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I am reminded of the classic story from IBM. A junior developer makes a mistake that cost the company 10 million dollars. He walks into the office of Tom Watso

I am reminded of the classic story from IBM. A junior developer makes a mistake that cost the company 10 million dollars. He walks into the office of Tom Watson, the CEO, expecting to get fired. “Fire you?” Mr Watson asked. “I just spent 10 million educating you.” Perhaps it is possible to enact some change through learning, rather than through firing.

colemannugent 9y ago
This was not a junior developer who accidentally rm -rf'd some server, this was a process failure that involved multiple people. In the IBM example, had that mistake been the end result of a faulty process designed by a manager, that manager should be fired or at least removed from a position to make process decisions. Whoever designed the process for sending out the alarms (likely a committee of sorts) should be held accountable for their gross failure. Firing is a efficient way to remove under-performing employees and ensure that remaining employees give the needed attention to the important problems. Maybe the employee who clicked the button to send the false alarm should be consulted when the alarm process is redesigned. I'm sure that they would be very familiar with what went wrong and how it could be improved.