Oh the huge manatee

Google blamed human error for its mishap this weekend. For a period of time the search giant incorrectly labeled all of its sites as malware. My first thought was "well, someone lost their job." But perhaps not. One of the problems we face in IT is that sometimes really good people mess up big. They are the ones we entrust with responsibility. Oftentimes they are the ones we over burden. Then they mess up big, and questions are asked and consequences must be handed down. While the mistake may be a fire-able offense, this must be measured against the track record of the individual. From a simple cost benefit analysis we can see that firing a good person will result in lost productivity and advances for years ahead. Other punitive courses of action are then up for grabs - but what does this do for morale of the individual? If you do nothing, people (including those who work for you) think the quality of service has degraded and respond accordingly. I think we should focus on empowering our staff to not make mistakes. Are errors the result of short-cuts or sloppiness? What are the underlying reasons? Is the individual overworked and overwhelmed? What measures are in place for quality control? What are we doing to prevent good people from messing up big?