I guess he mean the one true kind of sysadmins who's job contains moving physically in data center and deal with physical infrastructures.

So it's real skateboard.

I believe parent was probably referencing this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kV_i8AefT8I

But in defense, why be admin if you don't look admin?

I have done similar things several times and I think it would be boring.

It's Sunday so I guess they are not together. Instead there could be a lot of calls and working on some collaboration platforms. Everyone just staring at the screen, searching, reporting, testing and trying to shrink the problem scope.

If there's a record on everyone there must be a narrator explaining what's going on or audiences would definitely be confused.

It's Google so they have solid logging, analyzing and discovery means. Bad things do happen but they have the power to deal with them.

I suppose less technical firms(Equifax maybe?) encounter similar kind of crysis would be more fun to look at. Everything is a mess because they didn't build enough things to deal with them. And probably non-technical manager demanding precise response, or someone is blaming someone etc.

Having done it at both big companies and startups... honestly, the startup version is more interesting. Higher stakes, more resourcefulness required, more swearing, and more camaraderie. The incidents I've been a part of in big company contexts have been pretty undramatic - tons of focus on keeping emotions muted, carefully unpeeling the onion, and then carefully sequencing mitigations and repairs.

It could be good done in the style of Cliff Stoll's Nova episode.