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>'It seems amazing to me that he looks so calm and cool when they were actually being poisoned by their own CO2 and without knowing if they were going to make i

>'It seems amazing to me that he looks so calm and cool when they were actually being poisoned by their own CO2 and without knowing if they were going to make it alive to Earth.' Though our problems aren't close to same order of magnitude - keeping calm under pressure is something I feel is rare and under-appreciated in technology. More than once I've seen a person start shaking so bad they couldn't type or slot in a replacement module while working a serious outage. Amusingly, I've also had a new manager flip-out and actually interfere with my triage efforts because I 'didn't look like I was taking the problem seriously' (read: calm). I wonder what sort of techniques could be adapted from elsewhere to teach the tech engineers of the world how to hold it together?

keithpeter 12y ago
Well, the three astronauts were selected from a pool of test pilots, itself a pretty highly selected group. You might have a few problems widening all that out to a larger population. Looking at the astronaut training, its procedures, procedures, knowledge of all the systems and practice on ground simulations. Does anyone run simulations? You know a small network that simulates various disasters and lets your systems admin crew work through e.g. triage
robertfw 12y ago
I highly recommend reading Chris Hadfield's book "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth". He talks a lot about remaining calm under pressure, and how astronauts train to burn that mentality in. Beyond that, it's simply a great book.
jdmichal 12y ago
I think the biggest factor to overcome would be confidence. To remain calm, you must be confident in both your abilities and those of the people you are trusting. If you have this confidence, then there is no reason not to be calm, as you know you will work through the situation.
johngalt 12y ago
Calmness is crucial for anyone in a triage situation. You have to be able to make correct decisions under pressure. In my experience most large outages are caused by a panicked response to a small outage. Additionally it's important for many other reasons. If you seem outwardly anxious or worried it will magnify the fears of those depending on you. If the expert is worried, then people who depend on the expert will be hysterical.
aedocw 12y ago
Working as a sysadmin, I was once pulled in to an executives office and got a very stern talking-to for appearing too calm during a major outage. Our phone system upgrade was taking 4x the planned time to complete, but we had the situation under control and were finishing as quickly as possible. It sucked and was stressful, but being worked up about it served no purpose. I think I laughed about it at the time, but he did not find that endearing.
- csixty4 12y ago
  Same here as a developer. The server was down. The clients' sites were unreachable. I was busy trying to figure out what happened instead of panicking and was told I need to be more engaged because I seemed to have no sense of the scale of the problem and how were they supposed to know otherwise if I wasn't visibly upset?
  - johansch 12y ago
    When asked what was going on, did you say "I don't know" or something like "I don't know yet, i'm looking into it right now"? There is a difference. It is frustrating to manage people who don't see the value in communicating properly. (Or maybe you had a clueless manager.)
    - csixty4 12y ago
      I said I was looking into it and showed them the log files. I was specifically told that if I wasn't visibly panicking they didn't believe I was engaged in solving the problem. This is the same agency that accused me of doing freelance on the side because they saw me with a C# book and there was no reason for me to be learning another programming language if I wasn't doing work on the side in violation of my contract.
      - johansch 12y ago
        Ok, then they are not that bright and I hope you have gotten out of there :).
Consultant32452 12y ago
Nearly every place I've worked I've had two divergent messages come my way. The first is usually that I'm really productive, positive member of the team, and this shows up in reviews, promotions, etc. The other is that I just don't look like I give a shit about anything we're doing. The truth is that I honestly don't get emotionally invested in any of it. I'm emotionally invested in my career and love new technology, enjoy learning, etc. But if the proverbial shit hits the fan then it's a minor nuisance because I'll probably be working late for the night or for the next few weeks depending on how big of a problem has arisen.
- incision 12y ago
  I can relate. >'The truth is that I honestly don't get emotionally invested in any of it. I'm emotionally invested in my career and love new technology, enjoy learning, etc.' I think there's a lot of wisdom in those sentences. Basically, invest in internal (personal) goals and see the external (workplace) ones served as a natural extension of that. It's easy to reverse that and find yourself hamstrung or run ragged by bullshit which you don't necessarily have any control over.
rhizome 12y ago
Amusingly, I've also had a new manager flip-out and actually interfere with my triage efforts because I 'didn't look like I was taking the problem seriously' (read: calm). The way I think about it would be to ask (in my head) whether the boss/CxO/freaker-outer gets seriously agitated while they're constructing an Excel spreadsheet? They're freaking out because they are being prevented from working (or they are concerned as a matter of business continuity and service levels), while the sysadmin is now, finally, "working." I mean, the SA is always working, but moments like this is what they're there for, so to expect them to be freaking out because their job needs to be done is just silly. It's their job to fix this stuff, let them do it. Turnabout would be to ask a manager every 2 hours whether they have their next meeting planned out yet. "When is the budget going to be done?" That said, I've also been in hands-shaking mode.

