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Comment by throw_away_add2 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, calm down.

I wish someone could have told me that when I was an intern. Many times.

If the upgrade blows up, it won't be your fault because you're just an intern. There are multiple people making way more money than you are who are responsible for running the company. If those people leave an intern in charge of a mission-critical system and it breaks, it's their fault. If you do end up in the soup and you're able to save the day by calling Epicor support, you'll end up with some very nice letters of reference.

If it doesn't blow up, great, it means your advisor trusts you to keep the plates spinning while he's out. Keep doing what you're doing and you'll have a bright future.

Next time get trained before the guy with the knowledge disappears :)

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This.

And this is true for reasons I didn't understand when I was soley technical and younger.

At the end of the day people - _teams_ - want people they can trust in. That doesn't mean you handle things flawlessly, or that your boss can necessarily "set it and forget it" with you. Being trustworthy and responsible means acting out of good intent. Take a breath, keep your head on straight, look at the slightly bigger picture, and make reasonable choices. Communicate. Act as if the world isn't on your shoulders - because it isn't.

Take a step back, realize that we're all people, trying to make good decisions, and we're responsible to work with the outcomes and address problems as they arise.

I've found I grow by leaps and bounds when I embrace this.

>> Being trustworthy and responsible means acting out of good intent.

This is a great comment. It reveals the truth about how we grow into roles of higher and higher responsibility. I believe I was on the lucky side, though, that most of my bosses understood this about me. Part of it actually is the fact that they know you will take the world on your shoulders in their absence if the situation demands it. It's a test. If it goes off the rails, they're basically saying they can afford it and they don't care, but they want to know who stayed up all night trying to fix it. It sounds paradoxical and maybe jaded, but it's actually better for OP if the upgrade breaks shit all over the place and he's sleeping under a table 36 hours later responsible for managing the failure state. If everything goes off without a hitch, the boss won't even notice. That said, hope for the best, plan for the worst and go in with the best of intentions - but just like if you're an honorable person, you'd never take credit for something you didn't do, you should never take blame for something you warned people about.

People who see ahead and are capable to intervene and mitigate other people's disasters are literally priceless, and OP will go far just by having the attitude of foreseeing and managing crises created by other people's lack of engagement or imagination. This is also the origin story of every superhero and mob boss.

well i like soup but don't know that i want to be swimming in it XD

thanks for your advice, i think i have been trying to prove myself by spinning my wheels instead of taking a step back and evaluating the situations that get presented before me.

appreciate it again, hope you enjoy your weekend

Remember that “officially asking for help” is a very valid step to take. If it all blows up, you can at least point to the several unanswered requests that you sent off to various people. If they reply, and you are able to help it not blow up, you can all share some credit!

If you somehow end up getting blamed for it anyway, I guarantee this is not a company you want to work for even as an intern. Find the one or two good people who might serve as references for jobs later, explain the situation you were put in, and I am confident you will be able to look back at this as a small road bump at the beginning of a successful career in the general industry

Asking for help also shows you're a team player that can reach out to get help in areas you're not an expert in. This is a good pattern to develop and can help you in the future.

And to echo/rephrase the grandparent's words, if asking for help is the kind of thing that people in this company would look down on you for, then this is absolutely not the kind of company you want to work for... not just "even" as an intern, but especially as an intern. Interns are supposed to have questions!

Following the thread, make sure you do have the support's contact number.

Exactly.

In the case anything blows up, repeat after me, "I don't know, I'm just the intern".

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