11am and on. Some sun in the windowblinds. Some wind in the backyards, and a cold breeze of way-too-old estimates that made it into new plannings. Also: There's a distinction between a proof-of-concept and a solution that actually works. Optimism seems a poor choice of tool for bridging that gap.
Close to 10am: Watching infrastructure stumble and fall. Again. Ending up in the usual cycle: Restart. Look closely. Miss that crucial moment. Repeat. (Log files flooding disks. Next issues are expected. Digging through lines of text and pondering how to teach the art of writing meaningful status output in reasonably complex systems.)
Stück für Stück etwas mehr zurück: Leere Straßenbahnen, leere Haltestellen. Die eigenen dünnen Reifen auf leeren Plätzen. Halbmond hinter Wolken wild und unstet wie der Wind weit vor der Dämmerung. Erste Kontakte an Kreuzungen, Erörterungen der Lage im Keller und Treppenhaus, bis man die Etagen hinter sich legt und der Atem knapp wird. Wand aus stickiger warmer Luft hinter der Bürotür: Eine Woche einsamer Maschinen liegt zurück, der erste Eindruck lässt vermuten: Es war länger. (Fenster weit öffnen. Sich zu der Entscheidung gratulieren, den eigenen Radius vor den Feiertagen halbwegs aufgeräumt zu haben. Küche, Kaffee, Tagesplan. Und eine kleine Box für die Momente dazwischen. Habt den Morgen mild!)
Immer noch Sturm. Hinter der Wand plappert Nachbars Radio, zornig und unverständlich. Immer noch zunehmender Paketbotenverkehr, gegenüber hat jemand einen großen Karton kopfüber auf dem Fußweg abgeworfen, ein trauriges Gesicht mit Strichcode-Nase starrt in trübe Himmel und rasende Wolken. Nochmal Kaffee. Nochmal bis zehn zählen und die Fingerspitzen beobachten, die eingeübte Kommandos auf abgegriffenen Tasten tanzen. Langsam löst sich die Struktur der Stunden auf, egal, mit wieviel Kraft man dagegenarbeitet.
10am and on. Diving through the few calls this day is supposed to bring. Tech people talking to tech people trying to solve problems, knowing each one knows just half of it, so most of the time is lost to figuring out which half this actually might be. Maybe, in these cases, taking a short walk together (and failing together) is the best that could be done to get somewhere.
1pm and on: Explaining in detail tools and procedures. Sometimes things are less obvious than expected, sometimes challenges are big enough to keep people from feeling comfortable with what they're supposed to do. In all cases, outcome is a weird mix of unsafety and uncertainty, and a mental eye sees estimates explode and timelines break. (Standing next to the playing field, watching opposing players run for an imaginary ball, and wondering whether this day has seen enough weak analogies of people moving in real-world space.)
9am and on. Another iteration, or circle, depending on ones perspective. Discovering mutually exclusive requirements is one of the more interesting fascinations of dynamically building a system with varying stakeholders. Also: Watching a group of people with torchlights navigate their way through a large and completely black factory hall. Sometimes you spot something that seems to do something. But a lot of guesses and assumptions are likely to be just wrong.
9am and on. Re-use of existing code that might require some learning and tweaking versus re-implementing something similar from scratch because it's easier and faster. Tales of pragmatism and antipatterns, of greenfield development and getting stuck in the mud, and of piling technical debt that hits your feet the very moment something will fall over. Tight ropes to walk.