The pager buzzed just as the dessert plates landed on the table. One moment, the evening was a celebration of Portuguese red wine and a thrilling Grand Prix weekend. The next, a database specialist named Jemaine found himself stumbling into a cab, headed toward a client site where panic had already taken hold. This scenario, drawn from real events in early 1990s Hong Kong, illustrates a classic trap in IT operations: the on call drinking mistake. It is a cautionary tale that repeats itself in various forms across the industry, and it offers five distinct errors worth examining closely.
The Grand Prix Weekend That Fooled a Database Specialist
Jemaine worked as a database specialist on VAX/VMS systems for a telco client in Macau. His team had built a billing application that ran smoothly for months. When the system needed its first major OS upgrade, the client insisted Jemaine be present. The timing overlapped with the Macau Grand Prix, so the hotel room came with a view of the track. Friends joined him, and the weekend became a blur of race cars and relaxation.
The client never called. No pages arrived. That silence felt like confirmation that the upgrade was proceeding without issues. After the race, Jemaine and his friends opened several bottles of rich Portuguese red wine and ordered a lavish meal. The assumption was clear: the job was done. That assumption turned out to be the foundation of the on call drinking mistake.
Why Silence Feels Like Success
In IT operations, a quiet pager often signals a smooth operation. When no alerts come in, the natural human response is to relax. The brain interprets the absence of bad news as good news. This cognitive shortcut is powerful, especially after a stressful period of preparation. But silence can also mean that the problem simply has not been discovered yet. The upgrade might have completed, but the application might not have been tested under real conditions.
Jemaine had no reason to doubt the client’s silence. The upgrade team was competent, and two DBAs were on site. The assumption felt reasonable. Yet the moment dessert arrived, the pager shattered that calm. The billing application would not start, and the client had already reinstalled the OS twice out of desperation.
Mistake #1: Assuming Silence Means Success
The first mistake in this story is the assumption that no news is good news. Jemaine had no confirmation that the application was functioning after the upgrade. He relied on the absence of communication as proof that everything was fine. This is a common trap in remote or off-site support scenarios.
When you are on call and your client or team goes quiet, it is tempting to interpret that as a green light. But silence can also mean that people are struggling silently. They might be trying to fix the issue themselves before escalating. They might be embarrassed to admit something went wrong. Or they might simply not know how to describe the problem yet.
The antidote is simple but requires discipline: never assume completion without a verification step. A quick message or call to confirm that the system is running as expected takes only a few minutes. That small investment can prevent the on call drinking mistake from ever occurring.
How to Verify Without Being Annoying
Some IT professionals worry that checking in might seem distrustful or micromanaging. But a friendly check-in framed as support rather than suspicion is almost always welcome. A message like “Just checking if the upgrade settled well — any questions on your end?” keeps the tone collaborative. It also gives the client an easy opening to mention any small concerns before they escalate.
In Jemaine’s case, a single phone call after the race could have revealed that the billing application was not starting. That call would have changed the entire evening. The wine would have waited, and the debugging could have started earlier, when everyone was sober and rested.
Mistake #2: Celebrating Before the System Is Verified
The second mistake is the timing of the celebration. Jemaine and his friends opened the wine and ordered the meal based on an assumption. The celebration came before confirmation. This is a deeply human error. After a period of tension and preparation, the desire to relax and reward yourself is strong. But in on-call situations, the celebration should wait until the system has been exercised under real conditions.
The on call drinking mistake is not about drinking itself. It is about drinking before the job is truly done. Alcohol impairs judgment, slows reaction time, and reduces the ability to debug complex problems. Even a moderate amount of wine can make a difference when you are staring at a COBOL program at 2 AM.
The Biology of Alcohol and Debugging
Alcohol affects the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for logical reasoning, problem-solving, and impulse control. After even one or two drinks, the ability to trace through code, identify subtle errors, and communicate clearly with a remote developer diminishes. In Jemaine’s case, the wine was still in his system when he arrived at the client site. He admitted needing time to “sober up slightly” while the DBAs reinstalled the database.
That sobering period was a lucky break. But it also delayed the diagnosis by hours. If Jemaine had been fully sober when the pager went off, he might have spotted the batch scheduler issue sooner. The celebration could have waited until the system was verified and stable.
Mistake #3: Letting Social Pressure Cloud Professional Judgment
The third mistake involves the social dynamics of the weekend. Jemaine had friends in his hotel room who were there for the Grand Prix. The atmosphere was festive. The race was exciting, and the wine was flowing. In that environment, it takes real resolve to step back and say, “I need to confirm the system is working before I join the celebration.”
Social pressure is subtle but powerful. Friends may not explicitly pressure you to drink or relax, but the implicit expectation to participate in the fun is strong. Nobody wants to be the person who spoils the mood by checking work emails during a party. But in on-call roles, that discipline is part of the job.
Setting Boundaries Before the Event
The solution is to set boundaries before the social event begins. If you know you are on call, communicate that to your friends or family ahead of time. Explain that you may need to step away or avoid alcohol until the system is confirmed stable. Most people will understand, especially if you frame it as a professional responsibility rather than a personal choice.
