jr conlin's ink stained banana

It's nice to take a break from what motivates you, step out of the hurried rush, smile at all you've accomplished and realize that ultimately, people don't care.

It doesn't matter if you're making rocket engines or those little cardboard tubes for rolls of toilet paper, people really don't care.

Oh, don't get me wrong. If you screw up and make something horrible, people will care deeply, but otherwise they're as happy as abbitior. They've got lots of other things to worry about.

You see, you're simply not high enough on their list to matter, and frankly, that's a really good place to be. You should be invisible to them. They should go to your product because you work, not because you're pretty or have lots of blinky lights.

The sad and funny thing is that people tend to forget that. They focus on the non-essential stuff sometimes to the detriment of what really matters. Sure the fancy crap gets 'em in the door, but the core is what keeps 'em coming back.

People don't care about feature parity or dynamic reactualizations. They just want what you've promised to give them, and if you don't give them what they were looking for, all the digital dogs and ponies in the world won't get them to come back.

And yeah, the i've seen both extremes where i work, and a lot of other places too (including some that everyone else holds in higher regard). Still, i'm never too proud to say that i know better than anyone else about everything, and it's even nicer when you give folks the ability to tell you you're wrong about something.

So it's kinda nice to help put the finishing touches on a project to help sort out the good from the bad.

Because although most people don't care, some of us do.