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Comment by cyberferret | Hacker News Reader

You know, I remember reading years ago that during the launch preparation for Apollo 16(?), they did a routine pressure test of the Command Module atop the rocket a few days before launch. The technician in charge made the simple error of forgetting to open a pressure release valve during the test which lead to an overpressurisation of the CM causing significant damage, including separation of the heat shield.

The ENTIRE Saturn 5 rocket had to be wheeled back to the hangar and the CM dismantled and rebuilt, resulting in a month long delay in the launch.

When the Apollo launchpad manager was asked if he had fired the technician in question, then answer was allegedly "Nope. He is the one guy on the next launch team that I know will NEVER make the same mistake again."

I am willing to bet that Gitlab is now a company that will never slacken off their backup checking in the future.

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>When the Apollo launchpad manager was asked if he had fired the technician in question, then answer was allegedly "Nope. He is the one guy on the next launch team that I know will NEVER make the same mistake again."

This same general story appears in different forms with million dollar trading errors, etc. But I have to wonder if it's really that good of a lesson. If you truly take it to heart, you could potentially keep people on the team that are legitimately incompetent which could result in another catastrophic failure.

And if one starts applying your principle at a workplace, you end up with the whole company being afraid of doing anything at all, to avoid being fired.

No, there is a level of competency where once you make mistakes below that, firing is the right move.

If a surgeon keeps killing patients because he keeps forgetting to wash his hands, then he needs to be fired.

If a developer skips all company policies and deploys directly to production without a good reason, then he needs to be fired.

There are reasonable mistakes, then there are errors resulting from wreckless actions indicative of a larger problem with the person's view towards their work.

It is not hard to distinguish between someone who makes a rare, but totally understandable simple mistake, and someone who regularly screws up significantly more often than everyone else. Being tolerant of mistakes makes you a good employer. Being tolerant of regular incompetence makes you a bad one.

Make one mistake, it's an expensive training lesson.

Make the same mistake again, you get fired.

That is the wrong question. The real question is what did they do to ensure that this mistake cannot be made again by anybody. In the form this variation is in, the real question is what changes were made to the design so that the system cannot be over pressurized in that way by mistake.

Sometimes you can put in all the checks and balances you wish, but humans will just make a, well, human mistake.

All commercial aircraft have checklists in place, and a two person cross checking system in the cockpit, as well as mechanical means to detect potential problems - but aircraft still every now and then land with their gear still up etc.

Does it make economic sense for an organisation that has invested possibly millions of dollars in training a pilot to immediately sack him/her for a costly mistake like this? Sure, disciplinary action and possible demotion within the ranks is a given, but will you get rid of the one person who will be almost fanatical about never landing with the gear up again?

If they consistently make technical mistake and are sloppy in their airmanship, then sure, fire away. But it is going to be pretty much impossible to design a 'system' that can prevent human errors from creeping in.

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