Soon after being hired my boss told the story of a project he worked on for a significant amount of time; like months. It never saw the light of day. Subconsciously I think I denied that would ever happen to me, at least not for any major work. Four years later I had not yet encountered such hardship. Yet soon enough that all changed.

Worse than seeing my work tossed, I had to make the call to discard a coworker’s serious effort. After a long delay a key component of the work had been lost. So instead I had to redo the entire project from scratch. Ironically enough my effort turned out to be doomed as well.

At the very end of the rewrite, with only one feature left, I discovered the platform vendor’s latest development kit lacked any encryption libraries. (Finding out so late was a rookie mistake on my part.) When they finally produced a suitable kit the platform had changed so much I couldn’t port my rewrite in a timely manner. So with much chagrin I rewrote it again with the suitable kit and all was well–except for my ego.

Despite wasted time and resources one can typically find something good whenever work goes unused. Over the years I’ve been reminded of a few:

• It is a learning opportunity
• Helps avoid getting overly attached
• New ideas often accompany do overs
• Practice
• Redos are a chance to develop grit

Of course these rarely add up to match the lost time or money. But if the learning opportunities are maximized it can save a lot more in the future.

It can be especially frustrating for those of us who are technical to accept non-technical reasons for work to be mothballed. For us “business reasons” can feel so abstract and intangible. It’s almost as if it’s arbitrary and frivolous. Still, businesses exist to produce a profit, and even organizations have to make trade-offs when their resources are limited.

Until time travel is sorted out, forecasting client needs or project requirements will almost certainly remain an inexact science. While we wait for our future overlords to return let’s take solace by remembering the good that can be salvaged from the ashes of our abandoned work.

Some friends in more traditional careers like farming and manufacturing have opened my eyes to the privilege it is to have a job in software. Looking at the bigger picture reveals that programming for a living depends upon many other roles to enable such an abstract pursuit. Working from the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy I can imagine these would at least include: food production, waste management, housing, medical care, police, a justice system, electricity production, hardware manufacturing, and transportation services.

One experience in particular stands out as a moment of awakening. During long drive on vacation conversation turned philosophical as my friend shared his perspective on disappearing skill sets maintaining expensive and old, yet very profitable, manufacturing equipment. Since he was experienced and flexible he was able to keep the machines running, but he encountered few as willing or knowledgeable within mechanics and electronics. While I’d like to be as adept at keeping my existing belongs chugging too, doing so in the face of increasingly –maybe unnecessarily– complex things makes repair and maintenance less practical. And sadly few can afford to be the repair experts when we consumers are so quick to replace them with new and shiny.

Farming in North America was a career for 90% of the population as late as the American Revolution. Now it has dwindled to about 1%. A highly specialized society has certainly broadened the choices for careers in the modern age. It has also increased the need for higher levels of education. And in scarce job markets the competition for work means employers can be selective.

Despite the downsides one sometimes faces as a software or services producer, it is still quite a privileged endeavor compared to many others. Next time I’m waiting in line for service I’ll have to remember all this. I’d rather not go back to the job behind the counter, and I certainly don’t want to make it any worse for those who have no choice.