I was young and conceit, and also good most of the time

• I was young and conceit, and also good most of the time
• More than once, I did lots of changes at night with no easy revert and no warnings to peers. I even did them hours before going home to pack all night for an early flight to France/Xmas when no one was there to fix anything if it went wrong
• The only things I did right were:
• I announced the changes I made.
• I made very few mistakes.
• I tested my changes to some extent before leaving.
• I watched afterwards to some extent and was usually fixing before most people noticed anything was broken
• Still, this was stupid, and no big company should allow this.
• Don’t rely on anyone’s talent and continued heroics.

Earlier in my career