It’s the 1990s, and this very big nonprofit hospital has 20 years’ worth of computer equipment when it decides to spend $20 million to replace several independent systems with one unified system.
As a new IT supervisor, this pilot fish’s first task is to get rid of piles of the outdated equipment.
So he makes a few phone calls — first to the local community college, and next to the high school superintendent. Could you use some old equipment for your PC training classes? he asks.
The quick response from the cash-strapped administrators: “Yes, thank you!”
Fish and his team go to work identifying what needs to go. They look. They find. The gear piles up.
In the end, fish fills a semi-trailer full with every kind of hardware computer hardware he’s ever seen and has it delivered it to the college and high school.
But is his work done? Not quite. “As the rebuilding of the network proceeded, we found more stuff,” fish says.
“This time, when I called my contacts at the schools, for some reason they would not return my calls.
“But I did get a nice ‘no thank you’ email from one of the administrators’ assistants.”
