Which is worse when working on production databases? Being drunk or tired?
ledgersmbdev.blogspot.comI believe it. I can type with perfect spelling and grammar while quite drunk. If I'm half-asleep, it goes right to hell.
I think there are contextual reasons why drunken incidence response, despite being largely unavoidable (you cannot expect your subject matter experts never to consume alcohol) causes few problems.
However, I think one under-recognized problem is that there is a complacency that comes with being tired. And when I look at the really big incidence response disasters, that has always been a major factor.
And yet we celebrate people who put us at risk....
This is a great question. I feel like alcohol impairs my judgment, while tiredness impairs my thinking. In general most day-to-day technical tasks require thinking rather than judgment. Then again, this might just be selection bias because I've never been drunk during business hours (but have been called after hours while drunk) but am frequently asked to weigh in on something right after I sign in but before I've had coffee.
I wonder how the context by which these enter the production environment affect the relevant harm caused by either. For example, drunkenness happens via escallations to those not on call, while tiredness comes into play routinely and at all levels.
As a result drunk individuals usually are facing narrow technical problems where thinking is required, and judgments already made, while tired people are facing the whole situation.
Depends where you are on the Ballmer curve [1], obviously.
This is the only possibly correct answer.
Tired by a large margin.
Both is intolerable
Let's imagine a scenario here:
On call engineer wakes up to an alert. Realizes there is a major problem developing that he or she is underqualified to handle. Escalates the call.
Eventually this gets escalated to the top subject matter expert in the company. He's not on call, has been out partying, and is drunk.
Where does this become unacceptable? I am certainly not saying people should show up to work drunk, but unless you say anyone in the escallation chain may never be drunk, it is going to happen.
Depends on the database.
Drunk = fun
Tired = not fun
In my experience drunk and unexpectedly called means careful and tired means "screw it, I want to go back to sleep."