So I joke about this with non-network engineer friends, but this exact scenario has occurred to me enough times (today again actually) that it’s worth sharing.
Anyone that’s been doing Cisco (or any other CLI driven network gear) for any period of time are probably familiar with what I call ‘banging the keyboard’. It goes something like this…
-Do a significant change on a Cisco platform (routing, MLS, etc…)
-Stare at the command for a minute to make sure the syntax is correct
-Hit enter
-Start banging the enter key to make sure that the console keeps returning the prompt
You hope and pray that the prompt keeps returning. In the rare (and horrible) case that it doesn’t, you’ve just made a change that you shouldn’t have and broke access to the device entirely.
When I tell other IT people about this practice, they laugh. I shrug, since I feel entirely more comfortable seeing that prompt return over and over again.