Its Morning.

So, I'm debating with myself as to whether to go in to work today, or call in sick. I don't feel totally awful at the moment, so I could conceivably get some actual work done. On the other hand, I know that, when I have a cold, I often feel best in the Morning. If this is the best I'm going to feel all day, I don't think I want to go to work.

There's also the fact that its Friday to think about. In one sense that's good. If I take today off, that's three days before I have to be able to think sufficiently well to get stuff done. On the other hand, Friday is the day I submit my time sheet. And, because of the work firewall I have to physically BE there to do it.

That means that if I don't go in to work today and submit my time sheet for the week, my pay will be delayed by a few days, three weeks from now. Maybe that isn't such a big deal, so long as I know in advance its gonna happen.

Hmmm. As I've been sitting here typing this, I've started to feel worse and worse, and my ability to think (which, after all, is what I'm paid for) seems to be rapidly draining away. I guess I'm going to call in sick, after all.

I'd rather be at Work.

It probably goes without saying that I'd rather be well, but its not often that I find myself actually preferring to be at work rather than at home.

But, there's not really much for me to do here, especially considering how I'm feeling. As well, I've reached a point at work where what I am doing is getting quite interesting. It is, however, also getting quite tricky and I need a working brain to make any forward progress there.

Now, I know of studies that have put Systems Programming in the same category as Brain Surgery and Rocket Science for the intellectual difficulty of the work, but like (I imagine) all intellectual endevours, most of programming work does not require anywhere near the same level of brain power as the hardest bits. In fact, there are many tasks in my field I could meaningfully do at my current diminished level of brain power; some could be done by a trained monkey. Alas, no such tasks are currently on my to-do list.

Right now I'm working on two things, and each has stalled on a bit that requires a careful redesign. Nothing terribly elaborate or difficult, but certainly beyond the intellectual demands of repetitive coding of yet another do-loop to traverse a list. What's more, the thing about designs is that when you get one wrong you make extra work for yourself. So, any attempt to work in my current condition will just create a bunch of broken stuff that I'll have to go back and fix later.

Of course, once the redesigns are done, then the code must be modified to reflect the new designs and 90% of that will be trained monkey work. So, this cold was just bad timing all around.

Rain?

I just leaned that the South Bay area is expecting its first rain in 202 days. Starting this afternoon we're supposed to get 1/2 inch of rain (~1 cm), so maybe its best that I didn't go to work. I may have an umbrella in my backpack, but that doesn't mean I feel up to walking in the rain.