The System is Down

After reflecting on the entirety of the year I’ve spent in quarantine, it’s also (almost) time to commemorate the anniversary of the event that made me leave one of my previous jobs, something which was an absolute nightmare at the time but is actually amusing to read in retrospect. Luckily, one of my colleagues from back then is already doing the work of writing the whole thing up. You can check out Part One which describes some context and the initial disaster; future installments will cover what actually went wrong, which should make it clear why I had to leave. Names have been changed to protect folks, and I will not be giving away who I am in this sordid tale, so for now just read and enjoy. It’s the sort of harrowing story that begins with the alert nobody wants to get: not one, but all of our production systems were down.

Reflections on a Year

Just a little over a year ago, several counties in the San Francisco Bay Area announced the country’s first lockdown measures in response to the spreading of COVID-19. The measures were supposed to last for a few weeks; one year later, we’re still locked down, along with much of the rest of the United States.