Nothing Gets You Going on a Monday Morning Quite Like a Hot Cup of Humility

When I got to work this morning, I received the following email:

"You're wasting my time... If you don't understand... come see me in my office."

I edited it down a bit, but that's what it said. It was really a
pretty boneheaded thing that I'd done, and I really should have
realized it before I did it... a second time. I did it the first time
because I decided I understood a certain compiler warning enough to
ignore it, and that it wasn't worth other peoples' time for me to ask
them. It turned out I didn't actually understand the warning, and I
wasted far more of someone else's time when they had to track it down
and fix it twice.

I swapped a few emails with the guy, and he asked for a few more
specifics about how it happened. I could have easily bent the truth
and saved some face. I chose honesty instead. Contrary the hostility I
felt in the first email, he was actually very helpful and
understanding. He made sure that I understood exactly what those
warnings meant, and how to avoid similar problems in the future.