Yesterday, I had to document an issue that involved changing the time of scheduled report. Yeah, I know. ZzzzZZZzzz. When are we going to start talking about Iz, Jean?!?!
Hey, it can’t always be about the kids. Sometimes I’m interesting, too. So, this blog is about me, me, me!
Oh, before I begin, in case anyone reading this didn’t know, I’m a technical writer. Yes, I write the documentation that most people love to hate, except I’m so not that person. I know most of my readers probably thought I was a model, a crime scene investigator, or cat whisperer, but I’m not; I’m just as technical writer when I'm not a Crock Pot Goddess.
While technical writing pays well, it’s very, well, technical. As some of you may know, I have a creative side, just a tad. And, sometimes, like yesterday, this creative side seeps out of my heart, oozes up (But, how is that possible? Hey, in my make-believe blog world, anything’s possible!) my chest, my neck, and then somehow makes its way into my left ear and takes over both lobes of my brain; anyway, this all occurred yesterday, and didn’t you read about it on the national news?
So, back to our boring technical writing story...
To change the time of this scheduled report, a user has to edit a cron file. Google that, because I’m so not going to explain that bit of technical boringness here. The engineer felt we shouldn’t document the issue; the engineering manager overruled him and said we should document it.
When I e-mailed the engineer for more information, he e-mailed me the information I needed and a one-sentence statement saying how he still didn’t think we should document the issue. He said that someone could edit the file and mistakenly change the frequency at which the report was run instead of changing the time. If someone scheduled the report to run 1,000,000 times instead of just once a day, their system could potentially overload.
I e-mailed him back and asked him if he wanted me to talk to the engineering manager about it. He said that he had complained enough, so it was fine with him if we just went ahead and documented it. I told him I’d write something up and run it by him for review.
Given his resistance and my stressed out and overloaded state, one of my internal switches must have been flipped. I became totally motivated and wrote the needed text in under 15 minutes; however, while writing it, something oozed into my brain. I thought twice about what I wrote, but then I had a WTF-creative moment and clicked “Send” but not before writing this in an email to him:
My first stab at it…I think my note correctly conveys the severity of it all. :-)
Please comment.
I had written a note to warn users about the dangers of messing with this file. Was it an accurate note? No, but it was accuracy in my world at that point in time!
When modifying a report’s cron file, do not modify anything other than the scheduled time. For example, ensure you do not modify the frequency; if the report frequency is changed, making a report run numerous times a day instead of once a day, a system could be put into overload, locusts could swarm, and cute little furry animals could spontaneously combust.
Within minutes, the engineer was at my cube. He could have emailed me, but there he stood. When I saw him I laughed and probably blushed, and then he said, “That was good.”
He told me there was only one thing he would change. I quickly said, “Yeah, I’ll delete that stuff about the locusts and the spontaneous combustion.” He said, “No. Just change this, “ as he pointed to some command.
I then confessed, “You know, half of me wants to leave it in there to see if anyone notices.” He said, “You should.” I said, “Nah!!!!!”
He left to return to his office. I made his change, and then I modified the note to instruct users to contact technical support first and modify later, if they must. Then my heart oozed into my brain again and took over.
I started an email to the engineer. I wrote…
Age-old question: What happens when someone schedules a report to run 1000000 times a day?
Answer: The polar bear population takes another step closer toward extinction.
He replied back with, “Haha, disturbing but funny.” I smiled, but then I hesitated and thought, “Wait a sec, am I disturbing but funny or is it the picture?” After a minute, I realized he was talking about the picture, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been talking about me, too.
So, the feature was documented. Despite the fact that the engineer didn’t want it documented nor did I want to have to bother to document it, it was now there in black and white. Though, that black and white was not smoke, because all evidence of locusts and “spontaneous combustion” were removed from the documentation...sadly.
I love my job; however, some days, like yesterday, I missed having a job in which I could write about locusts and spontaneous combustion...all the time. I think the engineer and I both had a laugh, but when all was said and done, I felt like my creativity had taken a huge hit due to my day job. Well, it felt that way until 6:30 tonight.
As usual, I went to beer o’clock. I made crock pot nachos, but I wasn’t sure how they had turned out. I had to leave for 30 minutes to give Nathan my car, and upon my return, three quarters of the nacho dip was gone along with two bags of chips. I guess it was a success.
At one point, as I held my Dead Guy Ale in my hand, one of the engineers said, “Oh, _insert_engineer’s_name_here sent me your thing about the animals blowing up.” The other five people holding beers in their hands turned to look at me and said, “What is he talking about ?” from the looks on their faces. I stammered, buried my head against the wall, and then I began to try to explain it all.
When I finally came to the end of my short-question-long-answer explanation, the beer crowd said, “Um, yeah, okay, Jean” from the looks on their faces. I said, “Oh, that sounds really crazy.” The engineer who initially mentioned it then said, “When he forwarded to me, he said that it was an example of why he liked having technical publications here again.” I heaved a sigh of relief; then I thought, "You like me, you really like me and my disturbing but funny world!" ♥
Happy weekend, everyone. ♥
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