alt Hacker News>What does “take full responsibility” mean in the present context?
I posted something that -- in hindsight -- I shouldn't have, and it had repercussions for a lot of people. An action that I took had considerable knock-in effects around the world.
Some outlets are reporting that my action of posting something that I believed to be in good faith was an indicator or catalyst for the embargo to be tossed out and a previously-agreed schedule to change in short order.
That's not a normal Wednesday for me. Not even vaguely. I've not slept well since, and my taking ownership with an apology is this new course of action. Hopefully I'll sleep tonight.
re: assets and peonage – I am but a broke & wizened nerd with no known descendants. If you're ever in Cornwall, UK: look me up, I'll gladly buy you a sleep-friendly beverage. And I’m not being facetious.
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Relax. You did no wrong. You reacted to the information that was ‘local’ to you. I am merely objecting (hopefully humorously) to the phrase “take full responsibility “: it is uncalled-for, unnecessary, and vacuous. Try to have a good Thursday. Tuesday was not your fault.
I might be in Cornwall in a bit, so I might take you up on that :)
But yeah, it happens. I could share some stories of me (being responsible for) bricking multiple ~200k circuit boards in a row, if that makes it better. In the end nobody really cared and the world kept on turning. Good decisions might come from experience, but experience comes from bad decisions. It's how it is.
Oh and I’m from Bristol. We might have more in common than you’d expect.
Shit happens.
Years ago I lost $250K at work, well gave away, so real money out the door. I figured out why we were bleeding, that the mistake was mine (2008 vs 2009 in a function) and then changed the pattern to use explicit names rather than numbered events.
I figured at the end of the day I was fired. My boss laughed at me and told me good job for owning my mistake, fixing it, and then making sure it could not happen again.
Honestly don't just apologize - tell the whole story, in full. Tell us what you should have done differently at each step. Tell us where the process failed you and us. Those sorts of narratives and suggestions are how processes get improved. There is a humble and informative post mortem that you can write up and publish (beyond HN) for everyone's edification. But that should honestly be a Monday thing, when you have a clear head and some more perspective on the whole situation.
Honestly though, dont beat yourself up over this.
The takeaway shouldn’t have been “don’t post” (mainly because someone else would have) but instead “news reporting is hellaciously inaccurate”.