[UbuntuWomen] OT... sort of. Your scariest moment as an IT professional?

[Esther Schindler]

Hey, this could be fun.

CIO.com is putting together a Halloween article that'll basically be  
a collection of IT professional (and manager) experiences. We're  
planning
to compile a list of "most terrifying IT moments" to post just before  
Halloween.

It'll be modeled something like the "future of IT" story we did for  
CIO's 20th anniversary:

2007-2027: The Shapes of Things to Come
Twenty gurus, experts and IT leaders, from Google VP Dave Girouard to
sci-fi author Larry (Ringworld) Niven, weigh in on what the IT (and the
human) future may look like.
http://www.cio.com/article/140651

So... What was the most terrifying IT-related moment you've ever  
experienced? It could be something that happened in a job. ("I hit
'Enter' only to realize that I'd just deleted the master password  
database") It could be something that happened to you as an end user.
("The brand-new Denver Airport luggage handling system shipped all my  
bags to Russia when I was traveling to Taiwan.") Whatever. Anything  
IT related.

I've asked this on a couple of other lists, but so far I've received  
answers (some awesome ones!) only from guys. I'd like to include a  
few women's names on the list too, so I'm deliberately asking here.  
Obviously, the stories don't need to be Linux related.

All my own candidates for "scariest moment" end in "...and I didn't  
have a backup." But here's one from a friend:

> I remember when a friend of mine in California was spewing vitriol  
> about his boss to me, in Massachusetts, via email. Yet he mistakenly
> addressed the message to said mongrel boss -- which, of course, he
> realized only upon hitting the Enter key. It was after hours on the  
> East
> coast and my friend, now panicky and more than a bit sweaty, paged our
> IT manager at home for help. Can you say, "Desperate to keep my job?
> Please, please, please?" In those days, the IT manager couldn't do a
> thing from his house, so he bundled up, got in his car and motored  
> into
> the office to obliterate that email from the system before mongrel  
> boss
> opened it. That act of human kindness got the IT manager a bottle of
> fine, fine California wine Fedexed to him the very next morning. <<

We're talking 50 to 150 words each--longer only if the story is  
*really* good. We'll give precedence to IT Managers (so you can feel  
free to
forward this to a boss if you think it'll get a response) but hey, if  
it's a good story, it's worth sharing.

To use the story, though, I *MUST* have your name, current title and  
affiliation. That probably shouldn't be a problem for your current
company, particularly if the Scary Moment was earlier in your career.  
Send the contact info (and scary moment) to me privately, if you like,
to eschindler at cio dot com.

Of course, it'd be fun to talk about it here too -- but unless you  
include the "here's how to refer to me" stuff (including a contact ID
for followup) we can't use it in the article.

Esther Schindler
senior online editor, CIO.com