Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I had quite a shock at work this week. Three of us were having a discussion about IT developers, and we were broadly agreeing that they are a race apart. You know the old saying – ‘Developers. Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them’. Apparently Ivan Turgenev said that first. There’s another shock. I was convinced it was an American saying.
Anyway, we were talking about how difficult it is to see faults in work you’ve just completed, because it’s done, and you’re so familiar with every detail that you can’t see the wrong thing. Then someone comes along, gives it a cursory glance, and points to an error that seems obvious to them, but which completely passed you by. The way that feels, wars have been declared for less
That seam in the wallpaper over the doorway
I’ve always found the opposite to be true in almost every other activity known to me. For instance, someone comes to visit, and says – ‘Oh! You’ve redecorated. You’ve done a lovely job! It’s perfect!’ You, of course, can only see that seam in the wallpaper over the doorway where you failed completely to match the pattern up.
So we were talking about the headlong nature of developers, who don’t want to have to think about anything or write documentation afterwards, they just want to write code. When a piece of code has been completed, they believe it to be perfect, but more importantly, their little heads fill with the excitement of the next piece of coding they’re already salivating over. When you give it back and complain that it doesn’t work, they just see you as an annoying distraction from the lovely job they’re doing now. It’s all yesterday’s news to them.
It says that in the Bible
One of my colleagues nodded wisely, and said – ‘Of course. How can a man know his own fault? It says that in the Bible’. My other colleague and I stopped and looked at each other, and didn’t know what to say. The utterer of this news smiled easily and smugly, and wandered off. As a conversation-killer, it worked perfectly. I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since.
The first thing I know you’ll say is this – ‘Why do you need to think about it?’ It’s a very reasonable question, and I have no answer, except that it happens. I refer the reader, if he/she hasn’t fallen asleep yet, to a previous column about the nature of questions that begin with ‘Why?’ Unless I haven’t written that yet, in which case it’s a future column. I have been going for two and a half years by now, and I can’t remember everything.
You don’t have minds like mine
Now, of course, I have another thing in my head. I can already hear myself riffling through all the columns I’ve ever written for OnThewight, trying to remember whether I have actually produced that one. And I’m beginning to enjoy the idea of writing it. Or writing it again, if that’s the case. Oh dear!
Anyway, you can congratulate yourselves that you don’t have minds like mine, and feel sorry for me, or maybe feel sorry for anyone who is forced to live or work with me. That’s what it’s like inside my head, and I feel very comfortable with myself, so there. I’ll change if and when I feel there’s a better way to be, and not until then.
An unmistakable aura of smugness
So. I was feeling shocked. The reasons for this are actually many. I shall try to list them all. 1. People don’t usually quote the Bible or other religious texts in a work environment. 2. I may not know the Bible as well as some, but I’m pretty sure that there’s no such verse in the actual book itself. 3. There was no reason or context for making such a quote at that time. 4. There’s a culture in all the offices I’ve ever worked in to be respectful and careful in all your dealings with colleagues, and you don’t shove your opinions or beliefs at them. 5. I found myself being surprised at the attitude of the colleague in question, because he had an unmistakable aura of smugness, as if he had uttered the last word on the situation, and was being rewarded internally by a grateful Deity for putting everything in the proper place and context. It was all in the way he turned and sauntered off.
OK, I may have been mistaken in my impressions, had my remaining colleague not turned to me and asked me if what had just happened had really just happened. I have, as I try always to do, considered my reaction, weighed various other possible explanations, obtained an external witness opinion, and unless another explanation comes along that makes more sense, my opinion remains. We were smugged.
Like the stopper on a bottle
Now I’m left with the question of why it bothers me so much. It’s obviously my problem, because the apparent quoter was quite happy with his behaviour. I’ve gone over several responses that I could have made, had I been prepared beforehand, but the moment’s passed.
I think what annoyed me was his belief that a quote from the Bible was the seal on any further thinking, like the stopper on a bottle. I didn’t point out to him that I didn’t believe there was such a quote, I didn’t mention that most of the Bible was written down after hundreds of years of folklore had been passed down around the fireside at night, rather than coming direct from the mouth of any deity, and I didn’t point out that I could almost certainly find the same sentiment in any of the other religious books out there.
Most of all, I should have been ready with this – ‘It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities,’ followed by – ‘That was Dumbledore, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. I could have quoted Cole Porter – ‘The things that you’re liable, To read in the Bible, It ain’t necessarily so!’ But I don’t think he would have listened anyway. There are a lot of people out there who are convinced that they are in possession of the whole and complete truth and all those who don’t agree are destined for Hell, or somewhere worse. This is what nearly all the big religions say. Read up on it. You’re either in or you’re a goner, and there’s no such thing as being half-in or half-out. Most of the time, luckily for most of us, they don’t decide to enforce it.
Mixing in the wrong circles
I’ve only ever met one religious person who actually lived his or her beliefs in a clear and consistent and conscious way. Perhaps I’ve been mixing in the wrong circles. For all I know the world is crawling with true believers in many existing and active deities, and they could all be right or at least genuine and sincere. But where are they?
On the other hand, I’ve often thought that I have many of the qualities that could make me an excellent vicar, or priest, or whatever. It’s just that there don’t seem to be any religions out there that I could possibly join. It’s not fair.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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