I’ve been thinking about your comparison between teaching and IT and I realized you are right, it’s the same with most jobs, the only difference probably is that in most technical jobs there is a historical wider separation between the “tech guys” and customers. That’s probably one of the reasons why I have the feeling it’s harder in IT, when in reality it isn’t so as you point out, it’s just our perception.

I suppose you could drive a similar example with a job at a restaurant. Talking with customers is the daily job for a waiter, but if you get the chef to talk with customers he might get everything wrong.

About the businesses I love… hmmm let me think… I love what I do, computer science is my life and I enjoy every single second I’m with a computer but I also enjoy socializing, things like PR or marketing are also great business loves. As a secret I’ll tell you that I’ve always wanted to open a restaurant/night club. Something like a jazz club or similar where people come to eat and you have live performances. But not the typical pub with performance. Something maybe more serious. But this dream is just as a hobby, not to actually work in it. It’s more like I have money, I don’t care if this business doesn’t gives an awful lot of cash but I would love to manage it.

About the clients, I love the ones that not only tell you what they think it’s wrong with your product (constructive feedback), but they try to understand that even though you represent a company , you are a human being with feelings, and problems like everyone else.

And about mentoring, indeed, I personally love inspirational persons and I always try to do the same with others. I used to teach a programming course at my university like 3 or 4 years ago and I still bump into pupils that tell me how they loved the course and how much they learned with it. For me, that’s worth much more then money.

Ok, time to go to bed. Night Jo!

So let’s spell this out. If you teach, it’s because people don’t know stuff. That means they don’t know and there is not point complaining that they don’t know and don’t catch on quickly! That’s how we earn our crust.

If you are in IT, you deal with people who don’t know what you know. That’s how you earn your money! And they know some stuff and not other stuff. Nature of the business!

Now it is true, sometimes a situation takes you by surprise. Or even the customers take you by surprise. You find you don’t like them. You have three choices: find a mentor to show you the ropes; take a deep breath and work it out for yourself, painfully if necessary; or find another business where you do like the customers.

That might sound like you are giving in. It isn’t. It’s following your deepest instincts about your place in the world, what you love to do and whom you love to do it with.

But remember there is always the downside, and you are in the business to fix that downside. You have to enjoy that very critical part. It has to really bring you alive and make you feel that it the most tremendous and important thing you can be doing with your one and only very precious life.

I would love to hear about the businesses you love, the clients you love even though they frustrate just about everyone else, and maybe, just maybe, if you would be willing to mentor younger people learning the ropes.