I Touched It and It Broke

The moment every engineer dreads: a small, harmless change (a rename, a cleanup, a dependency bump) sets off a failure that seems to have no connection to it. The hourglass marks the hours lost finding out why.

Award it to someone today. Your own email app sends it.

Choose a format Metal challenge coin Coming soon 1.75" antique-bronze coin with a 3D high-relief front, raised rim lettering and a beaded edge. Ships in a clear capsule with a backing card. Plastic challenge coin Coming soon 1.75" soft PVC (rubber) coin with 2-3 levels of relief, painted in antique-bronze tones. Lighter and lower-cost than metal. Ships in a clear capsule with a backing card. Die-cut vinyl sticker Coming soon 3" die-cut vinyl sticker of the coin artwork with a UV- and water-resistant laminate. Laptop and water-bottle grade.

Physical coins and stickers are coming soon. Until then, you can email this coin for free.

Meaning

Design

Front (Obverse)

Top rim: Hourglass emblem flanked by laurel branches
Bottom rim: I TOUCHED IT AND IT BROKE
Center: A scaly, clawed hand rises out of a tangle of vines, wires and gears, gripping a cracked brick inscribed "SUPPRESSES MYSTERY CRASH".

Back (Reverse)

See The Order of the Load-Bearing Comment (explorer and pyramid).

Finish & Style

Antique bronze challenge coin, ~1.75" diameter, high-relief center scene, raised rim lettering, beaded outer edge. Matches the existing ITChallengeCoins series.

How to Earn It

Make a small, well-intentioned change that caused an unrelated, unexpected outage or bug.
Own it publicly: post the root cause or run the postmortem yourself.
Bonus honor if the root cause turned out to be a 'load-bearing' workaround someone left years ago.

Citation

For laying a hand upon the ancient machine, and for staying long enough to learn what it was holding up.