An Age No One Knows Again
Chapter 15
As the year's end approaches, talk of contracts comes up.
Even though it repeats year after year, I haven't gotten used to it.
Whether I can continue working next year.
Whether the contract will be extended.
Whether the terms will remain the same.
From the company's perspective, it could be just one number.
Budget.
External workforce.
Seniority.
Cost.
To me, it was my livelihood.
That day too, my team lead carefully broached the subject.
"Senior, it's not confirmed yet."
Just hearing that, I could guess what would come next.
"We're looking at the workforce plan for next year again."
"Hmm."
"Especially it seems we're looking at both external staff and senior-level costs together."
I nodded.
There was no need to pretend to be surprised.
It was something I'd already experienced several times.
My team lead continued.
"I've been telling them that I still need you."
"I know."
"Nothing has been decided yet."
"It's okay. Let me know when it's decided."
I laughed.
My team lead also laughed with a somewhat relieved expression.
I left the meeting room and returned to my desk.
On the monitor was the incident analysis automation PoC document I'd been looking at since morning.
Information to check when an incident occurs
Recent deployment history
Related service logs
Database changes
External API status
Past similar incidents
I wrote down the items one by one.
It was the order I'd always go through in my head whenever an incident happened.
If I organized this well, AI could look at some of it instead.
Maybe even quite a lot of it.
I stopped writing the document for a moment.
The meeting from just before came back to mind.
The company was calculating whether it would still need me next year.
I was now organizing how to hand off the work I'd been doing to a system.
It was an odd combination.
But I didn't think of deliberately slowing down.
Just because this work might reduce my position, I couldn't make it poorly.
It was my responsibility.
Doing it well was the right thing to do.
In the afternoon, I fed actual logs into the AI.
Look at the following logs and organize the candidate causes of the incident by priority.
The answer came.
It was more plausible than I thought.
Possible connection to recent deployment.
External API response delay.
Insufficient database connections.
Repeated occurrence of specific exceptions.
I checked them one by one.
Two were wrong.
One had possibility.
The last one was quite accurate.
I wrote in the document.
Use AI analysis results only as candidates. Need to verify operational data and change history before confirming the actual cause.
I thought again and added another line.
Need to check past exception policies and undocumented operational rules.
I laughed while writing that sentence.
It was ultimately what I'd always been saying.
I was teaching the AI the same thing.
Until I left work, the contract wasn't mentioned again.
I closed my laptop and went home.
When I came home, my wife and child were eating dinner.
On one side of the table were a few pieces of mail.
Credit card statements.
Hagwon guidance materials.
Management fee notice.
It was a scene no different from usual.
"You're home?"
My wife asked.
"Yeah."
I put down my bag and sat at the table.
As I was eating some side dishes, my wife said something.
"Contract talk comes up again at year's end, right?"
My chopsticks paused for a moment.
"Yeah."
"You're doing the same thing next year?"
I ate a spoonful of rice and spoke.
"Nothing's confirmed yet."
My wife looked at me for a moment.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
There was a brief silence.
From where my child was, a short video sound came from a phone screen.
My wife spoke again.
"Well, it'll work out."
I nodded.
"It should."
That ended the conversation.
My wife talked about the side dishes, and my child told me what happened at school.
I gave appropriate responses.
My team lead's words from earlier in the day lingered in my mind.
I've been telling them I still need you.
I didn't bring up those words at home.
They were good words, but
they weren't confirmed.
After dinner, I sat on the sofa looking at my phone when I got a message from my team lead.
Senior, let's look at the newly organized content about the AI incident analysis tomorrow.
I replied briefly.
Sure. Let's see it tomorrow.
I put down my phone.
The contract wasn't decided yet.
I had to continue the PoC tomorrow.
It had always been that way.
Regardless of what happens to the company,
Even if the project ends,
Even if I don't know who'll be left next month,
There was work to be done right now.
Come to think of it, I've always gotten this far in that way.
I haven't often continued because things were certain.
I continued because there was work ahead.
There was a next error,
There was a next project,
There was a next contract.
Some of them ended,
Some continued.
I went to my room and opened my laptop.
I wasn't trying to do more company work.
I just remembered the notes I'd left incomplete while organizing today.
Operational Incident Analysis Automation PoC
I wrote a short line below the title.
Goal: Confirm how much of the judgment process people did can be assisted.
I thought for a moment.
I was going to write "replace" but wrote "assist" instead.
Whether that was more accurate,
or because I wanted to believe that, I'm not quite sure.
I closed my laptop.
Next year's story hadn't been decided yet.
Tomorrow's work was already decided.
