It's Painstaking Work

Have you ever watched a programmer coding?

On a recent 6 hour flight I watched a woman coding a website.  (At least, I think that is what she was doing.) She would type a few keystrokes into a window that had lines and lines of text, then check another window with what looked like a website and see the impact. Back and forth. Back and forth. For hours.

That is what programmers and designers do, right? Somehow we expect certain kinds of work to require patience and repetition and revision. Architects come to mind, and engineers. Accountants? 

And yet when it comes to working with people- our peers, our bosses, our employees...we just want them to "get it". We don't want to repeat ourselves. We don't want to have to work through slow change efforts and revised approaches. 

Who are we kidding? People are infinitely more complex than numbers and code. And far more unpredictable.

And far more valuable. 

So keep in mind: Patience my dear friends, patience.