The estimated cost of downtime for these systems was something like $7 million per minute. I had raised the issue to a couple of the staff responsible for the machines and to the networking team but was completely dismissed because "there is no way we would have hooked them up that way" and because I was the FNG.
I then raised the issue again at the weekly group meeting because it seemed important -- somebody was dispatched to check visually and came back to confirm what I said. It was a big deal -- the networking team had about 2 weeks of emergency work to do to resolve the issue cleanly.
EVERYONE was angry at me. Even though I had just averted a catastrophe for the company, I made everyone look bad by doing it and particularly because of my status/position on the team. It was an important lesson learned.
90% of what I do is ask dumb questions as if I'm completely clueless.
Also asking dumb questions to newer engs teaches them to think different aspects of a problem themselves.
One of the things I'm hoping I could keep alive in my child
People can be excessive in both taking credit and placing blame. An appropriate and helpful way to frame this is "the system was configured incorrectly but nobody noticed because the problem never actually happened. It's a good thing the new guy had time to go through things and spotted the problem before it ever happened." No need to crucify the team or exaggerate the value of the new guy.
Just like the article, his reasoning is that if you improve performance too much, it makes management/the team look bad for not doing it before, while a smaller improvement in performance make management looks good.
I can't remove it either.
I'm open for more questions.
> I'm open for more questions
I laughed much harder than I should of at this.
Or find and company that values your talent and knowledge.
If you had just let the crisis occur, everyone would get a chance to spring into action like heroes, handshakes and champagne all around on a job well done.