How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?

This summer we have had the unbridled joy of having our Grandkids move in with us (G6 and B4).  Despite the sadness of a failed marriage for my son, with his kids coming here, (for logistical reasons only), we are working with their Mom and Dad for the best of these beautiful, wonderful children.

So Grandpa is doing the baby-sitting in the mornings and Grandma comes form work after noon and Dad does most of it in the evenings.  Weekends are going to be totally family (I hope).

So why is this important to you who read this blog?  It’s because I have discovered an extra benefit from all this that has taught me an important lesson about my work.

Seemingly forever I have been a “7 day a week” guy when it comes to working (read “cutting code and developing apps”).  I hadn’t really noticed that the joy of doing my work was mostly gone.  I seem to be getting some of that joy back and it seems to be thanks in large part to these wonderful kids now living with me every day.

Now when get back into my office, sit down and start to write applications for clients, I am finding a mellowness and hppiness overcomes me when I start.  It is a feeling that this is what I like to do. 

It is a realization once more of how much I enjoy using the products I use (Access and Excel of course) and how much I enjoy providing solutions for businesses and how right now we seem to have reached a major plateau of functionality that means the technology almost never disappoints me anymore (don’t ask me about the clients though 🙂 ).

But I have been running on the treadmill at full-speed for so long that I simply could not see both what was happening, nor did I seem to appreciate the fact.  Sadly this was especially true during the bad times of the last two years when despite all the efforts the results were not overly satisfying.

Even when I go on vacation around the world I am always one 3G Aircard away from client networks and often get up early in the morning, letting Wendy sleep while I work back in North America.

So this forced split from my routine has not only been good for my psyche it has also been good for my work-life.  We are all SO lucky to do something that we all enjoy so much – confess – it’s true.  From working in all these companies for all these years I can’t imagine doing the kinds of things the people I work with do all the time, regardless of how much some of them are getting paid.  I’m sure they enjoy what they do, but I like the challenge of understanding and improving the business processes, I like the variety.  But mostly I like being a “Developer” – writing code, designing databases, building GUIs and seeing the results bring value to my clients (whether they all fully appreciate it or not ;-)).

I’ve played in a “Skiffle/Jug/Bluegrass” band for 40 years (really).  One of our songs is “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away” by the great Dan Hicks of “Hot Licks” fame.  That pretty much can be applied to what I do for a living, and I’d like to thank my Grandkids for letting me realize that.

Dick