What's the closest you have ever been to actually dying?
There are a few stories. Since we are in public I'll pick one that won't freak out onlookers.
tldr
I was drawn down on by two soldiers from my own unit because I was unexpectedly left alone in a place where single actors were not allowed. Cold War stuff.
full version
I was working with a [redacted] which had a 2m "dead man zone" around it in this context, demarcated by a paint stripe. SOP was for the guards1 to shoot anyone who entered the zone solo; the assumption being someone would only do that for sabotage.
When maintenance or other operations were required, we would
team up with another person of equal knowledge of the operation
coordinate to enter the zone simultaneously
perform the operation. maintaining line of sight with them and their hands
coordinate to exit simultaneously
I got assigned to do some maint with a squadmate who was both highly intelligent and also a fscking idiot. We entered together, started the task, and then he unexpectedly walked out.2 I snapped my head around and saw him passing over the line. The idiot had left me alone in the Dead Man Zone and things were turning to shit. The guards chambered rounds and were yelling at me to get away from the [redacted].
I'd already put my arms up and had started backpedaling out. I don't remember the immediate aftermath clearly because my stressmeter was pegged at aneurysm / this isn't happening. Through some miracle I did not download into my drawers.
I never saw him working in the Zone again so I suppose he was blacklisted from that duty. And no one else ever got left alone in there AFAIK.
1 our unit were also providing the guard rotation; no one else had the clearance required to be that close to the [redacted]. So the guards in this story were my buddies and were abso-fscking-lutely willing to shoot. We all were; it was part of the job. We did have infantry support on the outer perimeter but they were so far outside the razorwire fences we never saw them working. Perhaps it was just as well; they told us they hated us every chance they got. They thought we were [insert homophobic slur here] and [insert MOS-specific slur here] because we rarely carried rifles and did not engage in recreational fistfighting. But we were grateful for their protection, however begrudgingly provided.
2 IIRC he walked out to get a torque wrench or similar
I was riding at night on an unlit rural road when I came right up to a black cow standing sideways across the road. I would have hit it except I was rolling very slowly through the area looking for my bookbag that had come out of the seat bungie.
The bookbag was also black but I found it a few minutes later because a buckle reflected from the headlight.
No, but I had a small company and asked the worker bees to define their own perks.
There were four employees. Three of them played paintball together and wanted paintballs. So I brought a case of their favorite balls into the office before their outings. The fourth guy wanted to have baby carrots to snack on. He ate ~3 lbs a week. Dude would code for hours as long as he was crunching carrots.
I couldn't have guessed what any of them wanted but they were absolutely cranked by getting it. This was a huge lesson for me: ask people what they want.
In 8th (?) grade our larval computing lab was a row of Commodore 64 but there was only one 5.25" floppy drive between them. When you wanted to save or load your proglet you had to
walk over to insert your floppy
return to your seat to do your load/save
walk back over to retrieve your floppy to free up the drive for someone else
At some point I realized that while the owner was walking back and forth you could load their code to see how they approached the assignment. And doing so did not affect their workflow or anyone else at all. It felt like the earth shifted a bit at that moment.
I used to eat the skins until my kidney stone went to the lab. No more skins or spinach for me. :-( Kidney stone pain is an amazingly-effective incentive for dietary change.
West (at that time) Germany