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Day By Day: Fitness, and How did IT get into this mess?
Sun, 19 Feb 2006

My wife is also a software developer, though she's the more well rounded of the two of us as she manages to keep her hobbies out of the technical realms, while I continue to stick my head into electronics or computing at ever opportunity... Yes folks, there is a woman who is both a Star Trek and software nerd - and she's all mine! She manages to take community classes in a wide variety of artistic and crafting topics, from painting to knitting to all sorts of things - it is important to keep that artistic soul alive. (I used to have an artistic soul but pounded it into seamless oblivion through advertising.. but thats another story :) Now, for years I've been meaning to pick up another human language (since knowing dozens of computer languages doesn't count ;), though my mind is not so adept at remembering vocabulary I don't use often. Learning fencing and such would be way cool, though I'm sure at my stress levels a sparring partner would be in serious trouble. I'm also a bit on the tubby from the endless hours of work ... what we developers and system-administrators dub "the IT gutt."

So why not join a gym or community centre? As mentioned before, I always try to park 15-20 minutes walk away from my destination, to get in half an hour of good natural exercise a few times a week, but I don't know if that helps much; certainly it doesn't balance off the hours sitting on the rump that all IT people do. I also like to drop my wife off at her classes to save her walking in an unlit area alone, so it occurs to me.. why not sign up to some sort of health facility while she's away knitting a new yarn baggie? It would allow for the sort of structure I need -- show up anytime, without being too rigid that I simply cannot make it. A community centre would even be cheap.

Seems like a lot of research to find a decent place in the right area with the right services as none of these facilities know how to provide useful information; a pool would be nice, and a weight room, and elyptical trainer equipment and bicycle spinning. Naturally, I'd probably just sit in the co-ed sauna all day if they had one... but I digress ;) For a tubby who wants to become human and get some exercise time in to clear the body and the mind, what are the best things to do? Is a gym the solution? A community centre? Or just chill the heck out and watch Sopranos?

One thing I find attractive is community centre pricing -- use a pool for $3-$6CDN a visit, or a weight room for a $deuce. I'm sure gyms try to finagle you for year-long memberships hoping you'll never show up, so one does need to be careful..

Aside of all this, my mind occasionally wonders how we in IT let ourselves get into the mess we're in; sure, it seems well known now that IT is the new blue collar profession, like bangers-of-steam-pipes were at the turn of the century. Only nerds remember ol' Steve Wozniak, but virtually everyone knows of Steve Jobs of Apple and Pixar fame, just as people will have no idea who designed and built a building they sit in every day. The day to day creators, engineers, visionairies - they merely create product, but they do not create $profit so will always be forgotten. (The exceptions are perhaps Bill Gates and John Carmack..)

No one complains of course, since most of us are blue collar who work long jobs and get abused by management at every opportunity, but what makes IT interesting is that there is no union and no government protection. An auto worker is in a bad spot with the union being more powerful than it should be (until such time as they all lose their jobs), but they get paid well in the interim. An IT worker generally is not unionized, and the government has been lobbied to turn its back -- company wants overtime, you better perform since theres an exception on work week length for IT people, bless their hearts..

(You see, I couldn't make a positive blog entry without also throwing in a brief rant. I'll have to flesh it out another day, the day to day anxiety of an IT grunt ;)

Someone I know proposes an answer for why -- a body of employees forms a union when they stand together; IT folks could well be loners by definition, and the pursuit certainly draws to it a constituent of people who love what they do and are willing to kill themselves for the work, for the chance to simply build the bridge. Coders are often arrogant (being masters of their digital domain), but they're just as or more-so humble .. they do not crave the fame, just want to play with a hammer all day (and crush enemy tanks by night.) IT folks just don't realize it doesn't have to be this way, that they can still be light hearted and cool, and work normal hours.

At least, it never occurs to me to work normal hours ;)

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