Labor Day

Posted September 7th, 2009

I love what I do and where I do it. 

My work days are filled with writing, editing, producing audio, teaching, and writing code. When the weather is nice, I work in our back yard at the picnic table with a sleeping puppy at my side.

I never take any of this for granted. It's one of the reasons that I believe so much in this Life series that we've launched. These books are designed to make your life better. 

I read recently the Wikipedia article about the launch of Post-it Brand notes . The invention itself seems to have been some sort of mistake. There you are working for a company that makes sticky stuff and you invent something that doesn't stick very well. Spencer Silver, the scientist who invented it, was pretty sure that he had developed something interesting and so he gave seminars on the discovery for five years before Art Fry, one of his colleagues thought of an application.

Fry used Silver's low-tack pressure sensitive adhesive on the back of the bookmark he used in his hymnal. The bookmark stayed exactly in place but was easily moved to another location.

Then came the hard part. You have a great idea for something that will help millions of people. Your solution is affordable and useful but unlike anything they currently have. How do you convince people they need or want it? In the case of 3M, they couldn't convince people to buy it so they gave it away to folks in Boise. Once people tried it, they loved it. Most of them said they would buy it and so 3M continued to sell Post-it Brand notes.

So back to our series… we launched with two titles that may not stick with our existing audience. Andy Lester's book helps you get the tech job you love. But most of our existing Prag readers tend to be able to get great tech jobs. Chad Fowler's book The Passionate Programmer helps you live a richer life at work — not financially so much as a more interesting fulfilling life. You probably already have ideas on how you want to grow and improve.

You probably got to know us in the first place because you were not satisfied with coasting on what you already knew. You were learning new languages or technologies. You are already interested in expanding what you know. You're involved in open source or local user groups. You read articles and books and you meet friends for coffee to talk about language features and techniques. 

I'm just guessing — but maybe you aren't the core audience for these books. 

Don't get me wrong, I think everyone should read Chad's book. The Passionate Programmer is the type of book you lend to a friend and don't get back. The eBook, by the way, is only $15 even your most frugal friends should be willing to give it a shot.

Andy's book surprised me. I'm not looking for a job and yet I really enjoyed reading it and gained a lot from it. Even though he is talking about traditional job hunting, I found nuggets that help me present what I do as a freelancer to potential clients. The electronic version of Andy's book is $16. If you've got a job, it's full of useful information and if you're looking for work it's essential.

Labor Day is another holiday that has lost much of its original meaning. Now most of us think of it as the official end of summer and a great excuse to barbecue. Labor Day is all about workers and their rights. People in our fields have it pretty good at work, but it's a good time to think about how it could be better. Andy and Chad's books can help us improve our working life. 

For those who don't know me, this just sounds like a shallow marketing plug urging you to buy these books for yourself and/or a friend. Making such appeals doesn't come easy and I only make them because I think these books could really help. So yes, buy one for yourself, buy more for your friends. I'd tell you to check a copy out from your local library but we haven't figured out how to get libraries to buy our titles yet—but that's a tale for another day.

Happy Labor Day. May this next year of work be outstanding. Life is too short to just "have a nice day".

This post originally appeared in the Pragmatic Life blog.