Today I wanted to write about something that happens to me at work all the time: the process of asking for technical help, helps me discover the answer to my question.
For example, today I was stuck on some terraform config that wasn’t showing some of the changes I was expecting to see in the diff. I decided to start writing a message in a support channel. As I was writing the message I started thinking about whether I had covered all the bases of things that I could check on before bothering someone to help me on something I could have done myself. At that point, it occured to me that I hadn’t checked a specific file that might have some releveant information. So, I deleted my half typed message, checked the file, and voila! The reason my config wasn’t applying was because I forgot to explicitly add some variables.
The funny thing is that this happens to me all the time. I usually spend a few hours troubleshooting a problem, but the moment I have to put it out in the open, it is usually when the ideas come. In some cases, the answer to my own question comes after posting the message, which I usually delete straight away to not waste anyone’s time.
I’ve always found this quite annoying, why can’t I be more thorough from the very beggining? Why do solutions come to me only after I’ve reached for help?
I think the answer to this is very simple: I will look very stupid if the answer to my question is something really simple that I should have spotted in the first place. It is this pressure to make sure I’ve covered all bases in my investigation that forces my brain to review the checklist of things I should have checked for before hitting send. It is at this point where a solution to my problem, or at least a new idea on how to solve it, pops into my head.
On top of that, I think forcing to put my troubleshooting process in writing helps me identify obvious steps me may have missed.
It is interesting to see how the brain works.