A few months ago I hit 40. I am only mentioning this to state that I have a decent amount of experience and presence in this industry and development in general. To be honest I don't feel 40.

I love being a software engineer. I enjoy solving complicate problems and designing systems. I like trying new languages, frameworks and new concepts and generally keep being up to date. I like to explore and use new workflow methodologies (like agile) since they tend to improve the quality of work.

But that is where I stop. And that was where I always stopped (I will explain the hidden meaning behind that in a bit).

Lately (last 5 years there have been some constant changes), in most teams I've been part of, have been introduced to various changes concerning em, either the way we work or the way to keep us engaged, satisfied or in the way to make us progress through our career (not sure how those help in this one). Changes which to be honest I can categorize and describe them as.

A. Improvements
B. Pointless
C. Irritating
D. Disruptive

Agile, agile is certainly an improvement. But, it is an improvement, only if the project or the business workflow is suitable for it. Same thing applies to everything that accompanies agile (standup,

Then there are other changes which I don't mind and are categories as pointless, those usually include perks like ping pong tables, gaming consoles, beers on fridays etc. I get them, I understand why some people like them, It just happens that they are not my definition of fun... Not to mention I already enjoy my work, I am happy designing and coding.

I got a different definition of fun which mainly includes things that don't mingle with work, like playing music with a band or cycling or going out with friends or playing board games with my daughter and wife.

Then there are the "things" I don't understand and they function mainly as background noise to me. Like naming your team with hipster-ish names "stargazers" "rocket" "ducks" or naming your sprints with random catch phrases (Ill take a date over any name so I can easily figure out without fuss when that X ticket got first added into a sprint) but lots of devs seem to enjoy them.

In this list I can also add, frequent project catch up, when there is nothing to catch up about, because you were working on a different project in the last two sprints.

Lastly there are things which actually extremely annoying and disruptive. Things like you need to cheer after a stand up like "go go team rocket" (I don't have that in my current work place 👍 and I am definitely quitting if we do). Or like not having a specific desk and have a sit wherever there is space type of office scheme (probably to emulate a coffee shop) (puke).