It's not so bad really..

It's safe to say I probably had my most stressful week in work to date last week. That counts for any job I've done in any business I've worked for. People who know me will know I don't stress that easily so fair play to Debenhams, they've truly achieved something.

However, it's a new week and in spite of the fact those same stresses are lingering somewhere; I'm far happier right now. Every now and then something triggers off the thought that I really like my job. I'm shocked that it happened earlier today (especially bearing in mind last week) but it happened.

I was sat at my desk doing some DB2 SQL in VI when someone came round to my desk with a new member of staff. He seemed quite a young chap. In fact it might well be true that I'm no longer the youngest person in Debenhams Development (that might never have been the case though). Whilst we were going through the usual introductions and handshakes (both of which I'm rubbish at) I noticed he glanced at my screen. At this point I thought to myself "If that were me and I saw someone working away on some code in an ugly looking command line editor (VI), I'd be really impressed". Sad, I know, but I'd think to myself "That job looks great. Proper geeky.". Once the introductions were over and he moved on to someone who said more than a whimpering "Hi" with a handshake to match, I took it a step further and wondered what else my job looked like.

Behind my VI session was an UltraEdit session with yet more confusing yet intriguing code. On my desk was a Boba Fett Star Wars figure hanging from a basketball hoop with a "Birthday Girl" badge attached (cheers Dean!). Next to that were a few programming reference books. Also on the desk was the iPod and a bag of opened Haribo.

I'm confident no one else feels the same way, but when I think of all that I consider myself to be really lucky to have such a great job. I've got my entire music collection there which I can spend most of the day listening too. That alone is fantastic for me. It helps that I get a kick out of the coding I do. Heck, I even have my own telephone number which rings once or twice a month.

So to sum up, in spite of the stress it brings, I really like my job.