Field Notice on Release Day Scheduling
The tradition of scheduling a dentist appointment, a lease renewal, and a car registration on the same day a major software release ships has recurred for the fourth consecutive year.
Field Notice To: All Engineers Who Have Shipped on a Wednesday in December Re: The Recurring Convergence Problem
This notice is issued to acknowledge a pattern that has been observed across multiple years and multiple teams and which has not been resolved despite its predictability.
On release day, something else will also be scheduled.
Observation
The engineer had, by 11am, fielded a production incident, renewed a vehicle registration, and received a reminder that their dental insurance resets in January and any unused benefits are forfeit. The production incident was resolved. The vehicle registration was completed from a phone during a monitoring period. The dental insurance situation remains unresolved as of the issuance of this notice.
This is the fourth consecutive December in which this convergence has occurred.
How It Happens
The dentist appointment was made in October. The release date was set in October. Neither party communicated this to the other, because there is no mechanism by which they would. The dentist does not query a deployment calendar. The deployment calendar does not block personal health obligations. Both exist in full knowledge that the other exists. They still collide.
The car registration has a fixed due date determined by the state. The state is also unaware of the release schedule.
Consequence 1: The Monitoring Split
During a production monitoring period, the engineer is in two places at once. They are watching the dashboard. They are on hold with an automated insurance line that requires key presses at irregular intervals. The two activities are not fully compatible. Neither can be fully suspended.
Consequence 2: The Documentation Gap
Release notes written on a day that also contains a vehicle registration contain the release notes and also small indications that the author was operating under divided attention. These indications are not always caught in review.
Consequence 3: The Evening Estimate Problem
At the end of release day, the engineer estimates whether they could have prevented this convergence. The estimate is always yes. The prevention mechanism would have been checking both calendars simultaneously in September and moving one appointment. This is obvious in December and not obvious in September.
Governing Absurdity
Release days are scheduled to minimize disruption to users. They are not scheduled to minimize disruption to the engineers shipping the release, because that is considered a personal logistics problem rather than a systems problem.
Contradiction
The engineer is available all day on release day. They are available in the way that a person who is monitoring a production system and also waiting for a callback about a dental claim and also trying to find proof of prior vehicle insurance is available.
This is considered sufficient. It usually is.
The release shipped. The registration is valid. The dental situation continues.