What's the worst thing that can happen if you mess up on your job?

[undeterred]

I'm asking because I see a lot of people pointing fingers already at the University Police and the University officials for not making decisions that might have protected the students after the early morning shootings.

I'm in the computer field, so on a really bad day, I might destroy data accidentally. Or take down the network for a couple of hours. Or take down a database so it can't be used again till its restored the next day. There are safeguards in place so there is a limit to how much damage I can do. I can make people angry and slow things down, but I can't really hurt anyone.

I used to work for a surgeon. On a really bad day for him, someone would die on the operating table. There are no surgeons anywhere who get to go through their whole career without having a really bad day once in a while. Sometimes someone dies who is a VIP. Sometimes someone dies because you made a mistake. Sometimes someone dies because they were hurt so badly by someone else that despite your best efforts, they died anyway. And the thing is if you're a surgeon, you have to be back in the operating room at 6AM the next day, fully confident that you can handle every operation that comes your way.

If you're in law enforcement at Virginia Tech, I imagine that today was the worst day of your life, and you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about what you might have done differently. You never got to fire a shot or save a life. You were ready, and you were there, but it was all too late. It was a really bad day. There is no way to get through a career in law enforcement without really bad days happening and no two bad days are alike.

A lot of people died today. The officers and decision makers are never going to forget this day or stop rethinking it, wishing it had turned out differently. Tragedy happened. I have to start out assuming they did the best they could with what they knew.