Comment by gcheong
2 days ago
"Do you want to be a surgeon? = Do you want to do the same procedure 15 times a week for the next 35 years?"
Compared to trying to implement vague feature requests with no clear solutions under arbitrary deadlines and for probably a lot more pay and respect in general? Yes.
I wouldn't mind doing the exact same thing over and over every day, if it alleviates someone's pain or suffering.
I got a colonoscopy last year and the doctor was pretty proud of the fact that he did more procedures than any other doctor in the state for the past few years running. The guy was very likable and was clearly dedicated to his job and being the best at it that he could be. How can you not respect that?
The tech equivalent would be having companies line up to meet you, so that you can perform some particular upgrade of their system. The exact same each time. Then having every one of them praising and thanking you profusely after. Hell yeah.
I'd ask more questions, but I wouldn't want to probe...
you're one of the crazies
Just to unpack a bit more; Would you inevitably be willing to stand in front of the family of one of your patients and tell them there had been unforeseen complications and that their loved one has died?
Knowing a few people who work in surgery rooms, this kind of thing can happen with most surgeries. It is getting rare, but still possible.
Yes. One of the particular features of engineering and especially software is that you don't usually solve the same problem twice. You just use the previous solution. That kind of thing can make you dream of having a job where you can just do fairly routine and well understood tasks as well and as efficiently as possible instead of spending days going "WTF" and "how is that possible".
Yeah the OP critique doesn't even sound bad. There are some types of surgery that are routine and easy after you get it and doing such a thing 15x a week to earn a top 1% salary sounds pretty good. The vast majority of jobs are routine and involve doing the same task at least 15x a week, probably many more times than that.