Amazon is building two large data centers in my neighborhood. That means they need power. Lots of power. And redundancy.
Each of the two data centers has a new power substation. The next phase is installing redundant power feeds to these substations.
For the last couple months they have been running new power lines along the large transmission towers that feed the new substations. Have you ever wondered how they do that? I happened to capture a bit of it from my phone in this video:
(If the video isn’t in your view, here’s the direct link: https://youtu.be/08idUIjEkN4)
As I watched these people working, it occurred to me how much trust there must be between the individuals on this crew. The obvious one is the guy (we’re just going to go with “guy” here) hanging in the harness. Clearly he has to have an enormous amount of trust in the helicopter pilot. A friend tells me the line on the other side of this tower are live, at 138,000 Volts. Ouch!
The less obvious trust factor is on the pilot’s part. Let’s face it, if that guy hanging in the harness gets tangled, the pilot is in just as much trouble.
Do you have that level of trust with your co-workers?
While this level of immediate self-destruction might not result if either you or your co-worker fails at their job, there is still a need for trust. There is still a level of dependency. At the most base level, each of you is depending on the organization for which you work to be financially viable so that your paychecks can continue. That relies on the overall success of the organization, which in turn relies on each individual doing their job.
Do you trust your co-workers? Do they trust you? For better or worse, you are in this together.