This week I am atending PDC

PDC is being held in the LA Convention Center
Check out this place on VirtualEarth:

Today I have had a great meeting with the dudes from Poly9. We met at the Microsoft office where the MapPoint team lives and works.

Meeting with some cool dudes from Poly9
Check out this place on VirtualEarth:

Dave is doing some cool things with Virtual Earth

Where Dave is from
Check out this place on VirtualEarth:

The view from the room I'm working in. Another tough assignment!

This last couple of weeks has seen more public holidays than you can shake a "closed sign" at. Of course Christmas day and New Years day were holidays, but because they fell on the weekend the following Mondays were also public holidays. This meant a lot of closed shops and slow business operations. In fact I think most businesses closed down for the whole of last week. As an ex business owner I totally understand this. There is no point in staff coming to work feeling hung over and resenting the fact they are at work. Much better that everyone takes the week off and gets some relaxation so they are charged up to come back to work in the year full of vigour.

The interesting thing for me is wondering when you have a public holiday “what are you taking a break from?”

I totally love what I do. I play with new technology. I write about software development. I help software teams produce better software. Why on earth would I want to take a break from something I love?

I don’t work overly hard. I get to run on the beach most mornings. Play in the sea a couple of times a week. Have breakfast with friends in the weekends. Go for bike rides. Watch the latest movies. Read several books each month. I have plenty of time for all these things as well as delivering value to my clients.

I don’t feel the need for all these public holidays. I worked through the last week and I was working yesterday on some software. I enjoyed shipping a new version to some clients at the end of the day. That gave me a great feeling inside. I achieved something, I delivered something of value to people that will use that product.

For me it seems that public holidays are for people who don’t enjoy their jobs. This is hard for me to understand. Why would you spend your life doing something you don’t enjoy? There is a great book called Fish that shows how you can turn any job into something enjoyable.

How do you feel about public holidays? Are they something you wait for? Do they present a welcome break from your job or do you work through them?