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Cancer Survival for Software Developers
Paul Pareti writes "Doug Reilly has published an affecting, personal piece about Surviving Cancer if you're a Programmer. You don't have to be a sufferer to benefit from reading it, especially his conclusions, including the perspective-lengthening advice: 'Make sure you are not indispensable!'"
...you will never be promoted.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I found the article a little "wieird", If I found myself with terminal cancer, my family and myself would be on the top of the list. I would spend every last waking momement with my kids. I would take every precaution to say to them what needed to be said and done, The LAST thing on my list would be source codes and clients...
Sure it sounds WRONG, but take a step back, and think about it. I'm going to die in 6 months, sorry ozzy/harriet daddy has to go take care of some stuff at the office, dont worry, i got 6 months left.
Unless ofcourse its Curable, which then, I would have to balance the two a little more carefuly.
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
If I'm going to die of cancer I could give a shit less how my employer makes out when I'm dead.
I'm dying...UH OH, I'd better make sure all my code is documented. That's ridiculous.
The following points from the article should be followed regardles of having a potentially terminal illness:
* Make certain that source code is where it should be.
* Clearly document anything "strange" in the source code you deliver. .
* Make certain you have a "buddy" developer who knows what you are doing.
If nothing else, the first two are essential if you want to read your _own_ source code after a year or two's time and figure out what is going on.
1. Call boss: "I quit"
2. Sell house, possessions.
3. Move to tropical island paradise.
4. When the pain sets in - gun to head.
5. Afterlife????
A few months after my mother died from breast cancer, my boss was harrassing me for not being willing to put in 80+ hours per week because I was spending too much time with family. When he told me I needed to work his way or take the highway, I took the highway. My dad and I took a road trip to from California to Idaho to bury mom's asshes with her folks, I went back to school for a year and got a better paying job two years after I left my old company. Unless you work for a great company that cares about the employees, you got to deal with the jerks.
We should ensure that, no matter what happens, we have taken care of our responsibilities such that, in the event of our departure, our clients and employers can continue to function normally.
Well, if you are dying, you may have other priorities in your last days. The above quote might be relevant if you own or run a company, but not for the average Joe.
Most people would not think twice about quitting their boring jobs and actually try to enjoy the last hours of their lives.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Of course you would. If you were currently dying of cancer. He says very clearly that if your case is terminal, that's what you should do. The article isn't for those people
It's for people with either curable cancer, or cancer that is long-term treatable (will likely kill you in the next decade, but you'll be fine for at least a few more years). People in those situations can't afford to quit work entirely (not with those Dr bills, trust me!), and in all likelyhood shouldn't give up their normal lives. But it does mean that they have a better-than-average chance of dying, and should probably take a few precautions just in case.
Yes, if you hate your job, hopefully something like that would be a wake-up call to change your situation. But if you're fine with your job, and are most likely not dying anytime soon, quitting is not necessarily the obvious solution.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I am in the same boat as the author of the article. I found, however, the conclusions and advice to be rather awkward if not just plain weird. To be honest, I doubt the accuracy or sincerity of the author. Sounds a bit James Frey-ish to me.
Here is how it works... You get diagnosed with cancer and then you freakin' forget ANYTHING about work. Period. I don't frickin' care if you are the president or Sheryl Crow. You take care of yourself and your family. Managing your work is just below the bottom of any priority or list you may have.
Been there, done that with too many family members and others in our support network. The article is pure sci-fi/fantasy/victim-hood non-sense. I don't think that in my life that I have ever been offended by anything, but the editor who put this on Slashdot is getting pretty close to being the first to do so.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
A lot of comments here are along the lines that if they were dying they would screw work and spend time with their families. I gotta ask - why would it take your impending death to spend this time ?
Every day you go to work before your child gets up and get home after they've gone to sleep is a day that you both lose. Every saturday you spend getting those TPS reports done is another day of play and growth that you will miss with your child.
An earlier poster said that they would spend the time making sure that their kids know what they need to. That kinda implies they aren't doing it now. People say that they would spend the time with their family.
Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick - maybe you already do that. But to me, every day I live is one day closer to the end of my life. I only work to make sure that I can keep my family safe, warm, healthy and educated. Once I've worked enough to make that happen, the rest of the time is for them, because each day is one less day that I have to share with them.
Today there is no such thing as loyalty in the business place.
/your/ welfare after you are gone.
Employers will dump you in a nanosecond if the finance number crunch that way, and they will not in the least be concerned with
Why should I be concerned about theirs?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Quite frankly, the onus is not on me to assure the continuity of business as a lowly analyst in a huge company. Part of my job is to do work in accordance with company policies - including documentation. These policies were set up by someone because they realized that documentation of how things work is almost as important as actually making them work. Thus, I document, both for my own good and because it's part of the prescribed process to follow.
