Semper in Faecibus

For a few years before he died, my Dad ran a trophy shop. After a lifetime of toiling every day at a job he hated, those last few years were a joy for him. He loved the simple creative process of designing unique trophies from the various parts that were available: blocks of granite, marble, and onyx; cups and shields; golden statues of athletes, animals, or interesting futuristic shapes; and small brass or silver plaques upon which he would engrave the required legend.

He took particular pleasure in making trophies for schools and thinking of the delight his efforts would bring when the children were awarded their prizes, or saw their names engraved on the house cup or county shield.

At Christmastime, he would often create special trophies as quirky surprise gifts for family and friends. He noticed that an Olympic torch, raised triumphantly in the hand of one of his statues, looked a little like a hand trowel. It became the centrepiece of a "World's Best Gardener" trophy he gave to my Mum that year.

When I worked in software support in the mid-80s, I came to my Dad with an unusual request. For a desk calendar bearing the team's motto. The exact Latin form had been debated, sometimes heatedly, between the two support guys who studied Latin, and one of the developers who also had a "classical" education. In the end, we settled on: "Semper in faecibus sumus, sola profunditas variat."

I brought that desk calendar home this week from the office. As usual my Dad excelled himself and made something I was delighted to have on my desk and on which many visitors have remarked, but after twenty-three years I figured it was time it retired. The pen holders that once graced the left and right corners have long since tarnished and fallen off, their pens exhausted, but the calendar lives on to mark the passing of days.

It's been almost twenty years since I worked in support, where our motto was demonstrably, tangibly true every day as we fought back the mountain of bug reports that flooded in from customers. But in the years since then I've been reminded time and again of our old motto and with a wry smile realised it remains true no matter what the job, or how much planning is put in, or how good the people are with whom you're working.

I never had an office job, before or since, that I enjoyed as much as those six years I spent in support. The work was hard, the hours were long and the pressure was constant, but the camaraderie of that group as we worked together against all odds to fix thorny problems and turn disgruntled customers into satisfied ones was an energising force that made us unstoppable and buoyed our spirits to turn the blackest moments into the brightest diamonds of success.

What I learned from those years is that there will always be problems to solve. They may be big or small and occasionally they will be immense and appear overwhelming, but whatever problems come your way, "life" is about how you tackle them. And you always have a choice. Moan about how hard it all is, or knuckle down and get on with the job. Whichever road you choose, remember:

We are always in the shit; it's only the depth that varies.