[Baeocystin]

> If we see a pattern of mistakes being made then we can talk about taking steps to prevent them.

...but that's not really nothing? You're acknowledging the error, and saying the action is going to be watch for a repeat, and if there is one in a short-ish amount of time, then you'll move to mitigation. From a human standpoint alone, I know if I was the client in the situation, I'd be a lot happier hearing someone say this instead of a blanket 'nothing'.

Don't get me wrong; I agree with your assessment. But don't sell non-technical actions short!

[Dylan16807]

> You're acknowledging the error,

Which is important but not taking an action.

> and saying the action is going to be watch for a repeat

That watching was already happening. Keeping the status quo of watching is below the level of meaningful action here.

> if there is one in a short-ish amount of time, then you'll move to mitigation.

And that would be an action, but it would be a response to the repeat.

> I'd be a lot happier hearing someone say this instead of a blanket 'nothing'.

They did say roughly those things, worded in a different way. It's not like they planned to say "nothing" and then walk out without elaborating!

[terlisimo]

The abbreviated story I told was perhaps more dramatic-sounding than it really played out. I didn't just say "Nothing." mic drop walk out :)

The client was satisfied after we owned the mistake, explained that we have a number of measures in place for preventing various mistakes, and that making a test for this particular one doesn't make sense. Like, nothing will prevent me from creating a cron job that does "rm -rf * .o". But lights will start flashing and fixing that kind of blunder won't take long.