Time flies

[williamjm]

On Sunday I'll have been working and living in Cambridge for 5 years. Most of the time it doesn't seem that long since I left Edinburgh, it probably feels more like 3 or maybe 4 years at most.

I was reminded today that I have been here quite a long time, when one of my colleagues asked me a couple of question about the purpose of a code change I wrote back in September 2004 and I first I had absolutely no memory of making that change. Fortunately, he asked the question via e-mail (he said that he realised that if he'd just come and asked me in person I'd probably have had no idea what he was talking about) so I was able to do a bit of research before answering and after looking at the code for a bit and finding a 4-and-a-half year old weekly report in my sent e-mails folder that described a little bit of the change (although not why it was initially made) I think I was able to answer his questions reasonably well. I suppose it is one of the potential perils of working for the same company for 5 years that you can get asked questions about things you can barely even remember. At least this change seemed fairly reasonable, there have been occasions when I've looked at a bit of code I wrote a couple of years ago and wondered how I could have thought that was a good idea.

Comments

[fenryng.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize with you. I have never kept anything as long as you have, however. My e-mails get purged daily, with anything over three months old getting removed. I rely on printouts that I keep in a file for longer if necessary, but that also gets purged on a yearly basis.

I presume your job requires the longer time frame; I have never had a job where I needed to remember something like that for someone else for that long.

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

I must admit I tend to keep e-mails at home as well, even though they're less likely to be useful as work e-mails. I do find keeping the work e-mails useful, it is surprising how many times it is useful to look back at something I did before or something sent me before. E-mail folders are easy to search and don't take up much disk space so I don't really see any harm in keeping them for a long time. Only certain e-mails though, the e-mails our marketing department persists in sending to us tend to delete immediately, often without being read.

[werthead.livejournal.com]

The oldest email in my account is from 2001. I usually keep anything official and various forum registration details in case I forget them later :-)

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

I can beat that slightly, the oldest e-mail in my sent-items folder is from the 18th June 2000. The subject of the e-mail was how much better an author George RR Martin is compared to Robert Jordan. I somehow suspect that keeping that e-mail is unlikely to ever be of any benefit.

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean! I keep getting asked about things I deployed years ago and I no longer have a clue what they even are :-o

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

Just wait a few years and you'll be asked question about things in your books you don't ever remember writing ;)

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

That's already happening! Somebody today wished me "happy birthday" and congratulated me on writing something called "Hamlet"... Well, it was flattering, of course, but honestly, I don't remember a thing about it.