I work on an internal system at a large company that's mission critical to our core business. Five people in the history of the company have worked on it - two moved on, one died, and there are two of us left. He's a private pilot, I'm a suicidal driver, and we spend quite a bit of time together outside of work. The question comes up regularly, "What if you guys get hit by a bus?"
My answer: Then I'm dead, I no longer give a @#$^.
Good comments. I even have a copy of the mentioned "source code" cartoon somewhere in my files.
My mother died of breast cancer 6 years ago. She was diagnosed in her mid/late 50s and insisted that we not tell anyone. She didn't want to be viewed or treated differently. When her cancer recurred, her doctor called it "terminal recurring breast cancer" and gave her 6 months to a year to live. She lived 8 more years after the reappearance and died of cancer at age 80.
When first diagnosed and for most of the time following that the web didn't exist but she did take advantage of other resources like medical libraries. Research is important as the author attests. Equally important, however, is finding the right experts.
My mother saw one doctor who, after a cursory exam and x-ray viewing, declared that the cancer had spread and had eaten away part of her ribs and said, "come back next week and we'll start chemo". No discussion of options (other than joining a statistical study the Dr. was involved in). She saw another doctor who spent some time on the case. She saw the same x-rays and patient but was able to determine that the darkness on the x-ray was not due to "dissolved ribs" but due to dense soft-tissue blocking the x-ray and that the range-of-motion issues were due to the tumor. A couple months of Tamoxifen and the tumor had shrunk to golf-ball size and was removed with relative ease. The range-of-motion issues started easing within a couple weeks of starting Tamoxifen.
Also, don't get complacent. My mother had a mastectomy so she didn't think cancer when she started having discomfort raising her arm on that side. She assumed that if she did get cancer it would be on the remaining breast. Wrong. If you have cancer, be extra careful about continuing checkups even after you are "cured".
My dad got prostate cancer which was discovered due to urinary symptoms. Routine screening wasn't done at that time and through careful research and good medicine he lived 13 more years. He died last year at age 76. With earlier detection he might still be with us.
So for the rest of us, get those exams. I'm in my 40s but get regular PSA and prostate checks due to the family history. I also get a full body check for skin-cancer every couple years (from birth to age 18 I lived in the Mojave desert sun with my hair turning white and my skin turning brown every summer - we didn't know from sunscreen back then). When I turn 50 I'll probably be first in line for the colonoscopy. If I do get cancer, I want to catch it early.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
1. I agree - If I was dying - I wouldn't really care too much.
2. Write legible code and document it ANWAY - you should have to be dying to do so!
3. A terminal disease nonwithstanding - you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
4. There is a far greater chance that anyone reading this will get layed-off by their employeer and cast them into the same situation.
Change their role immediately. Like cancer, this is a condition that usually doesn't get better all by itself.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Excellent article, and I agree with everything he wrote. I've thought about this too, as although I'm still quite young (26) I know from family history and my own personality I'll work until I literally drop dead. It would drive me insane to just sit at home "retired" because I love my work so much.
Don't get me wrong, I don't really care what my company does or doesn't do after I'm gone, but I have some great friends here and I do care quite a bit about them. I wouldn't want to suddenly drop tons of work on them when I know a 10 minute conversation or copying code would have saved the day.
Perhaps it's a bit selfish, but I would like to leave the impression when I'm gone that "Yeah, he was a great guy" rather than "He was a great guy, but now we're screwed". I try not to leave projects unfinished and I see no reason why my career as a whole needs to be any different.
And it's attitudes like this that cause you to curse at the asshat who cut you off in traffic, or shortchanged you, or spits in your burger, or just laughs as you get robbed. Because as far as they're concerned, you can go fly a kite.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I know that to some extent you have to work to keep the symptoms of incurable life in check. Having to eat, having to have shelter, that sort of thing. But I think you should at least be doing something you like. To date I've known 3 guys who came down with cancer while working in the IT industry. They all kept working for as long as they were able to, not because they had to but because they wanted to. I think if I got cancer I'd want to keep working as long as possible as well. Admittedly I don't have much in the way of close family, though.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I chose to struggle through life by working at home trying to code my way through life. My coworkers are my loving wife, 10 yr daughter and 5yr old son. It has been very hard to get by and sometimes I have to take a "job for the man" but I try to get out asap. I do not care about things I want, I just want the things that I need. If I knew I was to die soon I wouldn't change that much. I moved the family to live at Disney World so I don't have to worry about saving for vacations anymore. We have one car and my TV is only 32inches (so pity me...NOT).
I was the youngest of 6. At that time my dad was going to funerals every other week because his coworkers were in the killing years (40-60). I can't count how many times I was told that "you do not want to get here and look back sorry you did not follow your dream" or some such words. To this day I gag at the smell of funeral parlors, but I took that message to heart. I look back and wish it turned out better, but I do not regret doing it.
