Sunday, September 15, 2013

Unexpected weakness

I've had the usual set of diseases, including pneumonia and malaria, and I'm quite familiar with "weak as a kitten." It is sometimes hard to remember that someone else is too weak for a job, but once I remember I empathize fine.

I signed up for weekend coverage for this weekend sometime back, and I wasn't planning on a nasty cold.

Most of the weekend work is pretty straightforward: if A then B, and pray I don't have to go in to get systems restarted. Users who are way over quota get email (forgot to cc though...). Restart server X remotely if that $$$ software wedges again. Easy provided nothing goes badly wrong.

One production project stalled, and while trying to keep my eyes open long enough to debug the script, I realized that I couldn't focus on more than one line at a time. If A and B then--wait, was A true or not?

I realized I was mentally weak as a kitten. No doubt that's been the case many times before (see pneumonia, above), but it was the first time I realized "This is what it's like not to be able to do math." I hope that can translate into a little more empathy.

I also hope I can clear up enough to replace the stupid code. (I wrote it; it was always just interim code to test the machinery.)

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