Where’s that damn close button?

It’s 2015 and I’m the only iOS engineer at a small startup. My job was creating innovative mobile ads, and our first big client was a top news app, with millions of daily users. So, no pressure at all, right?

With just three months to launch, I dove into heroic 15-hour days until I routinely woke up face-down on my keyboard. But the effort paid off: a week after launch, our click-through rates jumped by 50%. Our launch celebration dinner has just been booked.

Then the phone rang. The client shouted over the phone, threatening to terminate the contract immediately. Apparently the ad click through rates were so high because I’d accidentally made it impossible to close them. In my espresso-fueled coding frenzy, I’d somehow erased the close button. The customers were literally trapped, forced to click the ad just to escape.

Time froze. The CTO’s head slowly swiveled towards my direction. He then gave me a “pep talk” that amounted to: “fix this immediately or start updating your linkedin.”

Fueled by panic and more espresso, my manager and I stayed up all night and creatively patched the issue. And somehow, despite this massive mistake, the CTO seemed impressed.

He said, “Both of us were this close to being killed by our clients. But the way you handled it was really professional, you stayed cool and owned the problem.”

That disaster taught me: people don't judge you by the mistakes; they judge how you react. Turning chaos into calm earned my team’s trust, and a few months later, I’m promoted officially for professionalism, unofficially for being the team’s best crisis manager.