Fear Not the Friday Deploy!
Quick Question: Do You Believe in the Friday Curse?
The lucky chosen ones got two texts from me today:
Can you please take my Purpose survey? before I start doubting everything that brings me purpose?
Also, quick question, does your company have a No Deploy Fridays rule?
It's a Friday, and not just any Friday—it's the last day of the month. Double whammy! I promised myself I'd publish something today. But if I do, am I tempting fate? Will I invoke the wrath of the deployment gods?
Deployment is the fancy term we use for making our finished projects or updates available for everyone.
In my job, it means releasing new product features to our merchants.
Here is a work conversation from noon today:
Here is a reminder we set for ourselves every Friday:
Yet somehow, despite these warnings, my team and I still have the same conversation nearly every Friday.
Yes, sometimes we deploy on Fridays.
And yes, there have been countless times I’ve thought, “We really shouldn’t have deployed on a Friday.” Nothing says "TGIF" like potential bugs in the system, right?
If you have never heard of the No Deploy Fridays rule, let me explain:
If something goes wrong on Friday, you might be working all weekend to fix it.
The team might not be as available on the weekend… because they have lives! (Shocking, I know.)
The team is fatigued by Friday if they've worked hard all week!
If people are rushing to fix a problem, they might create more problems, and everyone is rushing on a Friday or weekend.
Knowing there is a risk of weekend work is a fear that stresses out teams and reduces morale. If it happens once, people think it can happen again, which is bad for company culture.
It is a curse!!! (And not the fun, magical kind.)
Obviously, sometimes working on a weekend is worth it in order to hit a very important deadline to make a lot of money for the company. Cries.
Here are some tips to not fear the Friday deployment:
Deploy smaller changes. Less risk, less fear.
Test as much as you can, earlier on.
Automate deploying as much as possible, whatever that means for your industry.
I enjoy planning and predicting things. I like conducting research, making logical assumptions, and taking reasonable steps forward. I'm the person who triple-checks the weather forecast before a picnic and brings an umbrella just in case. I am the person who has every day planned out for the next week.
However, when someone labels something as a curse, I instantly feel anxious. I haven't even done the thing that would cause the curse yet, and I'm already picturing myself sacrificing my weekend to the tech gods, chanting over my keyboard and praying to the spirits of bug-free code.
As a side note, I'm someone who always notices when it's 11:11 each day. When it is, I need to do three things: 1. look at the clock, 2. touch something red, and 3. make a small wish for myself. If I see the clock at 11:12 or 11:13, I feel anxious, as if my day is already ruined. It took me a lot of practice to “chill out” before noon every day. (Pro tip: keep a red pen handy at all times. Just kidding. Or am I?)
I was thinking about this today during my workday around noon, and realized that I made a whole plan to publish something today, on a Friday. My goal was to publish two posts every month. Since I couldn’t do that in April, I wanted to do three in May! It is the last day of May.
But Substack is… technology. Isn’t publishing a post and sending out an email to my whole community still releasing something into the world to the tech gods? Will I curse the writing that I worked hard on?
So naturally, I looked at all my posts to see what day I published them and their stats and if Friday publishing led to better, same, or worse results.
What I learned is every time I publish on a Friday, I get 10-20% fewer opens than any other day of the week.
IT’S THE CURSE!!! 😱
Definitely not just my brain finding patterns and assigning meaning where there might be none. Definitely not my OCD tendencies kicking in, making me see connections that might not even be there.
Could someone please proofread this email I am about to send to the Curse?
Dear Curse,
Happy Friday!
Despite the pressures, we did not release the feature at work today. We remained steadfast.
Additionally, I wrote and published an entirely random piece on my Substack.
So, take that!
I've navigated another Friday, questioning everything from significant work decisions, like whether to meet that looming deadline, to personal dilemmas, such as debating if I really need to socialize this weekend. Honestly, I'm drained. Not to mention the eternal question: what on earth should I wear tonight? But now, it's past 5pm EST. I am free.
Your move!
P.S. TGIF!
Cheers,
Katya
Thanks!
Katya