Path puzzle

I've got a stable/14.1 system which declines to find programs
in the current working directory:

bob@pelorus:~ % ls
auth		client_try	public_html	server_try	ssl
bob@pelorus:~ % 
bob@pelorus:~ % ls -l server_try
-rwxr-xr-x  1 bob bob 8542 Sep  3 14:08 server_try
bob@pelorus:~ % ./server_try
./server_try: Command not found.

I've tried adding . to my path, but that doesn't seem to help.

Server_try is a python script, if it's run using:

bob@pelorus:~ % python3.11 server_try
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/home/bob/server_try", line 51, in <module>
    raise getopt.GetoptError("usage: %s «ca-cert-file» «server-cert-file» «server-key-file»" % sys.argv[0])
getopt.GetoptError: usage: server_try «ca-cert-file» «server-cert-file» «server-key-file»

it fails for (I think) unrelated reasons. The script works as expected
on Debian Bookworm.

I've tried starting csh and sh, the behavior is unchanged. Running
rehash likewise has no effect.

This is a fairly new installation with home directories under /usr but
with the original empty /home directory still in place.

I must be doing something dumb, but am unable to recognize it.
Any suggestions appreciated!

thanks for reading,

bob prohaska