So, my new job is insane but I’m having fun. Is that weird?

I think I’ve mentioned this bit before: After 40 years of tech and 30 years as a back-end dev when I came back from, errr, “health sabbatical”, I was told that the guy running our own personal super-computer cluster was leaving and could I take on the operations part of his job? Well, how could I say no when I’d already missed so much work? It made all kinds of sense even if I haven’t done operations since 1989?

The one bright spot in the insanity of dealing with people in all 24 time zones texting me for help was that the guy who left, left behind an assistant. The assistant was “just” a contractor, “just” turned 65 and, despite being less than 10 years older than me always sounded (on teams) like his name should be “Festus” and I kept waiting for him to go on a rant and wave his hat about someone named “Slappy”. Never stops talking, always wants to do voice because text messages are… not for him, I guess.

I mean… classic old-west tech guy. Annoying as hell but he knew his stuff and he had the institutional knowledge that I lacked.

Last Monday he was complaining about his foot and as the details came out I became more and more concerned. When he mentioned that he went to the ER but came home because the wait was too long, and then mentioned how it was turning black, I nagged him to go again. 

Turns out the MF’er has type-II diabetes and hasn’t been taking care of himself. Now they want to amputate. 

It was hard not to make the comparison with how I treated my back after the first surgery, and it’s hard not to blame him for not taking care of himself, and it’s hard not to panic about trying to deal with all this by myself - but…

For God’s sake, people, take care of yourselves, people! Go to the damned doctor occasionally!