I have seen the light. It flickers dimly in the distance but grows stronger the more I stare. It whispers promise of asylum and repose.

We finally hired another developer. We have needed another pair of hands for quite some time. For too long we’ve stretched the work between two people. I have worked too many hours, too many weekends, too many double and triple shifts. Long hours are fine for short stints of time. When they extend for months and years, it wears on one both physically and psychologically. This is the first step towards recovery.

Things won’t change overnight. Kurt, our new developer and my fellow moderator on the Ars Technica forums, needs to be trained. We’ve build some high performance, cutting edge systems and neglected to document most of it. Training Kurt really highlights the need to beginning documenting our existing systems and, going forward, documenting any new systems we build.

My workload won’t drop immediately. In fact, it will increase slightly in the short-term, as I spend time helping Kurt get up to speed. Even when Kurt is fully trained, he will be working in a different area technically. Ultimately his work will help us streamline some of the existing systems and build new systems that we need to generate revenue. Extra revenue will eventually mean that I will be able to hire someone to work with me. Short steps lead to progress. The end is nigh, but not here yet.