By Justin Fahmie · September 2026
Skill and the need for gentler working conditions can occupy the same room.
I can explain a complicated network problem and still need the screen turned down.
That seems to cause more confusion than it should.
People get to see the answer. They see that I understand the equipment, can follow the failure, and know what to check. That’s real. I’ve spent years learning how to do this work. But the answer doesn’t come with a display showing what it cost me to produce it.
There’s no little status window underneath saying how much pain is present, whether a migraine has already eaten most of the afternoon, or how expensive the next conversation will be.
Apparently I should have included better telemetry.
I run KC Computer Services while living with chronic illness. Those two facts have to fit into the same day. Work brings responsibilities. My body brings conditions that don’t consult those responsibilities before becoming difficult. Being self-employed gives me some room to arrange things, and it gives me plenty of things that still need arranging.
Knowing how to solve a problem is one resource. Having the energy to solve it, explain it, record it, and handle the surrounding work is another. They interact, but they aren’t interchangeable. I can’t withdraw extra energy from the account marked “knows a lot about computers.” I have checked.
This is part of why an ordinary task can be surprisingly expensive. The task itself may be short. Getting into it, shifting attention, handling the interaction, and recovering the thought I was working on can take more. Add pain or fatigue, and the description on paper becomes a poor estimate of the work involved.
I understand why somebody looking from outside might miss that. Much of the cost is invisible. What bothers me is when the visible competence gets used to erase the invisible cost. If I managed something difficult, then apparently I must also be fine for everything else.
The difficult thing may have used what I had.
This is why I care about ways of working that preserve capacity. Remote access can mean solving a problem without spending energy on a trip that adds nothing to the repair. Clear written information means I can check the facts without trying to hold a whole conversation in my head. Good documentation can prevent the next round of confusion.
Those things also help the person who needs the work done. A clear answer is easier to use. A reliable system needs less emergency attention. A useful record means we don’t have to rediscover the same problem next time. There’s value in doing the work in a way that leaves less unnecessary work behind it.
I don’t think choosing that route requires an apology.
The trouble is that efficiency can hide its own reason. Somebody sees me solve something remotely and sees the convenient part. They don’t necessarily see the energy that staying home preserved, or what an avoidable trip would have taken away from the rest of the day.
The rest of the day matters too. I have Shelly and Michael. I have things I want to do because I’m a person, including things with no useful business outcome whatsoever. Being good at work doesn’t give work first claim on every usable part of me.
Sometimes the adjustment is small: send it in writing, reduce the noise, make the next action clear. Sometimes there is no clever adjustment available and I need to stop. A better workflow doesn’t make rest obsolete. I’m interested in tools, but I haven’t found one that turns a person into an unlimited resource.
I’m proud of being capable. I want that part of me in the picture. I also want the picture to include what it takes to keep doing things while sick. Otherwise people are trying to understand the result with half the information missing.
You can trust that I know what I’m talking about and believe me when I say I’m tired. You can value the work without assuming I had an easy time doing it.
And if I ask you to turn down the screen, we don’t have to reopen the entire question of whether I understand the network.
The screen is just too fucking bright.
Source and edition note
Based on Still Building, chapters 1, 7–9, 11–12. No specific customer event, missed obligation, or medical outcome is invented. This is personal experience, not general medical guidance.
Written with AI assistance in Justin’s requested voice from his shared history and the original Still Building memoir. Reflective prose is a reconstruction, not a verbatim interview. The illustration is an artistic interpretation; people, objects, rooms, and settings are not exact documentary depictions.