This is a fascinating response. I’ll address the last part first, because I don’t want it to get lost.

> I know you didn't say anything about forgetting about the customers, but affected customers may perceive it that way

No, I didn’t mean to suggest or imply this, and hope it won’t be taken this way by anyone. It was perhaps a mistake taking it as read that obviously their customers were also harmed. But I do think it’s a reasonable point to make more explicit, and I do agree that it likely had a similar impact on customers to the experience I described. I’ll repeat that no one should experience that.

That said…

> As someone who's worked on similar situations, I don't expect any pat on the back, but see it as my responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place, and when it does, my responsibility to fix it without complaint.

This seems like you’re addressing something entirely outside the actual content of my comment, and perhaps projecting your own priorities onto it.

First of all, I was in no way suggesting anyone get special reward. And I was in no way referencing any Atlassian employee’s complaints nor airing my own. I mean it sincerely that I hope they are okay and that their mental health needs are being respected. It was entirely a statement of human compassion, and an observation that it’s one which can go unstated/understated in these discussions.

Secondly, I added my own experience as a personal reflection on the toll it can take. It’s not easy to say in a public forum that I’ve suffered years of chronic pain after addressing an incident. I added this for context because I think it is easy for people to dismiss the impact serious incidents have on the people responsible to them.

A side note before I get to thirdly: I think this is also true for people in many careers where incident response is a primary job responsibility. Sometimes it prompts explicit acknowledgement, often it does not. I just think the world would be better off if more people’s legitimate pain and challenges were acknowledged.

Third point: I took special care above to say “responsible to”, not “responsible for” or simply “responsible”. I’m certain, given Atlassian’s size and the impact of this outage, that many of the people involved in recovery efforts played no role in the mistakes leading to the outage.

In my own anecdote, I played no role in causing the incident. I have to walk a fine professional line here because I have no intention or desire to criticize anyone else involved. I think I can reasonably say this. I did what you described:

> see it as my responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen in the first place, and when it does, my responsibility to fix it without complaint.

Even so, I’m experiencing chronic pain years later. And now I will complain: it sucks being in pain every day for years. I wouldn’t go back and do anything differently as an IC, except perhaps to tell past me when to slow down and that I have more ability to affect short term prioritization than I once realized.

Lastly,

> praising the staff

I sincerely hope this hasn’t had the negative impact on you which you’re describing as hypothetical for Atlassian customers generally. If it has, I hope you’ll hear me when I say any sharp tone in this response is not from lack of solidarity.

But if it hasn’t and you’re replying only out of work ethic and blame-placing: kindly go re-read my comment and recognize that the only praise I expressed was for the humanity of human people whose experience I wish to include in the conversation.