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Comment by move-on-by | Hacker News Reader

I have an (actual) engineering buddy who occasionally has small fires flare up in the factory he works at. Ever since talking with him about it, I’m very much off put when someone at my cushy software company talks about ‘a fire’. No, some system is down or throwing errors- there is no fire.

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You're definitely not in mortal danger as a SWE, but FWIW, I've witnessed (2nd hand) datacenter servers literally catch on fire and entire datacenters go out because a critter got crispified on some power lines. Sometimes "the server's on fire" is metaphorical and sometimes it's literal. In the latter case, at least you can get some interesting pictures of the aftermath.

Yeah we've had to evacuate the office several times because our in-house "lab" DC started smoking.

Our admin used to just prop the door open with a fan and blow the “something’s burning” smell out into the hall.

I’ve always heard the term “fire” being used ironically in this context. As in “everyone is panicking like the place is on fire, but its fine.”

The executive reaction is the same as when a factory is on fire though. Whether we can’t produce due to system down or due to hazardous environment makes little difference.

With an actual fire (or hazardous environment) people’s lives are at risk and it makes a big difference. Hopefully those executives act accordingly or they’ll face jail time for putting their employees in harm’s way. That is not the same as being unable to produce.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ex-coal-chief-gets-one-y...

It's funny because I read "executive reaction" as pertaining to an individual's physiological response, not as "the actions taken by the organization's leadership", which then gave "Executive Dysfunction" a whole new meaning for me...

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