TheGeekery

The Usual Tech Ramblings

The Midnight Oil...

I’ve quite often been called crazy, working until all hours of the day, cracking away to get things done. Trying to explain to people that for me, working 15+ hours a day is easy, and I consider it fun. Not many people get the opportunity to call what they do fun, but I do. Sometimes I rant and grumble about stuff that goes on, but that’s all part of the job.

I stumbled across a post by Chad Perrin titled “Insomnia and Productivity”. He hits the nail on the head as to why working 15+ hours a day is a breeze for me. The 8 at work are a complete mess, I very rarely get any projects completed due to interruptions1 or I’m constantly in meetings about projects, changes, problems, etc. My ideal working time is after 21:30, and usually runs up until 03:00-04:00. Why? The kiddo is asleep, the wife is preoccupied with games, or medical shows, so I get some time to lock my brain onto a subject.

For example, I have several projects I have to work on to share data between our app, and SalesForce. Quite easy, seeing as I’ve crafted several apps to do it already, but if I try doing it at work, it’d take me about 2 weeks due to interruptions. When I do it at home, it’s done in 4 hours.

So when I get asked why I work so much, and so late… It’s because I’m a system administrator… It’s because I’m a hacker in the original sense of the title. It’s my job… It’s what I enjoy.

  1. Really should follow up on “Interruption Shields” as hinted by Limoncelli in “Time Management for System Administrators” 

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