Stress...

We are all exposed to stress at some point in our lives. There are several kinds of stress. Some is easy to deal with and some downright debilitating.

For an analytical person like me, the most difficult stress to deal with is the stress induced by a problem that I feel I have no control over – a problem I can’t reason my way out of. In my profession, working with computers a lot, I am subject to this kind of stress quite often.

Computer software is written by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Therefore, computer software is highly likely to contain mistakes – bits that don’t work the way they should. These mistakes, affectionately known as bugs, are not unexpected. I don’t think there’s much software on the planet that doesn’t contain a liberal dose of them.

Bugs don’t usually bug me, but after hunting for an elusive one for any length of time and failing to find it, I start to stress. Why? Maybe it’s an ego thing (Dump always says that the male ego is the most fragile thing on Earth and she should know, she lives with 5 of us, but male ego is another whole discussion). I guess the hunter can’t bear coming back from the hunt empty handed?

Leave me struggling with a bug for a few days and I become a raging lunatic. After a week I’m ready for a sojourn in the lunatic asylum.

So why do I do it? Shouldn’t I get over my passion for computers and go and work at the post office? Not a chance! There is nothing – let me repeat, nothing more satisfying than finally nailing those little gremlins. The amount of satisfaction is directly proportional to the time taken to hunt them down. Go figure.