3 ms·

And what would happen the day you were hit by a bus?

krab 6y ago
On that day, most probably nothing with regards to this task. Then, later, probably someone would check out the scripts from a shared repo. Then, read an outdated README, try it out, swear a bit, check for correctness with someone dependent on the results, and finally learn how to do the task. There is a lot of business processes that can tolerate days or weeks of delay in case of such a tragic (and hopefully improbable) event. The trick is to know which of them can't.
- nicbou 6y ago
  That second paragraph is very relatable.
- darkwater 6y ago
  > There is a lot of business processes that can tolerate days or weeks of delay in case of such a tragic (and hopefully improbable) event. The trick is to know which of them can't. This is really true BUT that kind of problems are OK - nobody cares - until somebody starts caring and then all of a sudden it is urgent (exactly because they were undetected for weeks/months due to their periodicity)
  - krab 6y ago
    I meant it's fine to take calculated risks. E. g. we have less than 1% chance per year that a given person leaves us on bad terms or suffers a bad accident or illness. In case it really happens, it will cost us X in delays and extra work. To lower the probability of this risk to Y% would cost us Z (money, delay, etc). If you do this math, you can tell if it's a good idea to optimize here, or if you have more pressing issues. In my experience, this sort of one-man jobs gets automated or at least well described and checked for fear of mistakes and/or employee fraud rather than "downtime".
    - darkwater 6y ago
      Mistakes are "downtime" as well in a way. Or maybe better, downtime is a mistake, cause errors and lead to problems.
neuronic 6y ago
Another guy install Postgres on his machine, runs a git clone, connects to the VPN and initiates the jobs?
- SatvikBeri 6y ago
  I wasn't even using a db at the time, it was 100% pandas. We did eventually set up more infrastructure, when I left the data was loaded into the company's SQL Server db, then pulled into pandas, then uploaded back into a different table.
tjalfi 6y ago
All of my routine tasks are documented in the operations manual. I'd be missed but the work would still get done.
SatvikBeri 6y ago
It's true – at that point, if I had disappeared without providing any transition help, the company would have been in trouble for a few days. But that goes for any employee – we were only 7 people at the time! Eventually I built out some more infrastructure to run the jobs automatically on a dedicated machine, but last I checked everything still runs on one instance.

krab 6y ago

On that day, most probably nothing with regards to this task. Then, later, probably someone would check out the scripts from a shared repo. Then, read an outdated README, try it out, swear a bit, check for correctness with someone dependent on the results, and finally learn how to do the task. There is a lot of business processes that can tolerate days or weeks of delay in case of such a tragic (and hopefully improbable) event. The trick is to know which of them can't.

nicbou 6y ago
That second paragraph is very relatable.
darkwater 6y ago
> There is a lot of business processes that can tolerate days or weeks of delay in case of such a tragic (and hopefully improbable) event. The trick is to know which of them can't. This is really true BUT that kind of problems are OK - nobody cares - until somebody starts caring and then all of a sudden it is urgent (exactly because they were undetected for weeks/months due to their periodicity)
- krab 6y ago
  I meant it's fine to take calculated risks. E. g. we have less than 1% chance per year that a given person leaves us on bad terms or suffers a bad accident or illness. In case it really happens, it will cost us X in delays and extra work. To lower the probability of this risk to Y% would cost us Z (money, delay, etc). If you do this math, you can tell if it's a good idea to optimize here, or if you have more pressing issues. In my experience, this sort of one-man jobs gets automated or at least well described and checked for fear of mistakes and/or employee fraud rather than "downtime".
  - darkwater 6y ago
    Mistakes are "downtime" as well in a way. Or maybe better, downtime is a mistake, cause errors and lead to problems.

neuronic 6y ago

Another guy install Postgres on his machine, runs a git clone, connects to the VPN and initiates the jobs?

SatvikBeri 6y ago
I wasn't even using a db at the time, it was 100% pandas. We did eventually set up more infrastructure, when I left the data was loaded into the company's SQL Server db, then pulled into pandas, then uploaded back into a different table.

tjalfi 6y ago

All of my routine tasks are documented in the operations manual. I'd be missed but the work would still get done.

SatvikBeri 6y ago

It's true – at that point, if I had disappeared without providing any transition help, the company would have been in trouble for a few days. But that goes for any employee – we were only 7 people at the time! Eventually I built out some more infrastructure to run the jobs automatically on a dedicated machine, but last I checked everything still runs on one instance.