We, the "IT" people

Excerpt from a chat session with a uni friend. This must have happened somewhere in July, August 2008.

Me:"The fact that you are not replying to me and am still talking is prove enough of how boooreedd to death I am"

Dhat: "Yeah... they say Software Engineers go crazy after a while"


I have had my share of IT people, and when I joined my job I promised myself I wouldn't join their league. I have this friend, who because of the pressure he has to endure at work, has become very quiet. He spends his entire day at office, and that's more than the usual 9-6 timing. Then at home too, he sits either in front of the tv or spends his time with his beloved laptop. And this is exactly what I didn't wish myself to get into.

And during the first few months, I held true to my promise. After 4 hard years at university, where even when we were at our homes, we had to spend our time working on the computer as we had a lot of assignments, projects and presentations to get done. So naturally, when I joined job and came back home at about 7, and had nothing to do at all, I felt I had a lot of time on my hands, and I spent it sitting with my father, talking endlessly, then I would go to the kitchen and sit on a stool and talk to my mother, both of them now know everyone I know at my office. And then I don't know what happened, but I went back to my old routine, which includes coming back at home, freshing up and then switching on the computer. Sometimes the excuse is;

"I have to submit this presentation proposal tomorrow."
OR
"I have a long overdue assignment I have to work on"


But they are just that.. excuses, mere excuses. And I too have become a part of the league I was trying to evade in the beginning. It hasn't been one year yet and I have broken the promise I made to myself.
In my university days, when I noticed what that friend of mine (the one I wrote about above) was doing to himself and when I thought that his family must miss talking to him, my resolution not to become like him one day strengthened. But now, I have become just like him. And it's not just me, it's the story of every other software engineer I know.

We all wake up in the morning, as late as possible, get ready for work, go to our offices, sit in front of our machines for 9 hours or more, then come back to our homes and then again switch on our machines, and spend the remaining of our day in front of our Home PCs. The only times we aren't sitting in front of our computers is when we are eating, sleeping, or traveling. We don't have much time to talk to our families, or our friends. We don't know what's going on in their lives, and we don't much care either. We get more worried when our computer breaks down, then we care about when one of our friends is feeling low.

The friendships that have remained since I graduated are with the people who have the same routine I have, and this is because we can chat with each other. The rest of my friends.... I don't know where they are, or what they are up to these days.

To prove my point, this is an excerpt from an actual-talking session with one of my class-fellows and now my colleague;

"I go back home, switch on my machine, log in to MSN, and spend my time doing on one thing or the other(all which involves computer). My mom keeps shouting that I don't spend any time at home, even when I am at home. But what to do? I guess she'll get over it"

The truth has been twisted here a bit. But more or less, this is what we are all doing.

And I have realized that this is the reason, why I am exhausted all the time. I have a life, yes I do, but there is no such quality of life to speak of. I never feel relaxed because even during the time I should be relaxing, I do things that get on my nerves and the funny thing is that I don't even realize it.

The problem lies in our daily routine. And the fact that we are not aware of the problem. We are just spending our lives... just spending it, not actually living it.
We all are a part of a marathon, and we don't even know who we are competing against, are we just trying to prove others that we can spend the most time in front of our computers without having an actual conversation with any one, without having any life?????

How long do we think we can go on like this?????