Who do you blame when good coders do bad things?

I remember it like it was yesterday: Me, shaking a laser printer toner cartridge, as jet-black dust spewed from it all over my boss’s office.

It was a disaster. My boss looked slowly from me, to the cartridge, and back. He told me to throw out the cartridge and clean up the mess. 

He didn't fire me. Maybe he spared me because I was just trying to help (I thought that I could get a few more prints out the depleted cartridge by shaking it) or maybe he did it because it was my first few months of my very first job out of college, and he knew I needed guidance, not a pink slip. Read more...