Always Be Closing

2010-10-06

I’ve been working on a complex telecom system recently with a codebase that is hard to trace and learn. Given several tickets to fix, my morale flagged a bit as I waded through code last week. Then I remembered an easy morale booster for me: close at least one ticket a day.

As an engineer it makes me feel good to know my efforts are improving the system. Working on a complex ticket can take days to reproduce and fix the issue, often with little noticeable payoff in the end. So I grabbed two lower priority issues and fixed them – both were UI cleanups that led to a nicer user experience. I left the office that day with a spring in my step and smile on my face, ready to tackle the complex ticket again the next morning.