Three weeks ago I had to replace a server hard drive in a mirrored RAID array. I should have been able to pull the drive out and pop in the replacement without the users ever knowing anything happened. Unfortunately, there was a unknown issue with the RAID array and the server crashed immediately. In my industry, that’s basically the single worst thing that can happen. The consequences? 25 people took a coffee break and I spent a bit more time in the data center than I had anticipated. Things were back to normal within an hour. Zero data loss and no permanent damage. Even still made happy hour!

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I was chatting with a friend a couple nights ago who happens to be an ICU nurse. One day prior to our conversation, there was a patient who’s release was anticipated by the time my friend was back for the next shift. Upon returning to the hospital, the patient had been diagnosed with a flesh eating bacteria and told a leg would have to be amputated. That’s quite a bit different than release paperwork. My friend was disturbed by this but seemingly not as much as I. Far worse things happen in the hospital every day.

Yet another friend is an EMT. He responded to a domestic violence call. The guy had beaten up his wife and kid. The wife kicked him in the sweet spot so he called 911 about pain in “that area. ” While they were trying to take his blood pressure, he grabbed a knife he had hidden and tried to stab my friend. “At least it wasn’t a gun,” he says. WTF mate, you almost got stabbed.

After considering the above, two things make me happy:

1. My job. I get to play with cool technology all the time and the worst thing that can happen really isn’t that bad. We’ve always got good backups and we work with warrantied hardware.

2. I’m grateful for people who want to work in the medical and civil service industries. You can’t backup a leg just in case someone gets a flesh eating bacteria. No one has ever tried to stab me while I’m fixing their computer and I’ll bet no one ever does. They would sooo end up with a virus.