Problems are Solved by People that Show Up
It's been a really awful morning today. When I got into work there were problems with one of the apps I inherited, and it was ugly. There were data issues that caused problems with the code changes I'd had to put in at the request of the users. It was my fault, but I'd been pressured to get the changes out as soon as possible by the users. I didn't get to do all the tests that I would have normally done and it got me. Period. No excuses. I had to make several emergency fixes and get things up and going, but in the end things were going OK.
It's not a fun way to start the day... no fun at all. But it happens when you rush things. I'm learning from this mistake and I'm not going to push things into production. Period.
The next problem was that there was a problem with one of the data feeder apps, but it wasn't at all clear where the problem was. I tried restarts... no good. I tried re-installing the little controlling apps that manipulate the feeder code... no good. I tried re-installing the feeder app itself... no good. I'm clearly getting desperate now because I have more than ten other boxes feeding good data - but there's this one that's not working and I'm running out of options.
But hey... problems are solved by those that show up, and I'm here and no one else is. So I have to find the solution.
I keep trying to reset things and in the end, I get a question from one of the users asking why the feeder was dead. I told him I was working on it, but it was dead. He mentioned that this wasn't the only problem - other apps were having problems this morning.
Bing!
There was nothing I could do, and there was nothing I had done wrong. Some bad data had gotten into the database and it was messing a lot of things up. When they fixed up the data, I was able to restart the feeder and all was OK. But for that first 90 mins of the day, I was in a near panic mode.
No fun.
But hey, problems are solved by people that show up.
Sometimes I just wished more people showed up. I could really use the help.