I’ve Been Asked to Serve Drinks on Friday Night. What Will the Secret Developer Do?

Photo by Helena Yankovska on Unsplash

Today The Secret Developer cried at their desk. Not for the usual reasons of incompetence or unclear JIRA tickets. This time it is something else.

“I’ve never felt so diminished as a software engineer. I’ve never felt that I don’t matter to this extent. 

I’m wondering whether I should be a software developer at all. “

It certainly seems like something has upset our favorite software engineer. Let us dive in and see what has knocked their fragile little soul. 

You’re coming in

Our team just got a message over Slack. We need to attend an event on Friday nite organized by another tech stream.

Can we all attend the event?

I did note the absence of please or thank you in the message. Reading from the details we need to go to the office on Friday and attend the event from 17:00 to 22:00.

Why would we need to go in for another tech area (that’s unrelated to us?)

• To help in whatever way they need

• To learn from the event

I also noted the short notice for being told to go in. Tickets for the event are sold out, meaning that we aren’t THAT welcome. 

“Why should I be interested in a tech stack that I don’t use at all?

It sounds unlikely, but I have better things to do on a Friday nite.

Yet I don’t think I can say no to going here. It certainly wasn’t worded as an option to refuse to go. I know I can *theoretically* say no but as ever this will have a cost. My performance is not currently good enough to take an absolute refusal for any event my employer sets up. ”

Am I…Serving Drinks?

I can only think that I’ll be directing event attendees to their seats. Alternatively, I’ll be picking up pizza from the nearby parlor. 

”I really would rather be coding. I think I’m going to take my laptop and keep working, what else is there to do? 

I start to understand the low esteem our employer holds the team in.”

Conclusion

I think nobody truly understands why The Secret Developer stays at this job. I’ll leave it to them to explain.

“Fear”