I wrote recently about a bad first day for an intern. He/she was fired, without cause in my opinion, when a production database was damaged while following a document for developer setup. The situation felt like a mistake, and one that wasn't necessarily the fault of the individual. To me, this was extremely poor handling of the situation from a CTO.

In the discussion for the piece, someone pointed out that it might not just be a new employee who makes a mistake that causes downtime. Certainly, an inexperienced employee could have caused the issue, but I know there are plenty people with lots of time in a position who make similar mistakes. It could be that one who has been there a long time followed a poorly documented procedure for the first time, or applied the procedure to the wrong situation. Often, I find these are relatively simple mistakes because someone isn't as familiar with a protocol or skill as another person assumed they were.

Read the rest of Practice Until You Don't Get It Wrong