Chapter 1

“Bill Palmer here,” I say, answering my cell phone on the first ring.

I’m late, so I’m driving ten miles per hour over the speed limit, instead of my usual five. I spent the morning at the doctor’s office with my three-year-old son, trying to keep the other toddlers from coughing on us, constantly being interrupted by my vibrating phone.

The problem of the day is intermittent network outages. As the Director of Midrange Technology Operations, I’m responsible for the availability and smooth functioning of a relatively small IT group at Parts Unlimited, a $4 billion per year manufacturing and retail company based in Elkhart Grove.

Even in the technology backwaters I’ve chosen to make my turf, I need to track network ...

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