[plutonorm]

He sounds like a person high in creativity trying to get along with standard developers who, by and large, are not creative people.

Creativity is a one of the big 5 character traits and pretty immutable. If you are highly creative you #need# new experiences, it's not just a preference, it's necessary for your psychological well being.

Moving into and working with companies dominated by non creative types, who prefer order and structure and consistency, can be soul destroying. People of this type often find themselves pushing against huge structural resistance to change within organisations and it can seem inexplicable because they fail to appreciate how different others are to them.

It can be quite a revelation to appreciate that other people might actually be adverse to change, rather than energised by it.

Your response is a standard response from someone who isn't high in creativity, who is not particularly open minded. you do not appreciate the #need# for creative expression, just as he does not understand your strong preferences for order and consistency.

Both kinds of personality on this axis of the big 5 are useful to a company in their own ways. Low creativity is useful for maintaining systems, keeping things running in known environments. High creatives are best placed at the frontier of the new, where the land is not yet known.

There is also some merit to the farmer/hunter stereotype imho. Farmers like consistency and routine, hunters are open and distractible and creative.

My recommendation to the OP is to go work in startups. Big companies are usually heavily populated with farmer types low in creativity and high in other traits. The OP needs to go to the edge where he is needed, not in the middle where he is not.

But honestly in my career it has not been easy to find the right positions either and over time I have come to understand the problem as described above. Creatives need to be in a role where new ground is being broken, with freedom to express their creativity. This is not an easy position to find and won't really become available until later in a career. But this isn't unique to the developer career, it's a general problem for high creatives to find a place in a society that wants them to be a cog when they have a deep, powerful, unchangeable and fundamental need to be anything but a cog.

It's a hard challenge, and they should treat it as just that, a challenge requiring a creative solution.

[kwertyoowiyop]

This seems like good advice. Go to a small company (or team) where architecture is being created, not a large one where it’s being maintained.

Of course the other side of this is that you will HAVE to write a lot of code. Just be prepared for that responsibility.

[tempodox]

I don't get why your comment has been downvoted without an explanation. From my (admittedly ignorant) point of view it seems like a fair perspective.

[plutonorm]

The other guy probably took it as an insult that I was saying he wasn't creative. Being 'creative' is seen as 'good' when in fact it's often a huge pita.

[bluesnowmonkey]

You’re calling people uncreative farmers. Of course it’s insulting. But to someone who stays in one place for a long time, not because it feels good but because it’s what the world needs to keep turning, young job hopping engineers remind me of my kids, always wanting new legos.

It’s not about whether you’re a special creative snowflake, it’s about whether you have the disciple and emotional fortitude to keep working on something after the easy parts are done.

[obstacle1]

> after the easy parts are done

"Uncreative farmers" is insulting, and this isn't? The claim that your standard megacorp legacy maintainer is altruistically keeping the world spinning seems a little self-important, too.

[plutonorm]

But it feels good for you to help keep the world spinning, you gain pleasure from being a part of it. That is dedication to tradition and the love of what is. That is a character trait, a part of the character trait that I propose to call the 'farmer' mentality and its part of the low end of openness on the big 5. It is this emotion that I lack and may be a trait of others high in openness/creativity. It is not simply a conceit, it is not selfishness or a lack of a desire to give.

It is the result of not placing value in "what currently is" as a default position. The what 'is' and 'has been' has little value to many. "What we have now is not good. It is not worth my sacrifice.".

And thinking about it rationally there are many ways to justify this position: The world is heading towards ecological disaster. The world is a sickening mess of inequality, from the starving to the over fead. From the free to the stultifying world of North Korea.

Propping up the inner processes of facebook, is not worth my sacrifice. What 'is', is not worthwhile, what is important is what can be made, what can be created to better the lives of others. Continuing to do what we do is inadequate and counterproductive.

And while you may view this as childish and something to be grown out of, I contend this is an enduring personality trait. I also contend that it is a personality trait that has merit, it has utility to society as a whole. Who is it that is going to go out and change things for the better? The personality dynamic of the entrepreneurs and the artists (because they are very similar personalities) is one of dissatisfaction and it has to be, because the discomfort of being on the edge away from the herd has to be less than the discomfort induced by remaining in the herd, otherwise the creative behaviour would not be realised.

What you are saying in your response is simply that your emotional makeup allows you to function in a maintenance role without too much discomfort because while you would prefer more creative aspects to your job, you can find solace in contributing to society. And what I am saying is that there are some for whom their personality makeup does not permit this as a solution. For these people it is better to at least attempt to make something new. They will probably fail, but it is by evolutionary design that a certain proportion of people will be forced to try.

In the end there is value to maintenance and there is value to exploration. Some will be happy with a world dominated by maintenance, some will be mildly unhappy and learn to find value in it. But some will be so adverse to it that they will be forced to perform the role of exploration. All of these kinds of people contribute. I am making no value judgement here, what you hear in my voice is only resentment born of being in the minority.

[dusted]

Except I upvoted it, I am not offended by it, but didn't bother writing out a "defence" for my view, I have no desire to change those assumptions.

