Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by toast0 352 days ago
I get that it's sort of an accepting of responsibility if you accept we made a grave error -> the person who made (was responsible for) the grave error must be fired; I am ultimately responsible for everything -> I must be fired.

But it's not an accepting of responsibility in the sense of we made a grave error -> it must be made right. Someone getting fired doesn't help the people who were improperly notified. It likely doesn't help prevent improper notifications in the future.

Taking responsibility could mean setting up a quality control process for future changes as well as validating all current the notification strings are appropriate and accurate. And sending an apology to the affected people.

That said, it is perhaps a time for reflection when considering this:

> The company acknowledged it has experienced “a number of technical problems” over the past year.

If you're responsible and things continue to go wrong, perhaps someone else would do a better job, and the best choice is to let someone else have a try.

1 comments

Yes, that makes sense, if there were many instances and really the leader could have observed that and better lead. My comment was about this approach in general, and specifically when it's just one incident resulting in someones head rolling, in what seems to be a disconnected feedback loop.