Steve and the New Website

That Monday morning in early Spring, I faced quite the pickle. As the fluorescent lights flickered on above my desk, I found an email from Director Fenton with that most terrifying of flags: the red exclamation point of imminent doom.

"Wistram," it read, "Board meeting Friday. Website demonstration required. Make it work. F."

The average chap might think launching a website is as simple as pressing a button while sipping bubbly. If only! Our "Leading-edge Web Services" division's creation wasn't so much a website as a collection of digital bits strewn about like the aftermath of an explosion in a computer factory.

Marketing needed Facebook buttons. The finance fellows wanted their old systems linked for live prices. Tommy from Operations insisted on something called "cloud computing." And HR wanted forms. Loads of forms. Each new request made Steve Jarvis, my IT manager, emit a sound like a despondent tea kettle.

I polished my glasses nearly through the lenses. Five days to turn this digital monster into something that wouldn't get me shipped to our Anchorage subsidiary. The last poor soul who disappointed CEO Ozzy Tipplebank now counts paper clips in the Aleutians.

I did what any sensible middle manager would. I panicked quietly at my desk for seventeen minutes, ate four antacids, and shuffled to the server room to consult the oracle.

"It's gotten messy," Steve observed as I paced.

His calm presence had bolstered my courage somewhat. "No," I said. "We just need more buttons. The board loves buttons."

"So you say, sir."

By Wednesday lunch, chaos reigned. Each new button the team added made three others disappear. The login page only showed in French. The password reset started sending out cookie recipes.

Then came the big crash. Eldritch error messages. Lunch menus showing stock prices. Servers humming Nickelback songs.

"Steve!" I bellowed from my desk like a man witnessing the collapse of civilization, or worse, the evaporation of his year-end bonus. "What's happening?"

"Just what we needed," said Steve, shimmering round the corner into my office.

The phone rang. It was Director Fenton. "Bert! Whatever you did, it worked! The board approved funds for your new new website proposal."

"My proposal? The 'new new' website?"

"Yes, to replace the old new one. The board loved your creative testing plan! Got to go."

He hung up. I gingerly set the telephone receiver back into its cradle as though it were a live grenade with the pin halfway out and looked at Steve. His lips curved almost imperceptibly, the merest suggestion of a smile flickering across his otherwise impassive countenance.

"Sometimes," he said, "things must break to prevent further damage."

And that's how I became the company's new Head of Innovation.