I do not consider myself particularly creative, no, if I was "highly creative" people would pay for my paintings and other artworks, as it stand, I'm lucky to even get invited to display them anywhere. I paint abstract acrylics, enjoy photography, program fun little projects and games, sculpt and print 3d models and build other inventions and electronics, pursue research that has no obvious practical application, the normal stuff that able people do, but I don't feel entitled to do so at my job, I work my job so I can afford to have my hobbies.

The vast, vast majority of jobs are, by their very definition, stuff that is hard or un-fun enough that you _HAVE_ to pay someone to do them.. They're the category of human endeavour that are needed (some more than others) and that people ALSO don't want to do anyway.. I'd pay money for the privilege to program _MY_ programs.. People will sing, dance, play music and write stories and pursue all these lovely, meaningful things, not because they are incentivised by money but because they WANT to, HAS to do them. And yes, there's some small fraction that get to find that their life calling coincide with their paid job, but setting the bar at that level, that is setting yourself up for failure and dissapointment.

I know, you're reading this as if I'm saying you should accept shitty jobs you hate, but read my other comments first.. I'm not saying that. I'm saying you should find an acceptable job, and find something to like about it. You need to at least give it a chance before getting offended that it's not everything you so rightly deserve.

OP asked a question, I gave an answer as best I could, it's not the one true answer, but it is my point of view, how I perceive what he has written through the lens of my own experiences and values. It is not a critique of him as a person, but of the way he comes across, and hopefully, he can use that, together with the other comments, to synthesize some kind of model that he can use to better understand his situation.

[plutonorm]

Beautifully written and reasoned. I disagree only in that I think more emphasis should be placed upon finding a niche that allows that range of expression. I also believe that society would be wealthier and happier if more such niches existed. But if you cannot find alignment, "working to live" is a reasonable compromise.

You clearly are creative, although you mock me by claiming that you are not. People who have worked hard to change an aspect of themselves are often especially harsh to those who have trouble with that same aspect.

For instance someone who is distractible may be a messy person by nature. But say they worked really hard and managed to stay neat and tidy by force of will and habit? They can often be more judgemental of untidiness than those to whom it comes naturally. "I have accepted this and overcome it, and it has cost me a lot.... Why have you not put forward the same effort?" Also, when you are confronted with an external image of the thing you have fought against, those emotions get transferred onto the thing. The emotional tone of that internal struggle with disorganisation becomes placed over the external world, over the top of the person who has not yet organised themselves.

And so it is with people who have struggled and sacrificed pieces of themselves to live in the world. When they see that part of themselves in others it can bring out the emotion of that internal struggle, which probably includes a little self loathing.

I think maybe that dynamic influenced the tone of your original message.

As my own dynamics influenced my reply. My anger with this world for being on average different to me led me to write something that had an undercurrent of resentment.

But it is only through the tension of our emotions that we find the will to act in the world. We may not always be the most reasoned beings, but it is this imbalance that gives us agency. It is through my anger and indignation that I act to change the world. To find myself at peace with the world is to find myself impotent, and I still suffer from the delusion that I have something of value to give.

[dusted]

> I think maybe that dynamic influenced the tone of your original message.

I believe you are, at least in part, right in that. I'm going to reflect on this further, later in the day, but it is a very insightful analysis, thank you.

I do believe this is part of "growing up", learning to not just accept (as defeat) the way things are, but to find something in them to thrive on, even without changing yourself or who you are.

I've been a fierce Free Software advocate, a Linux fanatic, I've stood on my principles any chance I got, and it's been necessary for me to do so, and I understand that other people have other things about themselves that limit them in one way or another, but it really is important, not for the world, but for the individual, to be able to find some way to live in the world that is not entirely without compromise or adjustment (whichever fit the situation).

Again, I'm not advocating for compromise, or for changing who you are, but to seek reasons that things can work out, instead of seeking for reasons they can't. I just cannot muster sympathy for this particular concept of "feeling entitled and not having a job" at the same time.. It's like some famous chef, who used to work at a 3 star michelin restaurant and goes to bed each night hungry because he's absolutely refusing to work at the "not even 1 star" high-end restaurant, while lots of other people are able to function just fine in their job at McDonalds, it's a display of privilege that I don't care for or respect.

[pseudalopex]

Creativity isn't a Big 5 trait.

[plutonorm]

You can substitute the word openness for creativity in my post, it doesn't really change the argument. The words are made up anyway, they did a factor analysis over lots of questionnaire responses and then found the largest contributing factors. Then they kind of eyeball the questions and tried to come up with a word that described the kinds of questions in that cluster. Openness is prob more accurate, but creativity is more readily understood and close enough to be used when trying to convey a message imo.

[pseudalopex]

I know how the Big 5 model was developed. Creativity is more complex than just openness. Needing new experiences everywhere is novelty seeking. It's more complex than openness too. And openness distributions for software developers and everyone else are about the same as far as I know.

Creative people can thrive in many companies. You're right startups tend to be good for novelty seekers.

[plutonorm]

Your condescending tone tells me that you are likely just the sort of person the OP is having trouble with. And they are everywhere in software development.

[gerbilly]

He's probably just thinking of openness to experience."