Advice for Young Programmers: How to F*ck Up Like a Pro
If it hasn’t happened to you, it will. That moment when you’re looking at the production server and seeing something that emphatically should not be there. From the colossal to the minor, if you’re doing anything important, you will eventually f*ck up big. Really big. Holy-shit-I’m-going-to-get-fired big. What separates the pros from the amateurs, however, isn’t whether you make end-of-the-universe mistakes but in how you handle the aftermath. Juggled correctly, a catastrophic cock-up can have a positive impact on how you’re perceived by your peers. Here are a few helpful steps I’ve cone to rely on over the course of my own tremendous screw-ups.
Step 1 - Take a deep breath. You’re going to need to be clearheaded to handle the rest of this, so that gut wrenching fear needs to go on the back burner for a little bit. You can let it come back later, but for now, lock it down.
Step 2 - Don’t raise the alarm immediately. Verify that the thing you believe to be broken is actually broken. Everyone hates a false alarm. If, however, your mistake is grave, chances are everyone knows, if it isn’t, you’ve got a few minutes to think things through before you pull the fire alarm (there are exceptions to this obviously, use your judgement). Take a few seconds to determine just how bad the problem really is. If credit cards are getting stolen or something’s on fire, tell everyone immediately. Anything short of that, and you can take a little bit to collect yourself.
Step 3 - With this very small breathing space, determine the solution/fix for the problem. If you don’t have time to resolve the exact fix. (or the problem is complex) then come up with a few possible solutions to present. It’s important, when you do come clean, that you already have a solution ready. Also, before you accept your drubbing, think up at least one strategy or process that will keep this kind of mistake from happening ever again.
Step 4 - Own up. Tell those who need to know (if they don’t already) what’s going on and take full responsibility for your part in the cock-up. Explain, quickly, how you made the mistake but don’t dwell on it or make excuses. Trust me, no one cares how or why you f**ked up and whining about how your mistake was a perfectly reasonable one will only make things worse for you.
Step 5 - Explain, and this is the really important part, two things: First, how you’re planning on fixing the problem. If the powers-that-be don’t like your proposed solution, come up with a better one or ask for help. Second, tell everyone who’ll listen what you’ll be doing differently in the future to keep a mistake like this from happing. This is the piece that will set you apart from the amateurs. It tells everyone who’s listening that you’re more interested in making things right than covering your tail.
Step 6 - Panic. You’ve kept it together for this long, so make sure you give yourself time to freak the f**ck out. Go back to your desk, or find somewhere you can have a little privacy. If it’s bad enough you’ll get the shakes, if so, let it happen, your body needs to burn off the excess adrenaline.
Step 7 - Fix the problem, implement your prevention plan and, for gods sake, keep your head down. Most people aren’t fired for making one mistake unless its truly egregious, people are usually fired for making several mistakes in a row. It’s also a good idea to check in or write a postmortem about what happened after some time has passed.
Follow some semblance of the aforementioned steps and you should come out the other side with nothing more than a few battle scars. If your managers are good, they’ll recognize your calm under fire. If they’re bad, they’ll yell, stomp around, rage, make you feel bad about yourself, and then ignore you. Good bosses will want to know what you’re doing to keep this from ever happening again. Bad bosses will want to vent their frustration out on you. In many ways, a major mishap is as much a test for your manager as it is for you. Pay careful attention to their reaction and plan for the future accordingly.
TL:DR: If you’ve made a huge mistake, figure out a solution and a mitigation plan before you sound the alarm.
