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RE: Frustration in Science - And what Everybody can learn from it
Great post. I can understand you for a bit as a software developer; people outside of the industry think it's all unicorns and rainbows, and you're there at 3AM trying to fix annoying bug in production environment. I personally think that people like you should be more presented in media to get the hard truth about being a scientist and becoming more grateful for things you do (and to help in elimination of BS like anti-vaxxers).
I followed you and I look forward to read more posts like this.
I totally remember 3AM test runs because the devs finally got a piece of code working after days of searching for the bug. I started as a tester, and I couldn't bring myself to go home when a developer was working on a particularly nasty bug because I knew that he or she would probably be sitting there worried that the fix didn't work. I used to have a blanket and pillow in my office so I could take a nap while they coded, then get up and test while they napped. Ahh... the early days of the dotcom era!
The feeling when everyone else around you leave and you are the only one sitting in the office at 3AM troubleshooting and trying to fix the issue. Add me to the gang, I'm still doing it. Being a software developer in a client facing environment can be equally frustrating until we identify the root cause of the issue and fix it. 😁
I feel for you; I remember those moments well. I remember one time spending over 24 continuous hours watching the stream of a big-name client to capture the exact moment when it disconnected. We had a buffer overflow somewhere in the system, but couldn't pin down what caused it. The client had a huge roll-out coming, and could not afford to have everything go offline in the middle of the show, so there we sat, staring at the screen, watching the debugger go line by line until we found the issue.
And while it was exhausting, it was still some of the most thrilling moments of my life. We knew we were changing the way people experienced their worlds and creating new ways for artists to express themselves. I wouldn't trade those sleepless hours for anything!
Yes I strongly agree that those moments are wonderful even though tiring. Especially the happiness clients get when we deliver something. That pays off for all the efforts we put.
I still remember my first demo with a client showing that I can hide a field in a form by just ticking a check box. After seeing that for the first time they started shouting with joy saying woooow. It was over a call and it took more than 5 mins for them to be back to normal. That was my best ever client experience I have ever had in my life. From then on I always wanted to keep them excited by building something exciting for them. Really motivating and satisfyingly. 😅