After being a Software Developer and working with many other Developers for many years, I came to observe quite a number of things in various offices where I worked.

I came across a lot of demoralized geeks out there. The reason being that their work is usually not as appreciated, as it should be. They are under paid. They work long hours. This doesn’t go to say that this is a bad thing.

I know we are involved in one of the few professions where people are paid to do what they would gladly do without pay… but again we are people maybe a bit abnormal but in general we are just like everybody out there… we have basic needs. A computer, coffee, food, shelter, home theater system and clothing are basically what we need.

This article is just a note to encourage all of us geeks out here to take life head-on even in trying times. In the next few paragraphs we are going to compare ourselves to the chicken and the eagle alike and I am going to show you that we should be eagles rather than chicken.

There are times in a geeks life when the juices are just flowing wild, straight out of the Garden of Eden. Inside you feel like you can write the worlds next Operating System… one that will make Windows Look like Chicken feed.

True to your feelings, you keep all the stuff rolling out like never before, everybody is talking about you and honestly? You got it going on. You’ve now got your corner office, no longer in cubical city.

Before long you start to burn out or maybe guys just get too used to you, you then wonder what went wrong. I say nothing. It’s quite normal to run out of steam. Besides you are not a satellite orbiting in space and running self-sufficient. No! Again lets remember that you are only human (You just have to keep reminding geeks of that fact).

So. As, I was explaining. When you reach a point where you feel you need that long deserved holiday, though it may be probably true, that may not be just the solution. I know a lot of geeks including me who take the laptop with them on a vacation (I cant do that now seeing that I have a steady girlfriend that wont allow me to do so).

Really. We all need a vacation. I was studying on the behaviors of the Eagle and the chicken. Why Eagle and Chicken? I have read lots about them in the Holy Bible. Jesus mentioned the chicken while the Eagle has been mentioned endless times.

Lets get back to your corner office. You have these three projects, its Friday, one is due this evening, one was due this past Wednesday and another is due in two weeks. You could have started on the last one two months ago but your wise guy of a boss decided to sit on it until just last week. Now the pressure is mounting… you get a phone call… it’s the Marketing Rep. Her PC is not working properly, she cant get the systems admin so you end up being her next best hope. You decide to impress her only to find out she has been working all-day and forgot to plug in the power.

Now that we are stressed out and boiling mad, we can now describe this as a ‘Storm’. What’s next? We need a solution. So at this time I am going to look to the eagle and chicken to find out what they would do. Remember those WWJD (What would Jesus Do) banners? I call these WWED and WWCD (Eagle and Chicken respectively).

First of all during a storm it is quite normal to find a chicken running helter-skelter looking for shelter. It flaps its wings, making so much noise and causing such a racket. Am sure many of you are relating to this behavior. It is not beneficial for us to just cause havoc just because things are not going our way.

The first thing to do is relax. We all know when the human mind is under stress or strain it cannot think logically. Secondly no one in the office understands what you do so bickering will not get an answer from anyone else in there. If you will not also get help from the online communities or from your pal who works for your competitor and usually forward their latest technological breakthroughs to you then the only place you can turn to is you precious mind.

Here is what the eagle does when the storm checks in. It spreads its wings wide and proud. Taking a leap off the rock it turns and glides straight into the storm. Now I know its something to do with the study of aerodynamics (There is no way am explaining this one, am trying to finish this article so I can get some sleep) as the eagle glides into the storm, the raging winds give it that upward thrust that enables it to fly to greater heights than it could have previously done.

So lets relate it back to us. We as geeks should actually thrive in the worst of situations. Besides, that is the best way to have our skills noticed. Let me give you an example. A few years back I was working as a Software developer for this one company. Our Systems Admin left the company and I was asked to fill in his duties for the time being.

So for the few months when I took over I managed to maintain the system like a well oiled machine and got absolutely no credit for the good job well done. So one day the email server decided to bomb out. Actually the out queue data file was corrupt. It took me almost a day and a half to find out. Issues, issues… The number of phone calls that started hitting at my desk was amazing. It was so interesting to hear the stuff people had to say about me. It was all hating. Dudes kept asking what the hell I am doing in the office seeing that things are not working, as they should be.

Luckily for me all those hours invested in church and reading on Gods word helped me to overcome the situation. Knowing inside I had everything I knew to do gave me some peace of mind.

Anyway I took this advantage to learn how to deal with different people and machines at the same time… Some of us breed of geeks, and here I am specifically referring to the programmers don’t really know how to deal with people. With all that time we spend in front of the Computer Screen how can we possibly know how to deal with people? I don’t intend to go into the details of this one but I can best say that I finally got the system up and running. I must give props to the Internet geek community because out there I was able to find a solution to my problem.

The point here is that I could have chosen to take this opportunity and hide with it in the closet. I did not take that way out but I chose to go out and meet the problem head-on.

Back to our two little friends, the chicken and the Eagle. There was also another thing I found out about these two creatures. When the chicken grows old all it wants to do is just go home crump up in a corner and enjoy its retirement days as it waits to be slaughtered for presentation on the dinner table.

On the other hand the eagle will take another approach. It will leave its life long partner and take a much-needed vacation. It will fly away to a high place and rest on the rocks. While there it take time out to remove all its old feathers and just chill out as it waits for fresh ones to grow back again. When this is done the eagle will now be ready to come back home hence the phrase “Renew your strength like an eagle”.

This applies to geeks also. Sure we need to take vacation more often than not. We are cramped down coding for 12 – 14 hours a day, seven days a week. This is just the craziest of things. We too need to renew our strength. I have gone through periods where I just get what I like to call a “Brain Lock”. This is where I just end up in a situation where my brain simply refuses to think. There have been a few occasions where this kind of thing has gotten me worried because it would span for several days or weeks on end. Just to think that my brains ability to think as it does is very instrumental to me putting food on the table. I guess you can all figure out where I am coming from.

It is in times like this I think its better off if I took a vacation rather than waste precious hours on projects that are not bearing fruit. I feel comfortable writing this as I admit I don’t remember the last time I took a vacation apart from just this one day a left town with my peeps to just go and have a great time for a day. I came back home rejuvenated and ready for more action.

So I guess its not all work but a little play gets you a long way as well.