Getting the Work Done

Last Friday my wife needed the car, so I worked from home. With me I had some source code for a research prototype that I had been working on. I got up bright and early, started up my C++ compiler and started "working".

There was just one problem, at home I have a different compiler than the one I use at the office. The source code that compiled without any problem at work now suddenly gave me linking errors. I quickly went through the list of usual suspects (circular inclusions of headers, outdated object files etc). To no avail. A few hours later I was still scratching (banging?) my head and loudly sighing in self-pity. (Of course, at least to some degree, by now it had also become an issue of pride and outsmarting the compiler.)

My wife came in and asked "what's wrong?"
"I'm not getting any work done," I said.
"What do you mean? You've been sitting there since 7 this morning."
I grunted in frustration, "Yeah, but I can't get it to compile and I can't find the problem."
"Well, you're still working."
"But I'm not getting any work done!"
"But honey, searching for and solving problems IS getting the work done."

I finally did solve the problem (with a workaround). But I'm still not convinced that dealing with different compiler idiosyncrasies is "getting the work done". Maybe I am just too impatient (another point my wife never fails to emphasize).