End Of Summer

End Of Summer


End of Summer

Steph wrote a while back that she was sad to see summer going. For me, especially the way this summer has gone, I can’t agree. Yes, I’ll definitely miss the Saints games. I’ll miss the nice days, but for me, this is the time of year when I’m looking ahead. I’m getting closer to finishing up the software I’ve been working on all summer long. I may actually even get to take a real vacation in a month or two. Plus, with the advent of cooler evenings, I’m actually able to open the windows at home and avoid the noise of the air-conditioner and fans once in a while. And I’ve got a hope that with cooler weather, a break in the work (at least temporarily), and no Saints games taking up my my evenings, I’ll find more time to get out and ride my trike.

And it’s been this way since I started my business. I’ve always tried to take on less work over the summers, but every year but one I’ve been working on a project that was originally supposed to be done in May, and ended up finishing around September. It’s a chronic problem in the software field, but being an outsider on these projects, I wonder why companies don’t bite off smaller chunks so they can let their employees take some time off during the summer when the ankle-biters are home from school, and families want to take vacations.

And just for completeness’ sake, I should note that the one summer I had off, I was working on a project that was running late, and when hit with completely unreasonable demands on my time in May, I left the project, rather than ruin my summer (there was more to it than that, but the short version is accurate enough for the web). I’d have a perfect record if I hadn’t just walked away that one time.

But there seems to be some weird (and fairly neurotic, when you look at the results) optimism in the software business. Everything’s going to go completely smoothly, all the developers will stay healthy, nobody will quit or get burned out, and all the external pieces that...

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