We jump off a cliff and wonder why we get hurt when we hit the ground. We stab ourselves and can’t figure out why we are bleeding. We want a lot of money, but we are not willing to work for it.
Welcome to a world where your destiny is in your hands. Action is the answer to your problems.
If you are sick and tired of a few projects sucking your time and pissing off your boss…then fix the code that is causing you problems. What? Your boss won’t give you the time to do this since it is not billable time? Than find time outside of normal work hours to fix it. I understand this isn’t fun, but if you want to move on with your life, this is necessary. If you are waiting for the problem to go away (or praying about it), than that is a good sign that you are at a bad spot. I’ve had projects consistently and constantly suck the life out of my working day because I kept on implementing “hacks” that didn’t fully fix the problem (or they would end up breaking something else). I should have just re-coded huge chunks of the site(s) and saved a ton of headaches and time.
If you are sick of your job for whatever reason, and there isn’t anything enjoyable about what you do, find a new job. Do this BEFORE you quit. But if you are going to stay at your current job, STOP WHINING about it. Having a bad attitude not only affects your own performance, but brings others down as well. Either suck it up or act with your feet.
Some people think that by whining about their job or their situation, that it somehow brings relief. This is a lie. The only thing whining does is give you self-pity….which is a pit meant for the weak. If you don’t mind getting burned alive, go ahead, jump into the pit. But if you want to get better over time and conquer your obstacles…GET BUSY!
The only person who has the power to fix your problems is you.
How do you react when someone whines?
Very good article, I think this should be framed on the wall of every PHP programmer’s workstation!
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I concur! I’m dealing with some similar stuff at the new day job. All this code has turned itself into a giant knot.
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Certainly whining won’t fix anything, and no one wants to hear it.
Be careful about diving in and “fixing” that big ball of mud “on your own time.” Or at least do it in a branch and do thorough regression testing.
For better or worse, working code works. You could break it in the process of trying to improve it, and then you’ll be spending a whole lot more of your own time setting it back the way it was.
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Yeah, that is a good point. I think often times though we are tempted to implement quick fixes because we don’t have enough time to do it right. Sometimes you can get away with this. But you are better off doing it right the first time.
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I made a decision to never have a bad day at work back in 2005. So far, it’s done me fairly well.
The only bad days I’ve had were the days I forgot about that decision.
-d
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That is a good way to look at it!
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Certainly that’s what the life is about, just fix the problem and move on, if you can’t, then try again until you do it, there is no “I can’t”. Great post!
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I agree. Sometimes it the solution isn’t obvious…especially when the real solution will take more time. But it always will end up paying off doing things the right way.
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Very very true. I had a colleague that the only thing he was good was whining all day because the projects were hard and at the end of the day that he didn’t manage to do anything in that day.
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That is part of the frustration. Even if you are facing a difficult situation, whining does no good. You just get caught up in how bad a situation you are in…when the solution may not be difficult.
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Umm, why is this aimed at PHP developers? Shouldn’t this apply to pretty much any programmer?
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You are right. All programmers could take this advice. But the purpose of this site is a focus on PHP programming and I am a PHP programmer myself…and I wanted to make sure people knew the perspective of the article. It is good to point this out, though.
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Because PHP is a seo keyword for him 😉
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That too…and it is working. 🙂
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This advice is not only for programmers but for everyone. To quote Eckart Tolle “There are no problems. Only situations that you can deal with now or you can deal with later.”
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I agree. Sometimes it the solution isn’t obvious…especially when the real solution will take more time. But it always will end up paying off doing things the right way.
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Very true, your job is only what you make it. Though it does help when your boss doesnt keep changing the programming language on the team. lol
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