keithpeter 12y ago

Well, the three astronauts were selected from a pool of test pilots, itself a pretty highly selected group. You might have a few problems widening all that out to a larger population. Looking at the astronaut training, its procedures, procedures, knowledge of all the systems and practice on ground simulations. Does anyone run simulations? You know a small network that simulates various disasters and lets your systems admin crew work through e.g. triage

robertfw 12y ago

I highly recommend reading Chris Hadfield's book "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth". He talks a lot about remaining calm under pressure, and how astronauts train to burn that mentality in. Beyond that, it's simply a great book.

jdmichal 12y ago

I think the biggest factor to overcome would be confidence. To remain calm, you must be confident in both your abilities and those of the people you are trusting. If you have this confidence, then there is no reason not to be calm, as you know you will work through the situation.

johngalt 12y ago

Calmness is crucial for anyone in a triage situation. You have to be able to make correct decisions under pressure. In my experience most large outages are caused by a panicked response to a small outage. Additionally it's important for many other reasons. If you seem outwardly anxious or worried it will magnify the fears of those depending on you. If the expert is worried, then people who depend on the expert will be hysterical.

aedocw 12y ago

Working as a sysadmin, I was once pulled in to an executives office and got a very stern talking-to for appearing too calm during a major outage. Our phone system upgrade was taking 4x the planned time to complete, but we had the situation under control and were finishing as quickly as possible. It sucked and was stressful, but being worked up about it served no purpose. I think I laughed about it at the time, but he did not find that endearing.

csixty4 12y ago
Same here as a developer. The server was down. The clients' sites were unreachable. I was busy trying to figure out what happened instead of panicking and was told I need to be more engaged because I seemed to have no sense of the scale of the problem and how were they supposed to know otherwise if I wasn't visibly upset?
- johansch 12y ago
  When asked what was going on, did you say "I don't know" or something like "I don't know yet, i'm looking into it right now"? There is a difference. It is frustrating to manage people who don't see the value in communicating properly. (Or maybe you had a clueless manager.)
  - csixty4 12y ago
    I said I was looking into it and showed them the log files. I was specifically told that if I wasn't visibly panicking they didn't believe I was engaged in solving the problem. This is the same agency that accused me of doing freelance on the side because they saw me with a C# book and there was no reason for me to be learning another programming language if I wasn't doing work on the side in violation of my contract.
    - johansch 12y ago
      Ok, then they are not that bright and I hope you have gotten out of there :).

Consultant32452 12y ago

Nearly every place I've worked I've had two divergent messages come my way. The first is usually that I'm really productive, positive member of the team, and this shows up in reviews, promotions, etc. The other is that I just don't look like I give a shit about anything we're doing. The truth is that I honestly don't get emotionally invested in any of it. I'm emotionally invested in my career and love new technology, enjoy learning, etc. But if the proverbial shit hits the fan then it's a minor nuisance because I'll probably be working late for the night or for the next few weeks depending on how big of a problem has arisen.

incision 12y ago
I can relate. >'The truth is that I honestly don't get emotionally invested in any of it. I'm emotionally invested in my career and love new technology, enjoy learning, etc.' I think there's a lot of wisdom in those sentences. Basically, invest in internal (personal) goals and see the external (workplace) ones served as a natural extension of that. It's easy to reverse that and find yourself hamstrung or run ragged by bullshit which you don't necessarily have any control over.

rhizome 12y ago

Amusingly, I've also had a new manager flip-out and actually interfere with my triage efforts because I 'didn't look like I was taking the problem seriously' (read: calm). The way I think about it would be to ask (in my head) whether the boss/CxO/freaker-outer gets seriously agitated while they're constructing an Excel spreadsheet? They're freaking out because they are being prevented from working (or they are concerned as a matter of business continuity and service levels), while the sysadmin is now, finally, "working." I mean, the SA is always working, but moments like this is what they're there for, so to expect them to be freaking out because their job needs to be done is just silly. It's their job to fix this stuff, let them do it. Turnabout would be to ask a manager every 2 hours whether they have their next meeting planned out yet. "When is the budget going to be done?" That said, I've also been in hands-shaking mode.