Bonus Quote for the Weekend

"In the bowels of the company, a computer is about to be murdered. It's a simple computer, a PABX. Its job is to route phone calls. It is running software that was once as clean and functional as a mountain stream, but over the past decade has been patched, tweaked, and customized into a steaming, festering jungle, where vines snag at your feet and snarling, fanged creatures live in the shadows. There is a path through the jungle, a clear, well-worn path, and if you follow it you will always be safe. But take two misdirected steps and the jungle will eat you alive.

"The software prevents two phones from forwarding their calls to each other, which would create what is known as an infinite loop, a particularly brutal way to kill a computer. In IT, infinite loops are the equivalent of manslaughter: death through foreseeable negligence. So at this point on the jungle path there is a strong wooden barrier. What the software does not prevent -- not anymore, not after ten years of quick hacks to meet ever-changing departmental wish lists -- is a forwarding circle, where person A (say, Roger), forwards his phone to B (Jones), who forwards his phone to C (Elizabeth), who forwards her phone to A (Roger). There is no barrier here, just a deep, dark ravine where things wait with glittering eyes and sharp teeth.

Right now a mid-level manager in Travel Services is dialing her Training Sales representative. She is thinking of ordering some training for her two telesales staff. They don't really need it, but she's caught wind that Training Sales is trying to cancel orders., This manager has been in Zephyr Holdings long enough to know that if someone doesn't want you to order something, you8 grab as much of it as you can and hang on tight. It was the same way with office chairs.

Her finger pushes the last digit, a six. The phone clicks in her ear. There is a pause. Then the building's lights go off."
- Max Barry, Company, pp.50-51