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The 3 AM server crash that killed my side project
Was working on a game I've been coding for 6 months. My day job server went down at 2 AM. Got called in to fix it. Spent 4 hours rebuilding configs instead of working on my game. Missed my weekly update deadline. Client was happy but I lost a whole night of real work. Anyone else ever trade sleep for someone else's problem?
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the_jana5h ago
Damn, that really sucks. I feel for you, especially when you're this close to a big milestone on your own thing and the day job just eats that time. @jamie940 said it perfectly, nobody tracks the hidden cost of you being the one who shows up.
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joel_clark3715m ago
That 4 hour window between 2 AM and 6 AM is the worst kind of invisible labor. Your boss sees the fix, your client sees the uptime, but nobody adds up the three missed updates that pile up over a year. I lost a similar night last month when our payment processor went down during a holiday weekend. Spent 7 hours on support tickets while my own project's launch deadline slipped by 3 days. The real killer isn't the lost sleep, it's that your game's momentum dies a little every time this happens. What's your plan to protect those weekly updates when the next call comes at 3 AM?
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jamie9405h ago
That's the thing about being the reliable one. Everyone's happy to take what you give but nobody's keeping a tab on what it cost you in the process.
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