Jemaine could have told his friends, “I need to wait until I hear from the client that the upgrade is solid before I can fully relax.” That simple statement would have set expectations and reduced the social pressure to join the wine drinking immediately.
Mistake #4: Accepting Blame Without Proper Diagnosis
The fourth mistake happened at the client site. When Jemaine arrived, the client had already decided the database was the problem. They had reinstalled the OS twice and were preparing to reinstall the database again. Jemaine was told to wait while the DBAs performed that reinstall. He accepted that direction without pushing back.
In hindsight, that was a costly delay. The database was never the issue. The batch scheduler was not running because of a permission change introduced by the OS upgrade. But because Jemaine did not push for a proper diagnosis early on, hours were wasted on unnecessary reinstalls.
The Cost of Assumptions in Incident Response
When a system fails after an upgrade, the natural instinct is to blame the most recent change. In this case, the client assumed the database was at fault because the application would not start. But that assumption was wrong. The real issue was a permission requirement that had changed during the OS upgrade.
The lesson is clear: do not accept blame or assumptions without evidence. Run your own checks. Verify the health of each component before agreeing to a reinstall or rebuild. In Jemaine’s case, a quick check showed the database was healthy, but the batch scheduler was not running. That clue pointed to a different layer of the system.
Mistake #5: Overlooking the Upgrade’s Hidden Permission Changes
The fifth and final mistake is the most technical, but it is also the most instructive. The OS upgrade introduced a new permission requirement for submitting jobs to the batch queue. This change was not documented in the upgrade notes or communicated to the team. The application had been tested under an Administrator account during development, so the permission issue never surfaced until the production upgrade.
This is a classic example of an environment mismatch. The application worked fine in development because the developer was running it with elevated privileges. In production, the application ran under a standard service account that did not have the new permission required by the upgraded OS.
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Why Environment Parity Matters
One of the most common root causes of upgrade failures is a difference between the development environment and the production environment. Developers often run with administrative privileges for convenience. But production systems use restricted accounts for security. When an upgrade changes permission requirements, the application can break in production even though it works fine in development.
The fix in Jemaine’s case was simple: run the application with administrator privileges. That immediately resolved the issue. But finding that fix took hours of debugging, a phone call with the lead developer, and a 4 AM breakthrough involving a physical manual and what Jemaine calls “the Portuguese wine gods.”
Lessons from the Null Error Code
The null error code that baffled the developer is worth a closer look. The batch queue submission function returned a null value instead of a meaningful error message. That null code made the developer think the function was working correctly, because no error was explicitly raised. But the null return actually indicated a permission failure that the function did not handle gracefully.
This is a common pattern in legacy systems. Error handling is often incomplete, and functions may return null or zero values instead of clear error codes. Developers who test under privileged accounts never see these silent failures. The application appears to work, but it relies on permissions that may not exist in production.
Building Better Error Handling
Modern development practices emphasize explicit error handling. Every function call should check the return value and log a meaningful message if something goes wrong. But in legacy COBOL systems from the early 1990s, that level of rigor was not always applied. The null error code was a symptom of a system that assumed success rather than checking for failure.
For today’s IT professionals, the lesson is to test under the exact same conditions as production. Use the same service accounts, the same permissions, and the same configuration. If you test under Administrator, you are not testing the real system.
How to Avoid the On Call Drinking Mistake in Your Own Career
The story of Jemaine’s Grand Prix weekend is entertaining, but it also contains practical wisdom for anyone who works in on-call IT roles. The on call drinking mistake is not just about alcohol. It is about the broader pattern of assuming completion, celebrating prematurely, and failing to verify before relaxing.
Here are five actionable steps to avoid this pattern in your own work:
Step 1: Define a Clear Verification Signal
Before you consider a job done, define what “done” actually means. Is it a successful test run? A confirmation email from the client? A specific metric or log entry? Write it down. Share it with your team. Do not rely on silence as a signal.
Step 2: Delay Celebration Until Confirmation
If you are on call, delay any celebration until the system has been verified under real conditions. This includes alcohol, but it also includes other activities that impair your ability to respond, such as heavy meals, long drives, or sleep aids. The celebration will still be there after the system is stable.
Step 3: Communicate Boundaries to Friends and Family
Let the people around you know when you are on call. Set expectations about your availability and your need to stay sober or alert. Most people will respect your professionalism if you explain it clearly.
Step 4: Run Your Own Diagnostics Before Accepting Blame
When a problem arises, do not accept the first assumption about the root cause. Run your own checks. Verify each layer of the stack before agreeing to a rebuild or reinstall. A few minutes of diagnostics can save hours of wasted effort.
Step 5: Test Under Production Conditions
Ensure that your development and testing environments match production as closely as possible. Use the same service accounts, permissions, and configurations. Test under the same constraints that the application will face in production. This simple practice catches permission issues, environment mismatches, and silent failures before they become 4 AM emergencies.
The on call drinking mistake is a human error, not a technical one. It happens when confidence outpaces verification, when celebration comes before confirmation, and when assumptions replace evidence. Jemaine’s story is a reminder that in IT operations, the job is not done until the system is verified under real conditions. Until then, the pager could buzz at any moment.
The wine can wait. The celebration will come. But only after the system is truly stable.
