system maintenance

anders’ office — 13:00

the office smells like boiled eggs and the particular ozone of servers that should have been replaced during the obama administration. anders sits surrounded by three monitors. one shows code. one shows a sailing forum. one is off but anders glances at it periodically as though it might do something.

merethe knocks on the open door. she is holding a tablet and smiling. the smile predates her arrival by several hours.

merethe: anders, do you have a moment?

anders: the current’s against us but i can tack.

merethe: choosing to understand this wonderful. i’m rolling out a new initiative. “pulse check.” it’s a weekly digital survey where staff rate their emotional wellbeing on a scale of one to five, with an optional comment field.

anders: no.

merethe: i haven’t asked you anything yet.

anders: you’re going to ask me to build it.

merethe: i’m going to ask you to integrate it into the intranet.

anders: the intranet i built?

merethe: the bureau’s intranet, yes.

anders: i designed that system for complaint processing, case management, and internal communications. it is not a feelings engine.

merethe: it’s a simple form. five radio buttons and a text field.

anders: every form is a simple form until someone wants dropdown menus and conditional logic and the ability to export responses as a PDF with the bureau logo in the header. i’ve sailed this route before, merethe.

merethe: gorm approved it.

anders: gorm approves things people put on his desk while he’s on the phone. that’s not governance, that’s ambush paperwork.

merethe’s smile does not change. it has never changed. anders sometimes wonders if it would remain in place if the rest of her face left.

merethe: i understand there’s resistance to change. that’s actually a very normal response. would you like to talk about what’s driving—

anders: no.

merethe: —the resistance?

anders: the resistance is driven by twelve years of maintaining a system on hardware that technically died in 2018 and a framework i wrote in a language that no longer exists. every new feature is a plank nailed to a boat in open water. you’re asking me to add a hot tub to a dinghy.

merethe: i’m asking for five radio buttons.

long pause. anders eats a piece of boiled egg.

anders: i’ll build it. it’ll take two weeks. the system will be down for maintenance thursday afternoon.

merethe: it doesn’t need to be—

anders: thursday afternoon. three hours. tell everyone to use paper.

merethe: anders, the downtime seems—

anders: turning back to his monitors merethe, do you know what happens to a ship when you cut a hole in the hull below the waterline?

merethe: it sinks?

anders: slowly. you barely notice at first. thursday afternoon. bring paper.

merethe leaves, still smiling. anders opens his sailing forum. he navigates to a thread titled “dealing with passengers who won’t stop talking.”

he types: “same.”