you were here. We can probably still use it.

Yea, the programming world has become a Hobbsian nightmare. Perhaps the beauty and fun and comradeship of programming still exists, but the business world has certainly ravaged whatever economic dignity it once had. Some people will still make money doing it, but they’d better save up, because there is no security, no reasonable guarantee of income next year. For anyone who isn’t interested in living jam to jam, perhaps the best thing is to do what I did (quite inadvertently). I learned how to program, but I also learned how to do other stuff that arguably has some use (and can’t easily be done by someone in Shanghai). I still get to use my programming skills once in a while, whenever I see a need at my job for a customized computer application (I’ve put together a lot of Access databases for myself and various other people at work).

But, programming is like the icing, not the cake; it’s like the sauce, not the pasta. It’s tasty, but you couldn’t live on it. But it could make you a more valuable employee than if you just did the basic, boring stuff that you were hired for. Yea, the business world still needs men (and women) for all seasons. And programming could be one of those seasons. But the season in which you could make a nice living doing nothing but programming – that season has become a cold and cruel winter, unfortunately.