A day in the life…

I was asked to write this, a tongue in cheek, Day in the Life of.... for my company's in house magazine.  Every other one I have read prior to mine was far to literal so I had to goose it up a little.

A Senior Developer in Staffordshire Part 1

Woke up, fell out of bed, dreamed about combing my hair, peculated instant coffee into a travel cup, kissed my wife and son, drove the B roads of life to the office.  The difference between working with people and code is you can walk away from a person and that is it, code and problems follow you around and linger ungraciously just out of sight so unfortunately, the drive, in my head, constitutes the start of my working day.

I always have the opinion that when I talk to people who are from the world outside of IT I tend not to lead the conversation into what I do for a living, I think people will find it boring so if asked I say I work at Keele University, no lie, and it leads them to think I am an intelligent academic when in reality that is only a half truth.

After I have managed to find a parking place, fill my travel mug with a fresh coffee and circumnavigated the security in our building.  Being greeted by the equally as smiley faces of the colleagues I work with I send my warm hearted good mornings to my them, bat back a witty comment or two that I receive from certain individuals, you know who you are.  Sitting down at my ergonomically designed desk I think to myself, “I really need to get some gaffer tape to fix the rip in my comfy recliner” and wait for someone to make me a cup of triple strength coffee and when someone does I am very polite and grateful, knowing that they don’t know that I was just about to give up waiting and make it myself.  I do occasionally make a round for everyone, which is a lot more often that certain individuals, Euge know who you are.

It is a very laid back and fast paced office, split in three by blue separating boards that every modern office shouldn’t be without.  At the other end from us sits all the customer facing staff, busily making their phone calls and generally keeping the customers up to date with the latest release, fix or events, apologies if your jobs are more complex than that I just don’t know and besides this is a day in the life of me.  In the middle are two banks of desks that are available to all on comers who work remotely and who occasionally do come into the office.

Of course being part of the technical team means instead of starting the day with a read of the Sun newspaper we obviously start by catching up with Dilbert, but not the one you get on the back of computer weekly we have Android applications help me with this, Daily Dilbert Application top notch.  So I have three words to say now, Code Code Code, or are you one of those people who say that is only one word repeated three times alternatively I say who cares but in reality it is one word repeated twice.

Due to the weather lunch is spent either at my desk or going for a short walk in between showers, however the days are drying up slightly and I will off down the fields communing with nature.  Having the wind blow through your hair and fill the canopy of a power kite dragging you across the grass at 10 – 15 mph is a perfect way to blow cobwebs out to make you ready for a great afternoon of that word repeated two or three times.  Pack up, park up, number 1 back to my desk, have a meeting, prepare, plan discuss and make the code flow into what can only be described as a purely architected genius and that is no joke, if it was I would have finished the sentence with one of those annoying text speak winking eyes ;-).  How annoying.

5.30 comes I pack up make another coffee in my 3 year old Fat Face and on the road again to fight with tractors, Land Rovers, Quad bikes and winding roads.  Ah a developers life for me.