Did you have to sweet talk them or just threaten to walk?

A whole inch down still wet? That's wild.

Five hours actually, not a whole day. I worked on a similar thing where a client's entire inventory system kept failing on Tuesday afternoons. Everyone was freaking out thinking it was some deep server issue. Turned out a junior dev put a comma in a date string instead of a slash. Took us a week of meeting notes to figure that out. Sometimes I think we just like making these things sound bigger than they are.

What is it about networking that feels so much harder than buying a course though? I spent $300 on a coding bootcamp cert and it didn't do squat for me either. But then I went to a local meetup for hobbyists, just talked about my side projects over pizza, and someone from a small startup offered me a job on the spot. Now I tell people to skip the fancy certs and just go find a group of people who share their interest, even if it's just a book club or a gaming group. The cert checks a box on paper, but a real person vouching for you checks a box in their head. So maybe the lesson here is to spend more time finding your people and less time chasing alphabet soup?

Try going through a welding supply shop instead, their rental stuff usually holds up way better.