Locked in the Glasgow office at midnight, with one functioning PC and growing hunger, we continued our search

Although it wasn’t my first job, I often say I did my tech bootcamp at Sony Ericsson (SEMC), later Sony Mobile, where I spent 5 years in various positions. Looking back, I realize what an awesome workplace it was, filled with fond memories. Here’s one that stands out:

My team and I had been working on an ITSM system for our global operations. Our latest internal customer was the Finance department. The system was designed so that our different locations worldwide would email their financial results, which we then automated for our central finance teams to process accounts payable/receivable.

Sounds straightforward, right? Well, I learned a valuable lesson about timing and system updates. During a critical period of closing the books, with the finance team working tirelessly, I led an update to the system’s email POP3 parsing – a seemingly minor and harmless change. But, as fate would have it, this small tweak led to significant issues.

..

Late one afternoon, as the finance team was in the thick of closing the books, calls started coming in. Data was missing, and some teams weren’t receiving any information. As the clock neared 5 PM, it became clear that my colleague Andreas and I wouldn’t be leaving the office anytime soon. Andreas and I was a tight dynamic duo. I bet many of our old SEMC colleagues can certify that 🙂

We dove into the database, application and logs, searching for the problem. Midnight approached, and the office was nearly empty, save for us. Then, a call from the CIO underscored the gravity of the situation: if we didn’t resolve this, it would be the first time in SEMC’s history that the books wouldn’t close on time. To add to the pressure, Andreas’ corporate account was set to expire at midnight due to an administrative hiccup, and our access cards to the building had stopped working.

Locked in the Glasgow office at midnight, with one functioning PC and growing hunger, we continued our search. Then, the breakthrough came. The issue was minor yet impactful: a specific email account had stopped working, triggering a bug that halted the processing of other accounts. Sounds so stupid, right? 🙂

Thankfully, SEMC’s robust processes came to our rescue. The incident manager arrived with food, restored Andreas’ account, and later helped us exit the building. Mika O and his team were simply fantastic.

Lessons learned in resilience, teamwork, and problem-solving under pressure. My story here doesn’t do it justice – the intensity, hunger, and nervousness were almost overwhelming, But together, we pushed through