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On Saturday the 27th of May 2006 I went back to my Italian hometown: Venice. I was invited as a speaker to a conference about the "new professions". After having attended to the conference I understood why I really decided to work abroad, and why I will continue to do this.
The conference was held in the Council house, and among several 30 years old schoolboys from the "School of Politics" there were the major of Venice, a professor from the "School of Politics" (sorry, I forgot his name) and a lady from the Ministry of Labour (sorry again, I dont remember her name, but somebody told me she was famous). After a little debate about the "Software developers", that took about 10 minutes, the conference continued. The debate started because the "Software developer" isn't really a new profession, so whoever invited me was guilty. I took a deep breath before I had to tell my story, then I started talking and I got more relaxed along the way.
I will spare you the details of my life, because the most interesting part is not there. I admit that even my girlfriend says that my life is boring, but what can I answer when she asks "What did you do at work today?" (usually I answer "Something that you can't understand"). After I told my story, the schoolboys started asking questions.
Most of the questions were about the problem of the "fixed prices". In Italy, the consultants registered to some body have to apply a minimum fixed price, decided by the government. This wasn't my case, since the programmers don't have to be registered in Italy, and also because is very difficult to apply a fixed price for a custom application; it isn't like removing a tooth, where a minimum price could (but shouldn't) be applied.
WTF (what the fuck)? The boys were worried for me, since I didn't have to apply any minimum price.
It was very hard to explain that we live in a competitive world, and the best value for money wins. But they didn't understand, and they continued with the stupid questions. After several very long and boring hours, a guy (he seemed adult to me until he spoke) told me that I was completly wrong: the Italian government fixed the minimum price for the programmers: it depends on the application that they are going to develop.
He also told me that I wasn't going to last very long, since I wasn't working for a big company like IBM (I hope he will get fired before I exit from the market).
I didn't have the possibility to reply to the guy, so I decided to switch off the brain until the end of the conference.
How can the government decide the price "per application", since they are custom made and each one is different from the other? I don't know; maybe I forgot to switch on the brain at the end of the conference. Now I check. Finally, the end of the conference came.
The lady from the Ministry of Labour said the her office was counting the number of different professions registered in Italy, and until that moment there were about 39000 different types of professions. She wanted to organize a congress when the number reached 40000.
I don't know if they managed to count 40000 professions, but for sure I don't want to be at that congress when they are going to list them all. I went home, sad for my country, destroyed by incompetent "wannabe" politicians. But what do I really think? The new professions don't exist: all the professions are constantly evolving and using new tools.
The first programmer was Ada Lovelace (December 10, 1815 - November 27, 1852): she was only using different tools from what we are used to see today. And probably she didn't think about herself as a programmer, probably she was referring to herself as a technical writer.
I still need an office to work (I don't believe in working from home or from the beach), I still need a telephone line, I still need to work. Everything evolves slowly, and at every iteration some old practices are abandoned and some new practices are introduced.
I think that there isn't a profession that comes with a bang, out of nowhere, but is an evolution of an old one. It isn't better or worst, is only a little bit different. |
