Fortuitous Timing
I had a great morning yesterday. The brain was working better than usual. I solved problems quickly. One developer with far more experience than I have asked for help and I found the solution and passed on a couple tips that were new.
Later in the morning it came out of the blue, unexpected, a complete surprise. A vice president sent an email to the vice president in the area in which I work. The email complimented my work and work ethic.
The day was going great. I had signed up for a workshop in the afternoon conducted by a psychologist from the office of Employee Assistance and Wellness. The subject was "Personal Sustainability" and was based on research from the field of positive psychology. I was feeling good and looking forward to the workshop.
Shortly before leaving for the workshop a co-worker sent me a message about a suspicious report. I checked and immediately realized I had developed a program that erroneously deleted 1,295 accounts. Neither I nor the analyst who tested my work caught the error. Oops!
The good morning was balanced by the blunder of the previous afternoon. Or, rather, the blunder of the previous afternoon was balanced by the good morning. (Half empty or half full?) I wasn't feeling as euphoric as during the morning. I thought seriously about canceling the workshop and fixing the problem but decided the workshop was valuable enough to justify postponing the work.
The timing and content of the workshop were fortuitous. I went in thinking about the problem and how I would fix it as well as feeling a little frustrated with myself for such a blatant error. But, after the first mindfulness meditation exercise I forgot I had a problem to fix. The timing of the workshop was perfect and had immediate practical application.
(After the workshop I came back to the office at 5 PM, worked a while then came in at 7 AM this morning, restored the accounts and fixed the program.)
Later in the morning it came out of the blue, unexpected, a complete surprise. A vice president sent an email to the vice president in the area in which I work. The email complimented my work and work ethic.
The day was going great. I had signed up for a workshop in the afternoon conducted by a psychologist from the office of Employee Assistance and Wellness. The subject was "Personal Sustainability" and was based on research from the field of positive psychology. I was feeling good and looking forward to the workshop.
Shortly before leaving for the workshop a co-worker sent me a message about a suspicious report. I checked and immediately realized I had developed a program that erroneously deleted 1,295 accounts. Neither I nor the analyst who tested my work caught the error. Oops!
The good morning was balanced by the blunder of the previous afternoon. Or, rather, the blunder of the previous afternoon was balanced by the good morning. (Half empty or half full?) I wasn't feeling as euphoric as during the morning. I thought seriously about canceling the workshop and fixing the problem but decided the workshop was valuable enough to justify postponing the work.
The timing and content of the workshop were fortuitous. I went in thinking about the problem and how I would fix it as well as feeling a little frustrated with myself for such a blatant error. But, after the first mindfulness meditation exercise I forgot I had a problem to fix. The timing of the workshop was perfect and had immediate practical application.
(After the workshop I came back to the office at 5 PM, worked a while then came in at 7 AM this morning, restored the accounts and fixed the program.)
posted by Paul at 1:59 PM
4 Comments:
Amen to "mindfulness"!
Sounds like a very human sort of day.
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