There were days when Robert felt like a British Monarch. He worked for a cryptographic hardware/software company based in England, and spent his time bouncing from client-site to client-site, all across Europe. One day, a Scottish customer named Willie called, panicked because his cryptography server had stopped working. “Achh, I’ve givin er all I can give! She willnut run any more!” Robert settled Willie down and asked the obligatory troubleshooting questions (Is it plugged in? Is it switched on? Was the crypto hardware unit connected properly? Has a giant sea monster eaten your server?) but to no avail.

Robert then broke the news to Willie: this required on-site service, and Robert wouldn’t be available until the following week. “I’m actually in France today, at another customer site.”
“That willn’t do, laddy! I need this workin before I go to the Aberdeen football match on Sunday!” Robert informed Willie what the charges would be for an emergency weekend visit and Willie agreed without hesitation.

Robert boarded his Saturday red-eye flight. Willie laid out big bucks for him to fly first class. As he enjoyed his warm nuts and hot towel, Robert began to wonder what might be wrong with Willie’s crypto setup. It hadn’t been logging any errors and had been working fine until recently. The lack of any connectivity at all was confounding. It couldn’t be something simple, could it?

The plane landed and Robert checked in to his four-star hotel, but hadn’t time to sleep. He choked down the hotel’s “full breakfast”, which tasted more like haggis n’ eggs than the traditional, hearty meal he expected.

Robert pulled up to a drab, windowless warehouse in his rental saloon car. He nearly left, unsure if he found the right place, when Willie rushed out to greet him. “It’s ahbout time! Ah thought maybe ya’d fell in tha loch! C’mon in!” Willie led him through a dim hallway that opened up into a giant warehouse. The echoing space lay empty except for a sagging table, the server, and the cryptography hardware. “I’m payin ya for this, so ya better figger her out!” Willie threatened..

Robert gave the hardware a once-over and noticed the serial cable connecting the security dongle was loose. He tightened the thumb-screws, flipped the switch, and the crypto-server roared to life like a Scottish soccer hooligan after a red card. “Well, that was your problem…” Robert said without making eye contact with Willie.

“Mah god, that’s great, lad! Yoo fixed her!” Willie shouted as he gave Robert an uncomfortable bear hug. Robert bade Willie goodbye and headed back to merry England. On the flight home, Robert prepared the invoice to charge Willie for the trip expenses and a re-tightened serial connector. He couldn’t help but grin when the bill came out to several thousand pounds for about 5 minutes of work. Robert was happy, Willie was happy, the whole United Kingdom was happy.

[Advertisement] BuildMaster allows you to create a self-service release management platform that allows different teams to manage their applications. Explore how!