You must never push the red one...

A true story: a true moral

It was in the days when I was the lead operator for third shift operations. I worked with PDP-10 computers, but that's not all that important to the story. Just accept the following statement: The front panel of the KL-10 computer had a big red, button labeled "Emergency Shut-off."

Now, I was proud that the company I worked for allowed me to train its operation staff and I was pretty thorough on the controls. I always told them to stay away from the big, red button, but if they ever did push it, they were going to have to get field service in to reset it because it locked in the off position.

All the operators had to do a turn on third shift, so I knew them all and most knew me as a relaxed kind of guy. I was approachable. I didn't panic.

Our work schedule was a little unusual. We worked four 10 hour shifts on four consecutive days then got four days off. I was in the middle of my four off when the phone rang. It was -- let's call him Bob -- a nice guy, but not one to call and pass the time of day (well, night in this case.) But that's exactly what he was doing. He asked me how things were going. How the weather was. How about them Red Sox? Finally, he eased around to The Big Question:

"Say, remember when you said if you push the emergency off switch it would lock in place? Is that true?"
"Yep. That's true. Field Service has to come in and inspect the machine before they reset it."
"Hmmm. How do you suppose they reset it?"
"Bob, did you push the red button?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I was sitting at the console with my feet up waiting for the backups to finish. I was staring at the button. I thought about what you said and I wondered what would happen if I pushed that button?"
"What happened?"
"Everything shut down. The Processor, all the drives, the memory bays, everything."
"You know you're supposed to call field service."
"They'll fire me."

Well, I was a total geek on PDP-10's -- I learned everything I could about every model from the early KA-10 to the then-hottest KL-10. I knew how to reset the switch. And it's odd, but I know exactly what Bob was talking about... I had seen it dozens of times -- people start wondering what would happen if they do something stupid; they go all trance-like and next thing you know, they're short a finger or the gun goes off in the house or they drive into that fixed object. He was being honest. And he was scared. I told him how to reset the switch.

The next time I was working I dropped in on the head of operations and told him the story. "Would you have fired him?" I asked.
"No." he said. "If I fired him, then I'd have to hire and train someone else. And that person would probably push the red button too. No, what Bob has now is 'experience' and we paid the tuition for that in lost work. He'll never do that again. I'd be a fool to let him go."

I thought about that answer for a long time. And I'm convinced of the wisdom in it. People screw up. When faced with someone who has screwed up, I take into account how much I've just paid for their tuition and what the chances are I'll have to pay it again. Usually, I decide it's just the cost of having an experienced team.