an Office Space state of mind

It's 6:13PM on a blustery Friday evening in Redmond. The lights have been flickering all day. My building is practically deserted. A couple of developers in the next hall over debate when Halo 2 will ship. The walls are thin.  I have an opinion but refuse to take sides. 

At 6:41PM I snap, pound the wall once with my fist, note the silence, and say, loudly and undiplomatically, "It'll ship when Halo freezes over, you fools!"  The voices do not return.  I resolve an open bug "won't fix" with a single click, rise from my desk and walk down the hall to get a cup of coffee. I hear an elevator door close in the distance. Silence. I return to my desk to do one last thing: run a query for documentation bugs that have been assigned to me since Wednesday.

Bug VSW1000392730 appears.  "That's funny," I remark.

Issue type: Doc Bug
Opened on: 7/19/2002

Hmmm, assigned to product support, MSDN (zzzzzzz), VSS feature team... I skip to Issue: VSS's Share function does not permit a comment. I jump to Description: help topic for vss share command (command line) includes reference to a -C switch.

'No it doesn't,' I think indignantly.  I fire up a command shell and type, "ss share ?", perform a ctrl+f in the help topic for "-c", and come up empty. Nada.

At 6:44PM, feeling quite satisfied with myself, I select Issue Resolution: Not Repro and give the bug a quick once over for any related bugs or gotchas--there's always a gotcha. 

That's when I see it, like a diamond half-submerged in sand on a beach:

Opened by: Michael Bolton (customer)

Michael Bolton!  Like the developer in Office Space, Michael Bolton? I must be dreaming.  But I'm not dreaming.  I'm resolving a bug that was opened by Michael Bolton, a developer named Michael Bolton. 

It's Friday, it's 7:13PM,  it's dark, the wind is blowing, my cats are still outside, my test machine futilely scratches for RAM, and you know what, that's it.  I've got my whole life ahead of me.

I think I'll sleep in tomorrow.  In fact, I think I'll sleep until noon.  No, I'll sleep until 1:00PM or whenever I wake up and then... then I'll have French toast.  And if I feel like it, I just might go fishing or read a book that has nothing to do with programming, or take a nap, or something.  If you don't hear from me for a few days, don't worry.  I love my job and I love my life.  I'll be back.  I'm just in an Office Space state of mind.  Thanks Michael.

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