Get the latest tech news

Firing Myself

In July of 2010 I was 22 and working at a Social Gaming startup in California. I'd just graduated and this was my first real job. I had a pay check and an apartment. I felt grown-up, for the first time. I was one of two 'engineers' writing code for the company's flagship product, an RPG. I'd studied Philosophy in college, and that meant that, while I knew how to think through a problem, my knowledge of best practices, and sensible design patterns was minimal. I wielded my basic LAMP knowledge, with incredible enthusiasm.

The game designers (my overlords) often took inspiration from World of Warcraft, the blisteringly successful MMO produced by Blizzard. The monotony of this task lulled me into a stupor, and one lazy Tuesday afternoon found me drowsy, cursor hovering over the USERS table icon, to then bring up its menu and click 'clear'. I found myself on the phone to Rackspace, leaning on a desk for support, listening to their engineer patiently explain that backups for this MySQL instance had been cancelled over 2 months ago.

Get the Android app