The Rules Of Competition

“Often Wrong, Never In Doubt”

Competition is what drives us forwards in just about everything the human race has ever achieved. The need to go faster or be stronger or richer or more successful, in just about every aspect of our lives, we are competing to be the best and to achieve what others cannot.

The most obvious reference for competition is in sport, teams or individuals reaching peak levels of their game trying desperately to out-do each other and to be the ultimate victors. But it’s not only in sport that competition is abundant and the simplest of victories against a worthy opponent can be chalked up as one in the eye to the opposing challenger.

These last few days, my main competition has been a battle royal between mass emailing viruses and me. It all started when our main email domain was placed on a number of SPAM blacklists and the company’s reliance on sending external email was crippled. (1-0 to the virus – damn!)

Faced with a baying mob of angry users, the competition had truly begun. Quickly we were pressed into de-listing ourselves from the SPAM lists and within the hour we were able to fully send and receive external email once more (1-1). A full investigation soon followed and a machine on the network was clearly identified as a possible threat. The machine was isolated and I set to work to analyse the machine to discover the reported threat.

Unfortunately, the lead was wrongly identified and instead of investigating the root cause of the problem, I was chasing a dead-end (2-1 to the virus). It turned out I was let down yet again by Symantec Endpoint Protection misreporting a corrupt file as a threat. It wouldn’t be until Monday morning that I discovered the threat hadn’t been fully eliminated – and it was 3-1 to the virus when we were once again re-added to the email blacklists and the mob reached for their torches and pitchforks in their lack of email induced madness.

Fortunately I received the break I desperately needed to get myself back in the competition. A report from one of the SPAM companies alerted us to a second infected PC, one that curiously wasn’t reported by our anti-virus tools....the game was on! Engineers were dispatched on a daring recovery mission to enter deep into user territory, amongst the pitchforks, and liberate the PC for return to base.

...we lost many a good engineer that day, but the PC was finally returned to HQ and reached my desk. Immediately, the mistake was realised, the machine had escaped the upgrade process and was running an older version of anti-virus software – a sin in the eyes of the “Deploy New Anti-Virus Software” projects owner (me). The software was updated to the latest version and an even playing field had been restored to the competition – using the latest definitions, the infected files were discovered and cleaned accordingly (3-2 to the virus, but a vital important point for me).

Removing the threat from the network, once again we set about de-listing ourselves from the SPAM blacklists and external email access was restored for one and all (3-3 and the virus effectively buried and out of the game).

This got me thinking about the rules – the rules any competition needs – and in an effort to keep it simple I came up with three, and here they are:

Rule 1: Always Keep Score
If no one keeps score, how do you know if you’re winning or losing? It doesn’t matter how significant a point is earned as long as it’s a point in your tally. Keeping score is the only measure of success or an indication that you need to do better.

Rule 2: Everything is a Competition
Absolutely everything. Whether it’s first to finish line or last to give up or give up, whether it’s a vitally important or a trivial event that only you are aware of inside your own mind, if you’re competing, you’re game is raised and you remain focused and alert for when the real competition starts.

Rule 3: Always win
No matter what anyone says, winning is everything. School children are taught that it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that matters – but that’s just wrong. No one remembers the also-rans, they only remember the winners. Ayrton Senna was quite possibly the greatest F1 driver in history, and he achieved that by believing he had a God given right to win and to win at everything. Anything less than a win was a let down, a failure, a set back. Don’t be fooled into being told you’re over-competitive, you’re just playing to win and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

With these rules in mind, review the competition “SPAM Virus Verse Me”, the score was kept and although it appeared as if the score might fall the way of the virus balance was eventually restored. Even though this mundane task was merely a side-line issue in my work day, I could have given up or let someone else to take the worry of dealing with the problem, instead the challenge was set and the competition had begun – not only did the issue need to be solved but I wanted to win, be the one that solved the problem.

The score ended 3-3 and initially my third rule appears to be broken. How can I be victorious and be the winner when the scores are settled at three a piece? Well, that’s easy – not only did I manage to single-handedly tackle the virus and restore email world order to the masses and adulation from my peers at securing the problem and documenting a full account of the issue and resolution for future generations of winners, but I also managed to get a whole blog post out of this episode – resulting in a 4-3 victory for me.

It feels so good to win. Now, bring on the next challenge and the next competition....