Wow, incredible story. I used to be a Sun SSE, so I can feel for you. I know hindsight is 20/20, but this was my approach when replacing failed hardware like

Wow, incredible story. I used to be a Sun SSE, so I can feel for you. I know hindsight is 20/20, but this was my approach when replacing failed hardware like memory DIMMs remotely (when the client wasn't there in the datacenter): - I always asked them to do a full shutdown,"init 5", and would wait until the server physically powered off before working. That would verify I was on the right server. If the server didn't power off because the customer did something wrong like "init 0" instead of "init 5", I would connect to the serial console and verify that it was sitting at an openboot prompt. - When I ran into a software-related issue like "DB won't start," I would never touch anything or try to fix it. I know you had great intentions, but fixing the init scripts opens you up to a ton of potential hurt. As they say: "no good deed goes unpunished..." I really don't want you to think I'm criticizing your actions - you were a true hero to the customer in a crazy situation. I think its truly unfortunate that they terminated you for this. Best of luck!