Two Years Ago
Two years ago, in May 2008, I posted “Last Day in IT.” It seems amazing to me that it’s only been two years – I’ve gone through so many changes. A friend of mine asked me how it’s been, these past two years and how it compares to IT. I have to say, I haven’t made a mistake. Moving into Nursing has been the best change I could have made for myself.
Let’s start with the things I miss:
I miss the very cool and eclectic geeks that I used to work with. There are fewer USB Missile Launchers these days and no one is taping my belongings to the ceiling anymore. There are no two hour lunches at the local bookshop – though these were out of desperation as I tried to escape the office life and there are no rousing discussions of the benefits of wired versus wireless keyboards when online gaming.
In short, what I miss most about IT are the anti-hip, weird and brilliant folks I used to work with. Granted, there are plenty of brilliant nurses, both weird and not so weird but generally we are either far too busy or far too exhausted to really revel in the way that one does while one’s code is compiling.
All the benefits of the defense contractor I had – posh office, plenty of salary, golf outings on the government’s tab – I don’t miss those. I don’t miss the endless hours of soulless work knowing that it would make no difference. I don’t miss the managers with so little understanding of technology that they would ask you to do the silliest things often breaking what works for something that does not. I don’t miss “required” parties, being notified 24 hours in advance that you are flying across the country and I definitely don’t miss being screamed at by a stressed-out senior developer. I don’t miss 60-80 hour weeks (salaried, of course) plus working from home.
About the job, itself, there were some cool things. I loved having a problem and trying to come up with a solution. I came up with a few good ones. I think my strength, as a developer, was in watching someone perform a task and then finding an automated solution. At one point I remember a senior developer saying “It would be so cool if we could do X” and two days later, I integrated “X” into our product. I do miss “being in the zone”- being so focused on coding that I would work late into the night without realizing it – when I would have a dozen source files open and everything was just connecting. I know the other developers out there know what I’m talking about.
But software and IT weren’t for me – they never were. I went to college for Comp Sci because I didn’t know what else to do at the time and applied to Clarkson (accepted, didn’t attend) only because I wanted to know I was as good as the smartest kids in my high school class. IT for me happened mostly as a mistake – as an “easy way out” of a financially difficult place. I am thankful that I have some understanding of technology now, but I can’t say that I ever really liked it.
Not surprisingly, after three months being out of IT I realized I had forgotten nearly everything I knew – it was so easy to let it go. I sat down to write a few PERL scripts and thought, “Damn, what comes next?” I felt like Dr. McCoy in the Star Trek episode “Spock’s Brain,” except there was no one there to walk me through it.
The move to nursing was, for me, not only an escape from the soul-searing work as a defense contractor (In short: I felt we were ripping off the government while we made things that killed people. I suppose someone has to make weapons, but it doesn’t have to be me), but a process of expressing myself, of reaching out to others and by doing so, letting go of the self-focus and egoism with which we all struggle.
I love nursing. I find it spiritually fulfilling in a way software never was. I find that I can make more of a difference in a five minute conversation with someone than I could in a year of network engineering. It is true that nursing is exhausting, that one does not always “make that difference” and that there is a lot that needs to change, but it is also true that the opportunities to express compassion, to reach out to others and leave the self behind are endless.
Probably one of the most important lessons I’ve learned since beginning my practice as a nurse is that not everyone (surprise!) has entered this field sharing my perspective and this doesn’t necessarily make them wrong – just different. I also see plenty of people who were just like me in software – unhappy, feeling like there were few options and really wrestling with the challenge of finding meaning in their career. To those folks, I can only offer myself as an example – find that fulfills you spiritually and do that. Life is too short.
In the end I find that nursing allows me to express myself in accordance with my spiritual beliefs and encourages me to express my compassion with confidence. It allows me to step outside my small, ego-centered self and explore this huge world. It affords me the opportunity to be there at some of the most fearful, painful moments of someone’s life and to offer them some comfort or – at the very least – a witness to their experience. IT never really was all that.
