How to Breathe

So I learned two hard lessons at work. Not about code, but about people.

The first involved a VR bug fix and a localization pass. I made the changes and tested them on the brand-new hardware I had been handed, where everything worked perfectly. The reply kept coming back that it was broken. It turned out they had never loaded the fixed build, so they were never running the thing they said did not work. No "maybe it is us," no glance at my step-by-step guide, no test of the fix itself. Once it magically started working, they moved on as if none of it had happened, straight into the next round of changes. I was soooooo relieved when that chapter finally closed.

The second was an onsite test pitched to me like a life-crisis emergency. Getting there meant a couple of hours on public transit, switching between lines. When I arrived, the hardware was not set up. There was, as it turned out, no hardware at all. So, being a professional, I did the thing I am still not sure was the right call: I collected every component from the various people who each held one, assembled the whole rig myself, and did the work that was supposed to be their side's job. By the time it all worked it was late, with nowhere near enough hours left to do the task I had actually come to do. So I made the same multi-transfer trip home, out the time and the fare, having accomplished basically a solid nothing.

Staying professional, for me, is not actually being calm. It is more like Bruce Banner admitting his secret is that he is always angry. It is the small daily discipline of not saying the first thing that comes to mind. And when neither the fix nor the venting will change anything, the most valuable skill I have picked up in this career is simply to breeeeeeeeeeathe.