Why You Shouldn't Work with Sharp Objects When You are Tired

The other day I was re-running some fiber optic patch cables on a rack in the server room. If you haven't worked with them, they are very thin, flexible, fragile. In many places, they are run through conduit even on a rack.

The reason for me rerunning them was that the person who did it originally wove them like it was basket-making class. Send one patch cord through this bundle of cables, that one around the bundle, and a third around the other way. Make sure this new bundle of fragile cables interferes with every bundle it crosses...

Ugh.

Anyway, after an hour* I get it all smooth, shipshape and Bristol-fashion. Not quite up to the standards exemplified here but pretty good. I am plugging the patch cords into the switch, when I deem that the patch cords need one more tie to keep them neatly bundled within 1 foot of the switch. I use a zip tie, and need to trim the excess. I get the snippers out.

I cut one of the fibers.

I cuss a bit. I know better than to leave a dead patch cord in the bundle, especially with a seemingly ok end on the other side. So I go to cut the dead one out of the bundle.

I cut another of the fibers.

I go home and fix it the next day. (No server outage - this was for new stuff.)

Lesson learned - watch for fatigue-brain. You can commit some unfathomable errors. If you can learn to recognize it, you can avoid being a Menace to Technology. Some tasks require my Good Brain, some are safe for Low Technology Days.

*This is a clue. It shouldn't have taken an hour, even with the other cleanup I did.