The House Network

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to work from home for the day. I hadn’t worked from home in almost 6 months and it was just the perfect time to do so. Things were a little bit slow at work and everything I needed to do could be done remotely and via telephone. No meetings, no reviews, etc. And then, all hell broke loose. About 5 minutes after this picture was taken, a production server that I manage started acting up. CPU load went from a normal of 0.8 to an unheard of high of 188. That’s 235 times higher than it should be. Of course, this caused the main website to be nearly inaccessible, as well as some email services. All in all, it took me over 9 hours of straight work bringing the server back to its normal state. Oddly, I doubt I would have been able to accomplish this if I had been at work, with all the distractions, network policies and lack of reference material. Being at home on the deck, I was isolated with everything I needed to resolve any issues as they creeped up. By the time I shutdown my laptop, it was dark outside and I had a sunburn on my face and arms. It was all worth it though; it was nice to be able to take a quick break and play with my little daughter or just chat with my wife. Needless to say, if it wasn’t for my wife’s understanding that when I’m working from home, I’m REALLY working, I couldn’t have done this. You need that kind of support and understanding in order to do this.