It’s Sunday as I write this. Years of early morning alarms had me wide awake at 5AM. The house was still quiet, and it seemed natural to catch up on some TV.
Years ago, my daughter and I would watch Grey’s Anatomy together. She’s since moved off the show, and I still enjoy. My DVR had the most recent episode…what better thing to catch at 5AM?
Grey’s Anatomy, courtesy ABC.GO.COM
So, yes world, I watch Grey’s. And I found myself in full tears during this episode (if you watch online, I was in tears at the 28:50 mark, as an eighteen year old makes life and death decisions for her father.)
In IT, we generally don’t have life and death situations. In healthcare IT, at an extreme our systems may impact healthcare…and yet as IT staff we are not faced with it.
Certainly many IT types have uttered the words, “I’m going to get killed if…. <fill in the blank>”
- This system doesn’t come back up
- This project is late
- This runs over budget
The truth is, worst case is someone losing their job…and that only happens in extreme cases.
Recently I was having a conversation with the VP of Operations for a major hosting company and commenting on how calm he (always) is. He laughed…and shared there are nights he doesn’t get sleep. And that in IT, every problem has a solution.
At first I wanted to challenge the point, and as I thought about it more…..agreed with him. By the time something is through the development cycle and into production, the “unsolvable problems” have been addressed.
Sure, hardware may break and can be repaired, software may fail and need to be patched…but IT always rises to the challenge.
Management might suggest issues sometimes take too long to address…and that’s where management’s commitment to real, tested, and usable disaster recovery (DR) often comes into play. With “real” DR, business impacts are often minimized.
Has your business ever died due to IT?