# Field work: what travelling to fix things is really like > Field work is not the same job performed somewhere else. What dominates the day is logistical and social — getting into the building, what you did or did not bring, and who is standing behind you — and the technical work is usually the smallest and easiest part of it. Source: https://ronutz.com/en/practice/field-work Updated: 2026-08-09 --- ## The day is mostly not the work An outsider imagines the flight, the datacentre, the fix. The day is the taxi, the reception desk, the badge that was not requested, the escort who is at lunch, the rack that turns out to be in a different building, someone else's chair, one screen, and a two-hour window that opens at four in the afternoon. **The technical problem is frequently the easiest thing that happens all day**, and it occupies the smallest part of it. Anybody planning field work as though the estimate were the diagnosis time will be wrong by a factor that no amount of skill closes. ## You cannot go back for the thing you forgot This is the whole difference from working at your desk, and it is why the kit list is a discipline rather than a habit. Whatever you did not bring, you do not have. Not for four hours — **for the entire trip.** The nearest replacement is a city away and the site will not let you leave and return on the same badge. So: your own console cable and every adapter you can imagine needing, because the one you need is reliably the one you left out. A laptop you know works, not one you assume does. Transceivers, if optics are remotely possible. Power adapters for the actual country. A torch, because rack aisles are dark and the site's lighting is on a motion sensor pointed the wrong way. Something to write on that is not the laptop, for when the laptop is in the rack. And **the local team's phone numbers on paper**, because the day you need them is the day the guest wireless does not work. ## Getting in is the schedule risk The failure that ruins field trips is not technical. Access lists that needed forty-eight hours' notice nobody mentioned. A datacentre requiring a named escort who is only on site until five. Insurance paperwork. A safety induction that is scheduled weekly. Photo identification that must match the booking exactly. Sites where a laptop cannot be brought in at all without prior approval. **Ask about access before you ask about the fault.** The person who booked you rarely knows the answers, so ask somebody at the site, and get it in writing — a name, a time, and what you are permitted to carry. ## Being watched changes how you work The customer stands behind you. Sometimes several people do, and one of them is senior. The effect is specific and worth naming: **you feel pressure to appear productive rather than to think.** Typing looks like progress; sitting and reading a capture does not. So people in the field type more and think less than they would alone, and it costs them the thing they were flown in for. The counter is to narrate. *"I am reading the counters on both sides before I change anything — I do not want to move two things at once."* It converts thinking into visible work, it teaches the room, and it removes the pressure without pretending it does not exist. ## The politics you are walking into You are often there because somebody local could not fix it, was not trusted to, or asked for help and was overruled. **The people who must help you may be embarrassed, resentful, or quietly hoping you fail** — and they hold the knowledge you need. Handle it deliberately. Ask them what they have already tried and take it seriously, because it is genuinely the fastest route in and because it is the difference between arriving as help and arriving as a verdict. Credit them by name in front of their management when they give you something useful. **Never diagnose their previous work in front of anybody.** The reverse also happens: a local team that is delighted to see you and hands you the whole problem. That is pleasant and it is a trap of a different kind, addressed below. ## Presence has value that is not technical, and that is allowed Much field work is now avoidable, and *"does this need a body?"* deserves an honest answer rather than a reflexive booking. But the honest answer is sometimes yes for reasons that are not technical: a customer who has lost confidence and needs to see somebody, a relationship that needs repairing, a decision that will be made faster in a room. **That is a legitimate reason to travel**, and saying so plainly is better than dressing it as a technical necessity that anybody can see through. ## Leaving well The failure at the end of a good trip: fix it, and leave a team who cannot maintain what you did. Before you go — and it takes twenty minutes — write down what you changed and why, walk somebody through it at the keyboard rather than describing it, and say what you would watch for over the next week. That is [handing over mid-problem](https://ronutz.com/en/practice/handing-over-mid-problem) with a flight involved, and the same rule applies: **hand over the reasoning, not only the result.** And leave the temporary things visible. Anything you put in to get service back that should not survive the month goes on a list with a date, given to a named person, or it becomes permanent and nobody will know why it exists. ## The artefact **Ask before you fly:** - Who authorises access, and what notice does it need? - Who escorts me, and until what time? - Can I bring a laptop, tools, and my own transceivers? - What has already been tried, by whom? - Is there a maintenance window, or am I working live? - Who is my contact **on site**, with a mobile number? **In the bag, always:** Console cable and every adapter · a laptop you have tested this week · transceivers if optics are possible · country power adapters · a torch · paper and pen · contacts on paper · and enough of your own connectivity that you do not depend on their guest wireless.