I am 42, and I am cramming for "the test."

For the past two weeks work has been quite stressful. We have this major change going through the system and I am running point. Now normally this wouldn't scare me but there is a lot of attention on this one. Ever step is being judged and reconsidered. Every day I get another earful of caution. Don't make a wrong decision, it feels like! Which is fine, I wanted the accountability and responsibility (damn you ego!).

What is clear as day is how lax I have gotten keeping up with our application as a hole.

My team does its work in a nice walled garden in the corner of the app. It's very complex, I call it the system within the system, but we rarely need to know about what's going on outside our walled garden. We have autonomy and can be blissfully ignorant as long as we place nicely with the in flows and outflows of data.

I have been tasked to make decisions that impact the external system. And I didn't know a damn thing. And haven't kept up with my peers' work since Covid started.

My coworkers have been very busy, changing everything from languages to extracting processes, splitting data sources, servers, infrastructure, etc. Man. Did I mention they have been very busy? BUSY!

I digress.

I didn't know shit from shinola (cover your ears) about these changes and time has run out where i can bluff my way into thinking that i can make informed decisions about the system.

Just like ole college, I have spent every waking hour in and out of work either in meetings or reading the dang wiki docs leveling up on all of these changes.

And just like ole college....I may just get a "C".