Today is Friday. No-change Friday, to be more specific. And not because we don’t like to work (although I’ll confess that we like to slack as much as the next guy). Today is no-change Friday because Fridays are special. Fridays are for Sneakily Making Crappy Things Better.
Now, that might just lead to a whole host of new questions in your mind. Things like “Why are things crappy,” or “Why would you have to sneak improvements.” Well, if you have to ask any of those things then you’ve probably never worked in Operations.
Things are crappy here for the same reason they are everywhere else–our work is never “done.” Projects begin and end, events come and go, but no matter what we still have work to do. The core services we support are still around and they can be better. Now, that’s not to say that they’re in such bad shape today; crappy is a relative term. But they can always be better.
And as for the sneaking, well, sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. Any there’s nothing sexy about fixing old problems or iteratively improving performance. So, you do it quietly and while no one is watching.
And that’s what Fridays are for. Spending time trying to make things better. Sometimes that’s adding some fancy new monitoring widget, other times it’s sitting down as a team and talking through some piece of architecture. This afternoon it seems to be finally updating this blog. So, whatever you do today ask yourself: am I sneakily making crappy things better?