Woodworking, the opposite of software development

Raymond Chen

While waiting for the BoltBus, I met a former software developer, who said that he’s now a carpenter. Specifically, he makes furniture out of wood, so a more precise term for his type of work would be something like woodworking.

He says he quit software because customers would keep making change requests on short notice, even for features he was pretty sure they’d never actually use.

I asked him if his new job has the same problem.

He said, no, it’s the opposite.

Nobody asks for new features for their bench or table or whatever. They show him a picture of a 100-year-old table and say “Make me that.”

Sometimes, a former customer will call and say, “Hey, remember me? You made a table for me three years ago.” Do they want to modify the table? Nope. “Can you make one exactly like it for my sister?”

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