Coping with unavailable systems at our work place

Question

What do you do when your source control / bug database / network / email system is temporarily unavailable?

This is to guage how productive we can be under such a situation?

Answer 1

I come to Stack Overflow. As you can see, our systems are very VERY unstable...

Seriously, email shouldn't be crucial for productivity, version control shouldn't either if you have a decentralized version control system (that's a reason to change to one). Bug database shouldn't be, either, unless we are talking about evening long failures, which should be rare, and can be solved with local caching/copying.

Answer 2

If I have a local copy of the database on my machine then theres usually no reason I can't carry on working. Tho in the past I've worked using Virtual Earth and Google maps, and when the internet goes down theres nothing to do. In this case I tend to use the time to catch up on RSS feeds (using a client app so they've been cached locally).

Answer 3

If this happens rarely just take a break or try to reschedule a meeting, a little bit of down time isn't worth working around the system.

On the other hand, if such a system fails often you should just replace the system - the productivity loss from the downtime most likely cost more then fixing the problem.

Obviously you can create an elaborate process to work around the bad system but I believe you should fix the root problem not the symptoms when possible.

Answer 4

IF i can't work because of the problem THEN
  IF it looks like a short term problem THEN
    WHILE not fixed AND time slacking off < 30 min DO
      surf the web or take a break
    END
    IF fixed THEN
      RETURN
    END
  END
  TRY
    try to do some workarounds so that I can go on with my work
  CATCH ImpossibleToContinueWorkingException
    explain the problem to my superiors and ask what to do
  END
ELSE
  maybe I don't even notice the problem. happy hacking
END

Answer 5

This might be a good time to make a tea, walk around for a few minutes, strech.. Remember that RSI is just waiting for you. Usually I just write code - since my local system is still available :)