Why I'm a software engineer...

I'll be the first one to admit I'm lazy.  I purposefully avoid meaningless manual labor.  Things done solely to look better or or impress others generally fall into the category of meaningless.  In high school I was socially adept enough to realize I wasn't popular or even liked by many.  So I've long since given up trying to impress people by how I look or act.  That has also applies to my car, house, workspace or anything else somebody might associate with me.  My wife on the other hand still thinks it's somewhat important to keep up reasonable appearances just so we don't offend the neighbors.  If I was a bachelor.  I'd probably be sharing a townhouse or condo with a couple of good friends, with several $1000's  worth of high tech gadgets, and the closest thing to a chore would be doing my own laundry (no dishes or cooking because I'd always eat out).  Instead I have a house with a big back yard so my kids can run and play.  Well this year Uncle Sam blessed us with a larger than average tax refund, so I told my wife to go hire somebody and stop pestering me about all these maintenance tasks.  The short story is that I ended up doing way more work getting ready for, or taking care of all the stuff done to our humble yard, than I would have if I had just bought a nice new computer.

The moral of the story: Unless you're rich enough to have a full-time gardening staff (you know the kind of people who you just say, “I want it to look nice” and they do the rest), don't let anybody do stuff to your lawn/yard/garden, because somehow it's going to end up causing you more work.  Just stop complaining and keep mowing.

--Grant

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 21, 2004
  Man, be careful about telling your wife to "stop pestering you and go hire someone." The day she stops pestering you will be a bad one. Don't ever let software engineering rule your relationship.
  
  If you want a good scare about that, read "The Bug" by Ellen Ullman.
• Anonymous
  May 25, 2004
  hehe , Very Nice Stuff , I have send this to my other Software engineer friends :)
• Anonymous
  June 28, 2008
  I look forward to becoming you one day in this aspect.