It began like any other day for Tim. He got his morning coffee and settled in. As he drained the cup, the bright mood drained from the day, as a dark cloud moved in to swallow up the office of the web solutions company. The CEO of Super Mega Foods, their largest client, was on the phone with his CEO. Everything Super Mega Foods did online was coded and built by Tim’s team. Their account generated enough revenue to pay half the IT staff’s salary.

Tim's CEO had a red light over his office door that lit when he was on the phone. It seemed especially bright today, as if burning a hole straight through Tim’s retinas. The longer The Light shone, the more Tim started to worry over his own work for Super Mega Foods. “Did I really get all the database changes synced?” “Have I misread the design specs?” “Do I need to update my resume?”

After an age, The Light turned off and his CEO’s door opened. The executive exited, looking flustered and stressed, and went straight to the VP’s office. Another age passed, and the VP, now looking flustered, stepped out and went straight to Tim’s manager. They had a very animated discussion, and then a pale manager went straight to Tim’s cube.

“Tim! I’m glad you’re here,” his manager said. He didn’t sound glad at all. “Super Mega Foods has a problem with their commerce site, and we need someone to look into it right now. If we don’t fix this ASAP, heads will roll.” His manager didn’t add that the head in question was Tim’s. “Oh, and by the way, the CEO of Super Mega Foods is on line one. He wants to talk to you.”

Trembling, Tim reached for the phone. He hated talking to a client during a Super Mega crisis. “He-hello… this is… um, Tim? Can I help you?”

“YOU IDIOTS DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”, the CEO of Super Mega Foods super-mega screamed. “We have a huge sale starting and you broke our website!”

Tim held the phone away from his ear to avoid permanent hearing damage. He calmed the angry executive down enough to get an actual description of the problem.

Super Mega Foods had developed a massive new e-marketing initiative worth millions of dollars. It all tied around an online sale, which users could access from the URL printed on the 100,000 flyers they sent out. The problem: the URL didn’t point to their e-commerce site or their sale initiative, it pointed to an error message!

That did sound bad, and Tim was at a loss to explain the problem. He pulled up Super Mega Foods’ history in their CRM, trying to find the work order for this initiative. He couldn’t find anything. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I can’t find your work request. Could… and I know this sounds crazy… but could there be some mistake on your end?”

“That’s impossible! You buffoons screwed the pooch and don’t want to own up to it! See if we keep our business with you! Give me your private extension! I’m going to get one of my marketing people in here, he’ll show me the request, and I’ll have you in a vice!” The CEO slammed the phone down.

Tim waited anxiously for fifteen minutes. The CEO was on the other end, but this time, he was far more subdued. “I must sincerely apologize. Nobody downstairs ever actually sent in an order for this new web stuff.”

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