Way2Top

Today was one of those days, when my patience was challenged, when things didn’t go as expected. I had many problems to address and many holes to fill in the workfront. The first task that I picked for the day, happend to be a time-consuming job. After doing all the changes, when I was ready to test, the system complained a compilation problem. Someone had changed a code yesterday and forgot to check-in (damn!). Got it fixed and took the fresh code and did the whole process again. This time the Virus scanner which was scheduled to run on Fridays, starting scanning my system, absorbing all the strength of my PC. It took me sometime to figure out the reason. Stopped it and then proceeded with my work again. This time the complete build process went fine, good. When I deployed, my Application server complained that database has some tables missing! Someone has modified the database schema..Got it fixed. Looked at the clock, it was already lunch time. Great! I haven’t done anything yet and the morning sessions is over..Whom should I curse? myself?? my PC?? or the situation?? I had my lunch and planned my activities for the afternoon while munching the usual vegetable sandwich that I have 5 days a week, 12 months a year! I decided to leave the troubling task and get on with other tasks..Came back and started off with the remaining work. 6 out of 7 tasks were over like a breeze in an hour. Then, I took the menacing task and everything went fine this time. I have completed the tasks for which 3 days were allotted! The day which started off on a bad note ended in a good note. I feel very satisfying and am looking forward for the weekend as a reward.

One of my bad habits in the past is that I tend to take problems as a challenge to my intellectual capacity and never leave it until the job is completed. Many a times, I have suffered heavily, as I had to work longer hours. I didn’t change until it affected me in a big way.

From then on, I follow a simple principle. I leave the job that is troubling me momentarily and take up some job which will yield positive results in a shorter time frame. The satisfaction gives me the badly needed mood-shift and provides some enthusiasm. I take up more of such tasks. Finally when I am done with all the jobs, I take up the time-consuming job which tests my patience. Exactly the same happened today.

My fellow IT counterparts can relate to what I am talking about. Also, at times a seemingly simple problem completely drains our energy by evading all our debugging skills. Being on the IT field, these are the kind of challenges that one faces, day-in and day-out. All these will be fun for the first few years, but will slowly turn out to frustration and a state of desparation. These are the minor moments which sometimes make me hate my profession, which has otherwise been fantastic so far.