Hey, before you crucify me, let me crucify myself ☠
Yes, I know: in my last piece, I said this week, we’d talk about the counterfeit currency of being liked. And yet here you are, staring at a post about pain 😬
How dare I? I promise I’m not a fraud 😂
Over the last few days, I’ve been hit with a flurry of emotions — mountain-high highs and gut‑punch lows, that pushed me to see pain in a completely new light.
When I sat down to write this morning, it felt selfish not to share this shift in perspective with you, especially because it’s already bringing me massive clarity. And as the benevolent soul that I am, here I am talking to you about… pain.
No need to thank me. What am I here for? You’re welcome 😇
The “We love Pain” Slogan
I worked at Factorial for three years and in 2023, during our Christmas party, one of the cofounders had us yell: “We love Pain!”. This wasn’t a new slogan — anyone who’d been around the company for a while would know it.
The first time I heard it, my reaction was: “You and who, please?”. I don’t love pain. I love the soft life. As Nigerians would say: “I did not come to this life to suffer.” Why on earth would anyone love pain?
Funny enough, I was chatting with an ex-colleague last Friday (yes, I know this seems to be a recurring theme in my posts. Please, it’s not my fault you ghost everyone you ever worked with when you leave… or is it the other way round? 🌚). He casually made reference to it.
You see, pain could actually equal coins. You just need to see it the right way.
The PainCoinful End of My Week
So, this week, at Metrifox, a business began a 14-day free trial. They transferred their customer data (a few for a start), and set up their features and offerings. They also set up entitlements for several plans so we would help them track usage, and bill their customers.
I was elated! Elated is an understatement. I was over the moon. The only thing I didn’t do was my catwalk dance (don’t ask, just move on). They quickly began to give feedback on a few extra functionalities that could smoothen their workflow, nothing too serious.
As at yesterday, checking the back-office, they had 35 customers and had processed 18 orders. Not bad at all for someone who’s on trial
And then… the pain began.
We begin to receive pings on our error monitoring channel. What’s happening? I check the server, and 😳
Where’s my database? Rails, what do you mean you couldn’t find my database? It definitely wasn’t stolen. While I’m figuring things out, I check my phone. The client had pinged us to ask why the app was slow. I apologize and say we’re looking into it, but in reality, I’m maybe freaking out.
Why? Thanks for asking. Because, I had just caught a glimpse of what the issue could have been, considering our queue processes were dying too. Mind you, it had nothing to do with his 35 customers and 18 orders 😅
Anyways, I restart the pod, we increase the memory for our queues, and… phew!… the app comes back online. But the underlying problem? Let’s just say it left me in premium tears.
I’ll spare you the full technical jargon, but the bottom line: we may have to extract a part of the app into its own service. It’s not critical to the core app in terms of functionality and client interaction, but it’s the most memory-hungry part of what we do.
If you know me, you’d know I dislike microservices. I love to go the path of a monolith until I don’t have a choice, and I’m not the only one. Someone was so upset by microservices they had to write about why it’s bad for your mental health. Just thinking about that option had me in severe pain 😂
We’re at a point where companies are signing up, and hitting us up for demos. “This is the last thing I need”, I thought to myself.
I was wrong
In reality though, thinking about it later, this is exactly what I need. This is the best time for this to have happened. Going through this now, and solving this problem (no matter how painful implementing the optimal solution could be), would further make our app resilient, keep us grounded and me?, I’d learn a ton more.
Do you know what else would happen? That pain would turn into coins. Hehe. More resilience means more trust, happier customers, and ultimately, more revenue. I may have gone to bed dreading the next few days, but I woke up today genuinely excited for them.
Count your coins
Whatever pain you’re going through can be reframed. Whatever seems so difficult right now, you can ask yourself: what’s the light at the end of the tunnel? Begin to get excited about that light, not depressed about the pain. Make up your mind to put in the work required to get you to that end so you can count your coins baby! 💰
Mind you, the client pinged me last night to say they were moving to the next phase of their integration: migrating their customer subscriptions to our platform. Looks like it wasn’t so bad after all
Anyways, amigos, talk to you next week. And…. don’t forget to stay counting 👋🏾