Techie touched one box and the lights went out • The Register

When Kent arrived at the high-stakes exam testing center, he knew the stakes were high. The client had made it crystal clear: modernize their infrastructure without disrupting the ongoing exams. Four testing halls, two in use, two waiting for upgrades. The pressure was on.

The job seemed straightforward enough. New desktops, new servers, new switches, and fresh UPS systems for the two unused testing halls. The production servers sat on their own isolated UPS stack, untouched until cutover day. Kent methodically worked through the first unused hall, upgrading everything without a hitch.

Then came the moment of truth in the second unused room. Time to plug the new UPS into mains power. Kent seated the plug, and in that exact instant, the entire building went dark.

Exam proctors burst from the two active testing halls, demanding answers. What had Kent done? Which breaker had he tripped? The Very Important Exams were ruined, they claimed, and he was to blame.

Kent checked his work. The UPS was functioning perfectly. The building's network infrastructure was intact. But every light, every appliance, every piece of non-UPS-protected equipment in the building was dead. He stepped outside to call his dispatcher and saw the entire street was dark too.

It wasn't his UPS. It was a beautifully timed, utterly ordinary grid failure.

But timing is everything. Because Kent had been the one touching electrical equipment when the power died, he became the prime suspect. A few minutes later, the grid returned to action, the building flickered back to life, and the exam proctors decided tests could continue.

For the remainder of the project, Kent noticed he was watched very closely whenever he approached a power cable. The suspicion lingered even after the truth was clear.

"I would like to state for the record that while I can replace servers and re-rack UPS units, I do not yet possess the ability to take down municipal power grids on contact," Kent told On Call. "It was simply a badly timed, run-of-the-mill, trousers-tightening power failure."

The incident highlights a peculiar aspect of IT work: sometimes, the worst outages happen when you're doing everything right. Kent was following protocol, working on isolated equipment, taking all the proper precautions. Yet the universe decided that was the exact moment for a coincidental failure.

This isn't an isolated phenomenon in tech support. There's a psychological tendency to associate recent actions with immediate consequences, even when correlation doesn't imply causation. The human brain seeks patterns and assigns blame to the most visible change, regardless of actual causality.

For IT professionals, this means developing thick skin and clear communication skills. When you're the one holding the cable during a coincidental outage, you need to be prepared to explain, demonstrate, and sometimes just wait for the truth to become obvious.

Kent's story also underscores the importance of proper infrastructure documentation and monitoring. Had the testing center maintained clear records of their electrical systems and grid dependencies, the true cause of the outage would have been immediately apparent rather than subject to speculation.

The testing center eventually got its upgrades, the exams continued without further incident, and Kent moved on to his next project. But he likely still gets nervous glances whenever he approaches a power outlet at any client site.

Has a coincidence put you in the frame to wear the blame for an outage? If so, click here to tell us your tale so we can share it on a future Friday.