I'm pretty sure they mean that NFL players (and musicians) have dedicated practice time separate from their "performance" time (games for athletes, concerts/recording/writing sessions/etc. for musicians), whereas software engineers are (generally) expected to produce useful output during all of their work time, and aren't generally allotted time in the schedule for self-improvement.
Same here. The only time I've seen a company schedule/budget for training was when I worked at Intel in the early 2000s. They were very serious about sending people for training classes in various technologies. After I left that company because of a big downturn, I never saw this kind of support for training at all.
Training is work but their main “events” are just much shorter than say that of a programmers. Even the longest athletic event like TdF lasts only several weeks. A programmer or lawyer worker 9 to 5 (at a minimum) doesn’t have time after work to practice.
Not writing code doesn't equate to not working. Thinking, documenting, designing, discussing, etc are all important parts of their job. I don't understand why you seem offended by my take on this. This line of reasoning doesn't by any means diminish athletes/musician's work.
Because the identical logic works when used on athletes and musicians. You're just being obtuse and refusing to recognize it. I don't know if you get off on feeling superior to people who aren't developers, but I think it's weird you're trying to argue this angle so hard.
In all these professions, and many more, we're expected to maintain a certain level of performance (or capacity for performance) whether we're officially given the time for it at work and whether we're paid for it or not.
I also don't see how you can possibly in good faith compare "public performance" to whatever you think the equivalent "performance" is as a developer.
It sounds disrespectful and unnecessary, honestly.
My main point is that these jobs are fundamentally different and people spend their time differently as a consequence.
At this point, I am more curious about how what I argue even comes across as me feeling superior or being disrespectful to people who aren't developers. (I am not a developer and would rather spent all my time running if I could)
Imagine if you told your boss you were only going to actually write code or investigate bugs from 1pm-5pm on Fridays, and the rest of the week you were going to practice "fundamentals". Your boss would think it completely ridiculous, but it's still a larger ratio of performance to practice / training than a professional musician or athlete.
The nature of the work is not the same, hence, the proportion of the modalities of your work are not identical.
The problem is considering that only your office boss work view is the one that qualifies as work.
The problem is also considering that a software engineer performance is in writing code/investigating bugs, whereas it is in the whole process/intellectual pursuit. In some cases, you will need to spend a whole week of going back to fundamentals or training or other, to be able to solve your issue in a few hours on Friday.
>The nature of the work is not the same, hence, the proportion of the modalities of your work are not identical.
I guess we solved that problem then. We're comparing apples to oranges and wondering why oranges don't have edible skin.
>The problem is considering that only your office boss work view is the one that qualifies as work.
So you're suggesting that more programmers should practice in their free time?
>The problem is also considering that a software engineer performance is in writing code/investigating bugs, whereas it is in the whole process/intellectual pursuit.
You can argue we're always performing or never performing in that case. Or perhaps our "performance" is crunch for a deadline, or right after a product shislps.
Either way, it's fundamentally different from practice/performance scheduling of athletes or musicians. Performance should be a place where you put 110% into an act, often in a burst. Physically or mentally, we can't afford to operate at 110% every day. That's why there's often a rest day for musicians/athletes. Knowledge workers is much more spotty.
Learning, training, practicing, teaching, rehearsing, performing are just several different modalities of (the) work, with distinct proportions depending on the job and the role(s).
It's not because one's not in a 9-5 office job that it's not work either.
Your plumber, or locksmith, or carpenter, or physician is also often performing for you only a few minutes/hours. You may think you're watching/paying for this performance only, but you're really watching all the experience that goes into this performance, that is the result of their previous studies, training, and practice and other performances.
The "difference" with a "typical" office job is that you don't get to have them in the single same place all the time, and watch/see them work through all those modalities, sanctioned by some manager. It's much more open than that.
What is amazing is how normalised the "controlling" factory/office work culture has become.