Re: Rewards of Service

[raybies]

When I was working for a summer with my dad's space research at a certain university, I remember having put together a lot of work for the project, then someone else took credit for it. I was annoyed by this experience. My dad gave me some advice that I live by... He said "Just do the work, don't worry about credit." He said that eventually the guy that continues to take credit for other people's work will be seen as the fraud that He/she is and you'll still be there after the dust settles.

My dad worked in a contentious, academically competitive environment. They competed for government dollars and he wrote a lot of proposals, worked with a lot of academics and published where he could. Occasionally, he was looked down upon by fellow academics and engineers because his degree was not in aerospace or engineering but a PhD in a different science altogether, though he managed many engineering projects.

I once heard someone tell me about my dad, that there were lots of really smart engineers at the university, but if you wanted to make sure a project got done, you gave it to my dad.

People came, people went. After a few decades of service they'd all gone away, and my dad was still there working as head scientist of the research lab, continually bringing in projects that kept the lab afloat.

Why? Because over time he continued to get the job done. He didn't have to blow his own horn. That wasn't his thing. In the end, all that stuff didn't matter.

Perl's a language for getting the job done. It's not always going to be popular. It'll probably never be the one touted by mainstream press agents as the language you need to know. It's not always going to put you in the spotlight. It's not about fanfare or even credit--its about solving problems. It's not always the perfect solution, and yet it's a remarkably capable tool. Even for us babblers and dabblers in the programming realm.