It's the early 1990s, and this sales guy requests a laptop to take with him on sales trips. And he says he knows what he's doing. But IT pilot fish isn't so sure.
"I was less than thrilled at issuing an expensive laptop to this remote user," says fish, "despite his assurance of his skills -- after all, he lived above Silicon Valley -- and having already dealt with issues related to security and connection to the corporate network from 2,500 miles away."

But fish sets up the laptop and sends it on its way, complete with all the necessary security and virus-checking software. And his instructions are clear: The user must log in once per day to get updates.

And for several months, it looks like fish was simply wrong. There are no major problems with the laptop, and the sales guy is reliably updating his security and virus software.

Then, suddenly, all that stops. "I began to notice that updates were not being done and the laptop was becoming out of date," fish reports.

"When asked, the user always had some excuse, such as 'bad connection,' 'no time,' 'will get to it.'

"After nearly a month of no updates and inquires, his supervisor finally got me an answer: The user left the laptop in a Southern California phone booth.

"When asked when that occurred, the response was, 'About a month ago.'"