Out Of Shape

I was out walking with my wife and kids the other day, and we decided to take the "long" route. That means we walked more than a couple of minutes. In fact, it took us half an hour. Though the weather was nice, and company was great, I was pretty worn out by the time I got back. I knew I was out of shape, but it was pretty embarrassing. Apparently, I need to "get out" more.

I've been in a number of "architectural" roles during my career, and in each of these, I've done a range of coding. In some cases, I did a lot; in others, I did very little to none. I remember those times where I moved from a position of doing very little coding to a lot, and I remember how rusty I felt. I was "out of shape" in my coding. Though nobody (fortunately) noticed, I felt embarrassed that I could forget so much. In fact, I've forgotten much that I learned early in my career (or in school), such as how to write Pascal.

It's an unfortunate (or fortunate, depending upon your perspective) part of life that we tend to forget things (okay, some people have better memories than others...I'm one of those that forgets pretty much everything), especially when we don't "remember" it often. In the technical world, that's the difference between hitting the ground running and falling flat on your face when the gate opens. You can always get back up, but it takes a little while (and it's a bit embarrassing, too).

Knowing that this happens makes me a little nervous about taking certain types of roles. If I take this job or that promotion, will I like it? And if not, will I be able to go back? Does the same kind of thing happen to a team on a collective level? If so, that could have a significant impact on productivity on a project.