... what do you think they would rather have? Memories of you spending your last days with them, or being able to tell their children how you took care of business before you died?
I know, it's a balance that is required, but my wife and I have talked about it and we've decided if either of us gets hit with an illness like that, we'll sell the house, get a houseboat, and spend the remaining days as a family on a worldwide adventure. "irresponsible"? Maybe if you're idea of responsible is to be good little corporate citizen.
But different people have different priorities I guess.
That's a very noble point of view...one that I would definitely share should it ever happen to me. However, it's just good business etiquette to make sure your employer is up to date on all of your source, documentation, etc because cancer isn't the only thing that can incapacitate you. Certainly there are more ways to leave this world than I can dream up so I find myself asking, why would you only practice this if you had a terminal disease? Getting hit by a bus comes to mind. People die suddenly every day, people who have jobs, spouses, kids....a future. To everyone who thought that they would follow suit with the original author, try to get over your belief that 'it could never happen to you' and clue in and make sure that you're not indespensible.
I think that this is the whole point that so many people are missing. I kept working/going to school during chemo because I loved what I did, and not doing it would depress me enough to interfere with my treatment. If I were some corporate drone with a job I hated, then I probably would have taken it as a sign to get out - but luckily, I've worked hard since high school to make sure I'm never in that position. I know what kind of impact I want to have on the world, I know how I want to get there, and I love everything about it. So cancer had no effect on my career plans whatsoever - although it did cause me to make one decision in my personal life that I would not have made otherwise, that did slightly affect my career. But only slightly.
Some people do need to keep working through treatments, and working a sucky job during treatment would just make a bad situation worse.
If you don't love what you're doing, don't wait for cancer to get out of it. Just like people are saying that you should comment your code whether you're dying or not - you should actively pursue a career that you would MISS if you had to give it up for chemo, whether or not that chemo is imminent.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
After surgery to remove the primary tumor, I was faced with chemotherapy and a 50% chance of dying within two years. My first reaction was like many of yours: give up work and move home to be close to family and friends. Or, pack up and travel the world with my remaining days.
But then I realized that giving up work and moving home would be depressing. I'd just be a cancer victim sitting around, waiting to die. It's hard to have any more good times in such a grim situation.
And traveling the world wouldn't be much fun either. One of the problems when you're sick with cancer is that you don't feel good. It's not like the doctor says "you have two weeks to live" after which you feel fine for two weeks and then pass away in your sleep. No, when the end is that close it's a struggle just to stay comfortable and enjoy things like food and warmth. So traveling the world would mean feeling crappy in a foreign land surrounded by strangers.
So I decided that I liked where I was in my life and would keep doing what I liked doing. That meant continuing to work, continuing to meet new people, continuing to learn things and watch movies and play games. That meant trying to be a person plus cancer, rather than a person destroyed by cancer. Sure, my perspective changed. I straightened out my personal relationships and felt freer to express my own quirky personality.
Continuing with normal things helped me to survive chemotherapy and more surgeries. And with the help of a great employer and coworkers I continued to be productive -- a little bit on bad days and a lot on good days -- and feel good about myself. The benefit of working with computers was that I could be productive from home and the computer would wait patiently when I was hit with a bout of nausea or fatigue.
These days I'm feeling fine but I know that any day the cancer could rear its ugly head again. My motto is to go on with life as if you have two years to live. Don't panic and drop everything and curl up on the couch. But remember that you don't have forever to do the things you want to do.
AlpineR
In many cases, that can be even better in the long run. It's an excellent interview talking point, and if they ever need an upgrade/bugfix, they know exactly who has the most experience (you).
Last post!
A lot of posts, yours included, seem to have this mythical concept that you can simply drop everything and gather your family to your side for all your remaining days. Well, guess what? You can't. Why? Because they have lives too. Your kids can't drop oiut of school, your wife is going to need to keep up with her job (she'll be the family's only source of income after you die) Hell, maybe your ass needs to put in a little more work to pay off those bills that the insurance doesn't cover. If you think they're all going to be covered, you must not have any familiarity with the system. You let them prepare for their future even as you prepare for your lack thereof. You do these things because you love your family, and in the little time you have left you need to make sure they are in the best position possible. I'm glad that the people in my own family who have died were never as selfish as you.
to tell you the truth, I was planning to give you a somewhat more civil response, but having seen how you've treated porcupine when she shared her, much more realistic, way of dealing with her cancer, I've come to the conclusion that you really don't deserve any respect. You seem put out that she made the mature decision to plan for her 80% chance of life as opposed to her 20% chance of death. Well, since she's alive and posting to /., it seems to me she made the right choice. I'm sorry for whoever must have died and left you with these angry feelings, but you need to get over them.