Comment by tribby
8 years ago
> My manager ... decided not to do much work after that, [including] renewing my contract in the new system.
> A simple automation mistake(feature) caused everything to collapse
this is a great story but I must be misreading this detail somehow. it sounds like a simple _human_ error caused everything to collapse.
In that case we should send copy of "The Design Of Everyday Things" to designer of the system.
sure, we can add can steve krug and kenya hara and everyone else to the reading list -- I don't disagree with the general sentiment that we should avoid designing unnecessary dead man's switches -- but this case still sounds like it is a lot further on the "human" end of the human-machine "who fucked up" spectrum. the contractor says his boss just stopped doing his work at some point, work that included migrating the contractor to a new system.