[mattlondon]

Constant "emergencies" soon wear you down.

Sure it is fun, but the stakes can be high and the stress gets piled on.

It starts with congratulations all-round. You are a hero! Good job! Nice save! Your boss's boss's boss's boss comes over and thanks you personally. Take the rest of the week off!

Later, its people asking when will you fix it? Why haven't you got this back working yet? Didn'y you fix the same thing last month? (no) We really need you to fix this before 5pm or the TPS reports wont go out, and the management will be pissed.

Failures become normalised. They get reliant on people doing heroics. People forget that the systems are crap and need investment, and start to rely on you being there to fix it, and if things don't get fixed then it is your fault the TPS reports didn't go out, not tech-debt/lack-of-investment/bad-design/whatever.

[ido]

I remember stuff like that, once the COO called the entire company to the common room to present me a bottle of champagne for my efforts (another time I was given a fancy bottle of whiskey that some marketing guys drank 3/4 of before I ever got around to it). I rather not work any overtime instead.