While I am not exactly bored or listless, it is a kind of weariness that I feel.  It is the kind that doesn’t stop me from going to work but makes the work twice as hard to do.  It is the kind that results in long moments just spent staring at the black and green TSO/ISPF screen, the kind that leads to blank stares and empty expressions, the kind that adds up to another unproductive day.

And this almost always happens sometime after a project implementation.

It is as if the long hours of coding, testing, recoding, and retesting have finally taken their toll and dulled something in the mind.  After the rush of coding, the excitement of testing, and the agony of redoing code, it is as if all the adrenaline simply evaporated and left a lifeless image.  The alert, hardworking and sometimes brilliant programmer replaced by a dull, nearly catatonic and often clueless hulk of a programmer.

To me, the onset of a new project is like heaven.  The analysis, the initial coding and testing, all these make me come alive.  The senses all function at their peak wrestling with the business requirements and technical specifications that need to be translated into computer language.  There is a certain “high” that comes with coding program source code – the one hundred and one ways of coding a particularly tricky user specification and the discussion with peers on program logic and test strategy.  For a time, we become like intellectuals and scientists searching for the Truth and the ultimate cure to cancer.  The long hours and overnighters become so much like a blur in the pursuit of project delivery.

But when the project is finally done and delivered, or when the project reaches the stage where the coding becomes minimal, the malaise sets in.  It maybe due to those long hours, it maybe due to plain fatigue, or maybe it could be due to being separated from something that I love to do.

For it is coding that I most love to do.  Not only because it is the essence of programming, but also because it is the easiest part of being a programmer.  Not only the easiest but it also gives the most satisfaction.  For what could be more satisfying than seeing your code, your masterpiece, running as it should.

Once all the coding for a project is done, what usually fill a programmer’s time are all those small maintenance tasks set aside because of the project.  Often there are problem investigations and analysis that need to be done.  All these, right after doing a project, are to me like “downers” after the “upper” of a doing a project.
 
True, there is still a lot of work to do.  True, status reports still need to be filled in to justify the programmer’s existence.  True, that the small tasks are as important as the big tasks, as the good book would say.  Yet nothing still beats the intoxication of coding and testing for a project.

Each time I say goodbye to a project, a period where I am in a semi-conscious state always follows.  Work still gets done, albeit on a smaller and slower pace.  Light tasks become not so light tasks and meetings become even harder to survive.  It is still a blessing to be a programmer, but there is that something is missing feeling that permeates my being.

From past experience, I know “this too shall pass” as the wise men of old would put it.  Or maybe this is why, in His wisdom, He created Boracay…

Paul Vergel is a mainframe programmer who believes that programming is as much art as science.  He is also father to a 6-year old, a 2-year old, and a 1-year old who all believe that programming is a matter of punching the keyboard and solemnly intoning “Tsk tsk”.  Comments are welcome at itdinosaur@gmail.com.