Stupid database gnomes
Aug. 11th, 2011 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athenaltenaWe have a running joke at work that I'm partially responsible for, mainly that whenever something weird happens to the database that we can't explain we blame the gnomes. It works pretty well as shorthand for "it's fucked up again" that we can say around the kids that are sometimes in the office.
So today they seemed particularly busy, since I was checking the list of projects and noticed that one was listed in the wrong category. I knew it couldn't be right because I specifically remembered talking to one of the developers for it, and I confirmed this with my notes, so I checked out the rest of that project's entry.
Not only was it in the wrong category, but the comments we put in were from another project entirely. No sign of the originals. I was stumped, and then spent most of the rest of the day putting everything back in that I could get from the paper records we have. That took most of the afternoon.
Even for us, that's a headscratcher. I'm also pretty sure it's not actually my fault this time* since I don't have the necessary privileges to even make changes like that. I told my boss what was going on and even she was stumped, and she effectively built that database.
In short: gnomes. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
* For the record I actually have messed it up a few times, but so has everyone else who works with it.
So today they seemed particularly busy, since I was checking the list of projects and noticed that one was listed in the wrong category. I knew it couldn't be right because I specifically remembered talking to one of the developers for it, and I confirmed this with my notes, so I checked out the rest of that project's entry.
Not only was it in the wrong category, but the comments we put in were from another project entirely. No sign of the originals. I was stumped, and then spent most of the rest of the day putting everything back in that I could get from the paper records we have. That took most of the afternoon.
Even for us, that's a headscratcher. I'm also pretty sure it's not actually my fault this time* since I don't have the necessary privileges to even make changes like that. I told my boss what was going on and even she was stumped, and she effectively built that database.
In short: gnomes. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
* For the record I actually have messed it up a few times, but so has everyone else who works with it.
