What happened here (from what I recall) was far funnier than this does it credit.
The SREs first attempted to use a mallet (hammer) on the safe (which they had to first buy from the local hardware store - don't worry it got expensed later), then after multiple rounds of "persuasion" they eventually called in a professional (aka. a locksmith) who used a drill+crowbar to finally liberate the keycard.
The postmortem had fun step by step photos of the safe in various stages of disassembly.
I'm not sure which is worse: bad UI/UX use of lights, or inadequately trained engineers who misunderstood the lights.
A lot of progress has been made by acknowledging that people are idiots and that the system has to work around that. Toyota, which went from one of the worst to one the most reliable automaker is known for formalizing idiot-proofing.
If the reader was able to read the card both way, there wouldn't have been a problem and no training required. The next best thing would be for the card to not fit upside down. Or have a clear message "try flipping the card". It is not something you should train people for, it should be obvious.
I also suspect the reader was in an unusual configuration, because everyone knows how to use smart cards and they probably did what they always do instinctively and it didn't work. On the thousands of times I did it, I don't remember having ever inserted my credit card the wrong way and don't remember anyone who did, it is just so instinctive. For an entire team to miss that, there must be something wrong with how the reader is set up.
The fundamental lesson of at least half my information systems undergraduate courses was you adapt the system to observed user behavior, do not expect the user to adapt their behavior to the system.
What was that decision process? "We're Google, and we're literally writing a book about how good we are at hosting services. But hosting some static HTML files that are almost entirely text? That's a tough one. We'd better outsource that to one of our competitors."
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