Musings about Catch-22

"Catch22" - an interesting phrase really and applicable in so many different situations. It is often used when one is stuck in a loop - quite like the the chicken and the egg problem where one often ponders as to which one came first. Let us explore some interesting situations where varied fields where one might be in a Catch22 and find oneself experiencing a deja vu i.e. "I am sure I have done this or been in this situation before".

Software Development: A developer is bound to have been in a Catch22 many times - to list a few examples:

• The case for a promotion: Developers work hard on the project to get promoted but to get promoted they need new skills which they can’t learn because they are working too hard on the project.
• The catch22 in code: Writing bug free code is next to impossible. In the pressure of deadlines, developer is bound to write buggy code which eventually he/she will have to come back to and debug to fix.
• The manager- dev loop: As organisations grow more often than not a dev goes down management path. As a dev he is typically happy just doing his bit and writing his code. He gets promoted to manager which leads to writing less code (coding is something he really enjoys). So now you have an unhappy dev manager on your hands. Some orgs may allow a switch back to dev and more often than not the loop back to manager would repeat.

Software Information Security: Folks in information security sometimes have to let sub-priority security bugs pass by or set a time limit on them to be resolved given product release may be given more importance. Sometimes these small bugs grow into major problems and come back to haunt the information security team again - yet another catch22 suggesting that "a stitch in time saves nine" approach would have worked best here.

Yet another example in the case of software security is the case for password management. Should we or should we not write them down - that is the question :) Sharing an excerpt which beautifully captures this dilemma !

Health Care & Medicine: Some patients probably have habits which are hard to break. Let us take the example of folks which have sweet tooth - too much intake of sweets can lead to varied health issues such as dental - if not controlled by the patient then he/she will often find himself back in the dental chair for the same treatment. Yet another catch-22 in health care can be found with weight issues in folks as illustrated in the picture below.

Job Hunting: Quite often jobs require you to have a level of experience. But for a fresher out of college how exactly is that possible ? Similar to the chicken and the egg problem one may find which comes first job or experience as a classic catch-22 problem. A result of this often finds young workers stuck between a rock and hard place situation.

There are definitive ways to address each of these catch22 situations and better if you nip the problem at the root rather than let it grow into a bigger problem. Leaving you with something to think about until the next post !

Food for thought: What kind of catch-22 problems have you come across in your life and how could they have been avoided ?