--- title: "Geekier than thou" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/7/28/geekier-than-thou.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/7/28/geekier-than-thou.html" published: "2003-07-28T07:46:00" updated: "2003-07-28T07:46:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "My wife and I are going on vacation in a few days. We still have not decided where, but it will probably be either Greece or Turkey. We'll be there at least 5 nights, during which, somewhat like Joi , I will forbid…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Geekier than thou By Roy Osherove July 28, 2003 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published July 28, 2003; technical details may be outdated. My wife and I are going on vacation in a few days. We still have not decided where, but it will probably be either Greece or Turkey. We'll be there at least 5 nights, during which, somewhat like [Joi](http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/07/27/a_day_of_silence_with_my_rock.html), I will forbid myself from touching a computer, although I have no pet rock or whatever. _God_ I hope I can do this. I'm suffering withdrawal pains already! My geekness runs deeper than that, though. A few days ago we were having dinner with some friends of ours, and my wife blurbs something about us going to Greece for 10 days. “_What??_”, I suddenly jumped (well, not really jump. I was totally surprised, though), “_We said seven days max!_” and then I went on and on about how I have to have a few empty days before my new work starts so that I can check my emails, be with the computer and generally get into a “computing state” before I start my new job. The silence at the table when I finished talking was pretty horrible. People were looking at me as if I was an alien from mars who had just landed an hour ago and is looking for test subjects. Is it that bad? A few days later we sat with more friends over dinner (celebrating a friend’s engagement) and somehow, it got ugly again. The subject rose that I would have a few days off between the vacation and the trip to Greece, and I made the mistake of telling one of the guys how it would be so great, that I’ll have a few days to just sit down and learn C++. That friend was also a programmer, so I was totally thrown off by his reaction. It consisted of a short pause, followed by a wondering “_why the hell I would want to ruin a perfectly good day off sitting in front of my computer_”. Stumped, I was just sitting there as my other friend sat there and began to tell the story from a few days before. Everyone had a big laugh, including myself, but on the way home I started thinking whether this was really a normal feeling. Shouldn’t a “normal” person want to go to the beach instead of sitting in front of a computer? Both of my friends who did not understand me, are both very technical, study oriented people. One is a dev team lead, and the other is a mathematician. You could say that they both know what it’s like to sit and learn your ass off. Yet they still find the time to enjoy other things, something which I find harder. Does that make me a geekier person or something? Does it not show that I have a real passion for what I do? But then, they show passion as well, so what gives? If I “give in” too much to the “other” things in life, it would make me feel not on top of my game. Like I’m losing points or something. Like every day that goes by that I’m not on that computer, learning new stuff, is a day I’m totally missing something. My dilemma is solved once I realize that I am not only defined by my programming experience, but by my family, and how we spend time together, grow together and learn together. Yes, it will continue to be a struggle of compromises, but that’s life. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jul 28, 2003 ### [Framework Compatibility Graphics initiative](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/7/28/framework-compatibility-graphics-initiative.html) - Jul 28, 2003 ### [What's up with BlogShares?](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/7/28/whats-up-with-blogshares.html) - Jul 27, 2003 ### [The Imposter Syndrome: Feeling Like A Fraud](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/7/27/the-imposter-syndrome-feeling-like-a-fraud.html) - Jul 27, 2003 ### [Expand the desktops gallery](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/7/27/expand-the-desktops-gallery.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/