Hardware vs. Software

I love working with hardware, but goddamnit, it is costly and more time consuming than software. They pretty much mutually exclusive things, but I can say that from purely a creators stand point, instant gratification with software is a plus. You can test your software without worrying if your computer will explode (aside from the occasional BSOD). You can rip parts of your program out, put it back together, make copies, etc...

Hardware... you need to be in fear of the smoke test or worse, the unexpected catch on fire and explode test. That is something I am not ever looking forward to for a few reasons:
A. It is dangerous, you can get hurt or seriously injured

B. It is goddamn expensive, because when you burn out a part you have that "Awww fuck" moment because chances are you don't have a replacement and sometimes the part cost like 50+ dollars.

C. When you wire things incorrectly either you are lucky it doesn't destroy itself and you can just rewire it; or you just fucked it all up by burning it all out or rewiring it will screw something up to the point of unusability. For example: cutting wires too short, burning components because of too much heat exposure during sodder jobs or making holes too big.

I am in the process of building an isolation transformer out of spare parts. I am afraid to blow a circuit while doing it, but I don't have a lot of options. Hardware is fun in the show off sense though, as in: look at what I built. Oh wow that's cool. Or hello world look at what I did - on youtube.

Unproductive

So the building my company rents from has been doing a lot of renovation, they recently started ripping up the ground and the street. In the middle of ripping up the ground and the street they busted a water main... this is bad for two reasons, the water was shut off and the A/C wasn't cooling because it is water cooled.

So naturally, it gets really hot in doors, my thermometer read about 85 to 90 degrees F and people stop working and start complaining. If you needed to take care of your bathroom business you had to walk to another building to take care of that. There was no water for washing hands, toilets and no water for drinking. Bad times.

The things I want to point out are:

1. It is illegal to keep employees in that kind of work environment by OSHA standards

2. It is a fire hazard to keep people inside a building that cannot use its sprinkler system to put out a fire

That being said, why is it that managers don't ever issue the command to work from home immediately when these things happen. Then if you ask, you are told to just deal with it. Then if you leave anyhow you are chastised and possibly punished. Why does it have to be like that? What the fuck is wrong with people.

We weren't allowed to leave until we were told to evacuate the building because it was a fire hazard. Congrats on dropping the ball Company managers.

The best part is, you think it was just one shitty day. Next day we come in and it turns out they busted the water main AGAIN but in a different segment of pipe like 300 ft down from the first break. Same shit all over again, same idiot manager not letting us go until fucking 14:30.

I hate stupid people.