At some point the tools I had built stopped being side projects. They became the thing 660 people leaned on every day.
And that changed the job. Building something is the easy part. I know that sounds backward. But once people depend on a tool, your real work is no longer making it. Your real work is keeping it from breaking. That part never ends.
The night drives
The first lesson was small and stupid.
One evening I fixed something just before leaving, didn't check it properly, and drove home. By the time I got there, the tool was misbehaving. So I turned the car around and drove back to the hospital to fix it. That happened more than once.
