The project I’m currently working on has failed to hold my interest nearly as much as the last one. I would spend a half hour typing out some code, then I’d find myself on Kotaku or something browsing through comments. I didn’t have that problem with Smart Tan.

I’ve been trying to figure out why this is happening, going through a few explanations like ‘it’s a dumb idea for a site’, or ‘the customer is too fickle, doesn’t know what he wants’. On my way home from another Saturday at work catching up from another week of lack of progress, I think I’ve pinpointed the problem: my own perceived inadequacy as a programmer.

When something is broken in the hardware and software industry, be it a server or a website, it’s very easy to please the customer. They see the broken thing before and they see the fixed thing after and there is a definite metric of improvement. I like these customers and the prospect of working on these types of projects makes me happy because I know the customer will be happy in the end. Smart Tan was one of these ‘Fixer-Upper’ projects, and I didn’t mind putting in 10 hours/day on it.

When dealing with new hardware or software, here’s where the industries diverge. If someone wants a new computer, they call us, we send the specs to Dell or whatever, then Dell makes the computer for us. It’s really a simple process; more simple, really, than fixing a broken computer.

Creating a brand new website, on the other hand, is much more stressful than fixing a broken one. The customer doesn’t have a ‘broken’ site to look at for a metric for what’s ‘better’. All they have is other sites - that have been in development for years - to use for ideas for their new site. When I receive phone calls from a new-site customer, 75% of their requests are met with, “No, we can’t do that in our time frame/budget.” It’s especially frustrating when the sales person originally tells them that something is doable, but I’m not completely aware of the scope when I give my estimate. The overall negativity in new-site projects really drains me after a while. Repeatedly telling a customer ‘no’ makes me perceive myself as an inadequate programmer subconsciously, and it takes away from the focus I try to put in every day.

Hopefully, now that I’ve found why I feel so crappy after working on these projects, I’ll be able to psych myself into coping with telling a customer ‘no’. Some requests are just too difficult to complete, and that doesn’t make me a bad programmer.