Are There Any Fun Tech Jobs Left?

er0ck asks: "My first job out of college was working for an Internet Startup. They gave me some books and told me to learn Perl. Our office was a refurbished factory, with lots of light and open space. Best of all, we could bring our nerf toys in to work (and use them!). Four months later, the company went under. Several dot bomb jobs later, I work for my state government. Is anyone still having fun at their tech job?" I think that with the economic downturn, more companies are concentrating on survival more than being "fun". Are there any "fun" tech jobs left, or have they all suffered from the Economic Darwinism of the early 21st century?

"[Government work is] steady work, but boring at times. (I don't think they'd approve of the Nerf guns). Without the pressure of staying in business, projects sometimes stagnate, leaving us with little to do. During these slow times, I help behind the scenes at NerfCenter.com; It's a fun site, and they are switching to Perl for their admin backend. It keeps my skills sharp, and wards off the boredom.

My questions to the Slashdot community are:

1. Can you have a fun tech job, without the worry of being suddenly unemployed?
2. If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?
3. What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"

Comments

Right...

[SilentChris]

"Best of all, we could bring our nerf toys in to work (and use them!). Four months later, the company went under."

Gee, imagine that.

Re:Right...

[dlaur]

Okay, maybe this is off-topic... you decide:

The really sad part is that people think that you can write software after you "learn" a language. Some college grads come out of school having "learned" a few languages, but unless they were involved in a large scale university project, they haven't learned how to really write software since each of the programs they coded usually didn't grow beyond what could be completed in a semester or two. (Forgive me for generalizing, but this has been my experience with new-hires.)

Additionally, lots of managers where I work think that they can go buy someone some "Java training" or "PL/SQL training" or "Solaris admin training" or whatever and suddenly they will have transformed a junior support person into a senior developer, DBA or sys admin.

This is analagous to sending someone to school to learn the French language assuming that they will return with the skills required to write a novel in French. I only speak one language (English, obviously) and I am nowhere close to having developed my skills with the language to the point where I could write a novel.

I don't care what language I work in as much as I care about the archiecture of the system, the process used to design/code/test, how much peer review and interaction is involved, what scheduling methods are used, whether or not I can live with the mandated coding standard (I have curly brace issues...), whether there are enough iterations in the schedule, how much time is dedicated to refactoring, whether the scope is well defined, etc, etc, etc...

What is a "fun job"?

[BillyGoatThree]

Playing with nerf guns in a converted factory is fun...but is it a job?

My job is as a programmer/admin. I enjoy it and the company receives good value. Pre-1995 this would have been defined as heaven. To you dot-bomb losers it is apparently hell.

What a dumb question

[GoofyBoy]

"Are there any more Fun jobs?!??!!"

Yes, there are. For years people have been loving their jobs because they enjoy what they are paid for. Not for playing around in a sandbox like you are in Grade 1.

And its not only tech people who enjoy their job. Its doctors (excitement/feel like they are helping people), ministers/counsolers (spiritual fullfillment) and even fishermen (enjoy the surroundings/hard-work enjoyment).

I think this guy needs an attiude change/reality-check.

job fun != nerf toys

[Laxitive]

I have a bit to comment on this. I've heard way too many people equate jobs where you get to do whatever you want, with jobs that are fun. Job enjoyability very little to do with a lot of the things tech guys harp about.

For me anyway, an funfactor of a job has very little to do with foosbal tables, or nerf guns, or anything like that. A job is enjoyable if I get to do work that's enjoyable. For the past few months, I've been working at an embedded tech company that's somewhat prosperous.

At the beginning of the term, the boss just came over, dropped a couple specification manuals on us (me, co-worker), and told us to implement it. That was cool. No micro-management - we went to him when we had questions or doubts. For starting from scratch, and not knowing the hardware or the codebase, we got a decent amount of work accomplished.

The answer to your question is YES. There are really nice, enjoyable jobs out there. Find a company that's doing interesting work - no, not the next e-business we're going to revolutionize the world with our web-frontend loss-leader 'solution' funded on venture capital and no chance of profit.

It's about the work man. I became a programmer because I love programming, because solving hard problems using logic (I love math too ;)) makes me feel good.

So what sets you off? compilers? virtual machines? optimization? datbase? graphics? ai? infrastructure? app-coding? embedded systems? low-level?

There's tons of companies out there doing interesing stuff, that need good people to work on interesting problems. So find one and get in.

If you're not into your work, no amount of nerf playing will take away the fact that you don't enjoy your work - it just means you'll get less done, and be dead weight for your company and get fired, or not be fired (which indicates bad management and that the company is headed nowhere fast).
-Laxitive

Fun jobs???

[Crixus]

I think a better question is, are there ANY fun jobs left at all?

For the most part, all employers... corporations in particular, have declared war on their labor.

I'd list the reasons but the apologists would just deny them. :-)

Rich...

Re:Is being an NFL Quarter back "fun"?

[Skyshadow]

You're off base in pretty much everything you said.

First, have you ever *watched* football? Do me a favor -- watch the Monday Night game this week and look at Brett Favre's face when he's playing and then tell me he's not enjoying himself. Sure, these guys get paid a lot, but the best players you see are in the zone. That's where you want your people, too.

The idea that you should "give up the idea of having fun at work" sounds like the refrain of a manager bent on shooting themselves in the foot. Say it with me: Happy people are productive people. Happy people are people not blowing out the door at 5 (like your post implies you do). Happy people are more original and have better ideas and generally do their jobs better.

Remember: fun doesn't have to mean doing no work. Fun can mean taking your people to Dave & Busters once a quarter if you make a tough quota. Fun can mean buying lunch for everybody and having a bonding session. These things don't create huge disruptions or take a lot of time but create a much better working environment.

Beyond that, remember that the really legendary workplaces -- places like EA way back in the day -- weren't sweat shops. They were places where people didn't have any huge need to go home, where they felt inspired, etc.

Language doesn't matter

[Tim Macinta]

The really sad part is that people think that you can write software after you "learn" a language.

On the flip side of the coin are the people who think that you are unqualified for a particular project because you haven't learned a particular language or flavor-of-the-day API. As you did an excellent job of pointing out, software engineering skills are by far the most important factor that determine the quality of a developer's work and these skills are largely language and API independent. This (among other reasons) is why MIT teaches (or used to teach anyway) their computer science courses with obscure languages like CLU and SCHEME - because it is the engineering principals that matter and not the language.

So to the original poster who chided the company for hiring somebody who didn't know Perl to write Perl, that may have actually been a very good decision if the guy had substantial software engineering skills. It takes a few days to pick up a new programming language, but years to develop good software engineering skills.