Could it be that truckers and programmers have a lot in common?
The dream I had last night prompted me to reflect upon the nomadic life of truckers and how they actually share several commonalities with programmers through their professional lifestyle.
Let me start by giving a quick synopsis of the dream:
Progmatica, a language agnostic programming group that meets weekly at coffee shops in Portland, Maine, decided to hold their next meeting at Dysart’s Truck Stop in Bangor, Maine. The truckers were disgruntled with the group of “learn-ed men” that set up shop in their domain, but they were duly entertained and so they sat back and kept a curious but watchful eye on our group. We gobbled up greasy homefries and dined on delicious homemade cherry pie as we discussed Dimitri’s talk on Seaside from hackon last week.
The trucker crowd seemed to be interested in our conversation and several men wearing the plaid shirts that are so traditional in northern Maine approached our table. They ended up being jovial, comical, even well-educated guys. Throughout the day Casey (organizer of Progmatica) managed to convince these truckers to change professions. They became programmers and joined our ranks.
Progmatica went back to meeting in renegade coffee shops and over the next several years we kept in touch with the reformed truckers. We were sitting around sipping coffee and chatting about Scala one day when we noticed that the trucker devs were showing up to join us. We had hearty conversation, laughed loud and often, and enjoyed their company.
But as time passed the mood got more mellow and the ex-truckers started to shift nervously. After some silence, one spoke, “You know, had you told us that the life of a programmer is just as solitary and lonely as the life of a trucker, we might have continued to drive trucks.” Another piped in, “It’s not that we don’t like writing software. But we had this impression that it was going to be a lot more exciting than driving hundreds of miles on the open highway all alone. In fact, it’s been just about the same.”
They explained that sitting in front of a computer screen for 8-15 hours a day was not unlike staring out the windshield of a big truck all day. And that much like programmers have a need to descend into their “caves” to be productive, a trucker’s cab serves as his own cave. In response to the isolation and general loneliness of being on the road they enjoyed short conversations with other truckers over the CB Radio. This was about as much communication as they had with anyone as a programmer, they explained; short quips with other devs on twitter was their major social outlet as they worked.
When they needed to get out of their trucks to stretch, eat, and socialize they’d stop at the truck stop and meet up with their trucker buddies for some food and chatter. Similarly, when programmers tired of sitting in their cushy chairs they would sometimes head to the coffee shop in hopes of meeting some friends and for some refueling of caffeine. They said they were away from their wives and families just as often in both professions and spent just as much time alone; seeing as the pay was about the same, they couldn’t really see why they left one job for the other.
The original Progmatica group sat there, quite stunned at the reality of all this. And here ends the dream.
The dream is of course, pretty self-explanatory. The dream seemed to give me a negative feeling of both professions. But what is very intriguing to me is how both professions are more than just day jobs. They truly are lifestyles. A trucker wears certain clothes, uses certain trucker lingo, bonds and identifies with other truckers and even though their days are long and lonesome, they all share a certain camaraderie regarding the lifestyle; oftentimes that camaraderie and connectedness is what drives the trucker, even as he drives alone down his endless road.
The group of programmers that I know have many of these qualities as well. Being a developer is also a lifestyle. You don’t stop being a programmer at 5pm, though somedays I’m sure you wish you could. Often, you stay up all hours of the night trying to meet a deadline, trying to solve a problem, trying to write beautiful code. And, although you sit in your office truly alone in your space, somehow you feel connected. You know there are other developers that are up as late as you are, pounding energy drinks, listening to music, typing away in a room lit only by the stark light of your monitors. Developers certainly have their own lingo and easily identify and bond quickly with other developers. Most of us love to drink coffee, to eat at diners, and require being isolated in our caves in order to produce our best work.
I think there is a certain beauty to really living your work. What results from that is passion and bliss. While truckers and programmers are often misunderstood, I think most of them are damn happy people.