I'm not going to name any names: in the late 00s/early 10s I worked in one of the highest-profile, …

There are, I think, different norms and risk levels in different types of employment. Somewhat ironically, it's much easier to get fired from a minimum wage fast food service job than it is to get fired from a six-figure-salary job at Google.

In most European countries it is certainly hard to fire people on a whim like in US and countries with similar weak labour laws. I have seen often enough puzzled looks from team managers from such countries, when leeding European teams for the first time, and routinely get a NO for whatever crazy requests they happen to do.

> I think the general public (and by that I mean including software engineers too) overestimate the likelihood of a huge screw-up leading to being fired I've seen this misconception perpetuated by management even in countries with very strong worker protection laws. Works particularly great on people who already have strong work ethics and internal fears, it stokes that fire. Employees would work as if any failure could lead to termination, especially in emergencies. Those managers use this as a "motivational" tool (as much as a hammer to the face can motivate you). They can squeeze more results out of their teams and maybe edge out a promotion. It's illuminating to see when the people understand the pressure is many times fake, that even the internal SLAs are more relaxed than what they fear.

I made a somewhat similar blunder to the original poster at a job some years ago. I got a dressing down from the CEO and that's it, went back to work and never heard of it again. As far as I can tell it had no effect on my career at that company.

Great share! What do they say, "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs". I think people can go through life trying to never make mistakes and ultimately I think that just holds them back.

In the software engineering industry, what I have seen is people not afraid of being fired due to a mistake, but to be afraid of the cost of their mistake in their next performance review. Make two mistakes (not necessarily in a row) and you are putting yourself in a dangerous corner (e.g., you may be considered to be lay off in the next round of lay offs).

Work long enough and a person will screw up. That's how things go. And if you never screw up, then you're not really pushing yourself. Personally, I've deleted customer tables, updated the whole table when meaning to update one record, even shipped our private key once. There are probably even more I can't remember, and others from people that I helped fix (one time a boss locked us all out of the db - only fix was restoring lol) In all cases I became a better engineer by owning the mistake quickly, fixing the issue, and then putting processes in place to avoid it in the future. I think it shaped who I was to be a better engineer, manager, and owner. The only time I've seen people fired on the spot is when they lie. After seeing someone fired, I asked one of the owners at an old company I worked at why that was the line. He responded that even the best performers make mistakes, but if he…

> A young executive had made some bad decisions that cost the company several million dollars. He was summoned to Watson’s office, fully expecting to be dismissed. As he entered the office, the young executive said, “I suppose after that set of mistakes you will want to fire me.” Watson was said to have replied, > “Not at all, young man, we have just spent a couple of million dollars educating you.” [1] [1] http://the-happy-manager.com/articles/characteristic-of-lead ...