I'm not dumb but feel it

[Theldron]

Don't you just hate when you have a problem you tackle with for ages, you don't get anywhere so you walk away. Then a couple of weeks later you decide to give it another go, then you realize the answer is so obvious you feel like a pillock?

 

I'm happy, but thoroughly and utterly p**sed off!!!!

 

Sorry don't know why I have posted this but felt like a rant.

[Garacesh]

Don't you just hate when you have a problem you tackle with for ages, you don't get anywhere so you walk away. Then a couple of weeks later you decide to give it another go, then you realize the answer is so obvious you feel like a pillock?

We all have these kinds of moments.. We just hope nobody else is around to witness them

 

I clambered up some scaffolding earlier to change a projector lamp, and took out the lens instead.

Not only that, I then compared the lens to the replacement lamp and instead of realising my mistake, proclaimed to my boss "Err.. No go. These look nothing alike."

 

[sparkeh]

Hehe yeah we've all done it. I have been wrestling with a problem with Outlook on iPads. I left it for a few days, took another look and solved it in a couple of mins by fixing our firewall rules. Have no idea why I didn't work that out before, it was so obvious!

[caffrey]

I spent too long on a Raspberry Pi /script issue recently, forgetting that bash / *nix is case sensitive...

[Dos_Box]

I always found that if I ever got stuck on a problem then going away and doing something else was the best option.

Often the answer would come to me as I was working on a different issue.

I suppose it comes down to the fact that when you are stuck you tend to focus on an ever decreasing train of thought that ignores other things.

[Andrew_C]

The one that gets me is struggling to get something to fit; and only afterwards realising that if I'd stepped back and thought early on, I'd have spotted I was fixing wrong thing/it was upside down/it wasn't broken/whatever.

[Oaktech]

I spent hours troubleshooting a python script - it wasn't even particularly complex. The guy came in to do our coding club, I ran it past him, he skimmed it and in 30 seconds pointed out my line that was supposed to say

 sense_data = get_sense_data()

 

actually said

 sense_data = get_sense_data)(

 

Edited November 1, 2016 by Oaktech

[Theldron]

For me it was reinstalling Backup Exec. Before half-term I couldn't find the license key, looked everywhere, spent ages and I am normally religious about organising license keys. So in the end went onto Symantec licensing portal (forgetting that Symantec and Veritas have split). The portal was on an old email address and I couldn't remember my password, so contacted Symantec and they changed my email account, but was reminded that Backup Exec is with Veritas. So tried Veritas portal, old email address on account - ahhhhh!!! Contacted Veritas and got them to change email account on their portal too, got on the licensing portal and ......... no Backup Exec license.

 

Not happy but it was half-term and I had rooms to network and computers to image so left it, as it was on a 60 day trial. Anyway today I come in and think I need to get it sorted, so sit down and out of the blue remember that when I brought that version of Backup Exec we were a RM CC3 school. Go on to the RM website, licensing and low and behold - Backup Exec.

[crispybits]

This was a regular thing for me, a strategy in fact! I used to write coding for various applications (mostly VBA but some proprietary bits and bobs and some SQL in there too) and whenever I was working on something that just wouldn't run or wasn't behaving they way I was expecting it to, I'd lock the machine, go outside, and smoke and walk around for 10-20 minutes trying not to think about the actual problem. Without fail by the time I got back to my desk I'd figured out what it was that was going wrong and had the fix ready.

 

Sometimes you do need to step back and allow yourself a fresh approach, even on very short timescales like that.

[Oaktech]

I've had another one...

 

Head of music has bought a pair of Midi interfaces for the schools drum machine and keyboard. One of them set up without any difficulty, keyboard midi in from the box, midi out through the speakers, lovely.

 

The other one. would it work, would it It kept crashing the software, the box and ultimately the USB bus requiring a restart of the machine. I've left the ticket over half term, come back to it, removed all the settings and started again - Boom, working first time. Still no idea what the problem was.

[mikeprice]

This was a regular thing for me, a strategy in fact! I used to write coding for various applications (mostly VBA but some proprietary bits and bobs and some SQL in there too) and whenever I was working on something that just wouldn't run or wasn't behaving they way I was expecting it to, I'd lock the machine, go outside, and smoke and walk around for 10-20 minutes trying not to think about the actual problem. Without fail by the time I got back to my desk I'd figured out what it was that was going wrong and had the fix ready.

 

Sometimes you do need to step back and allow yourself a fresh approach, even on very short timescales like that.

 

When I was coding and troubl shooting for a large company I probably sorted out more problems while walking the dog than I did sitting at my desk

 

We also had the '2 pints of Guniess' problems where me and my boss worked on a problem all morning getting nowhere - come lunchtime he went to the pub for his lunch and 2 pints of Guiness

When he came back the problem would have gone all of its own accord - never to be seen again

 

weird stuff happens

[caffrey]

Yeah I have PC's like that - can't get any life out of them in the classroom, bring it back to the office and it boots without any issues. I call it taking it for a walk