I almost always bring my laptop home with me. Ever since I’d been promoted to Manager of Network Services, I’d grown accustomed to getting paged late night or early morning to help straighten out some corporate network or platform disaster. It was a lot more comfortable to hook into the network from home and work in my underwear than to get dressed, hop in the car and drive into the office. When my pager went off at about 2AM, I quickly realized that I’d made a terrible mistake.

My car had broke down on the way into work. I’d got a ride home from Joe and had left the damn thing in his trunk. I was mumbling and grumbling while I got dressed. My wife was used to these early morning muttered rants. I kissed her on the forehead and told her I’d have her car back before she had to head out. She murmured a quick thanks and pulled the blanket over her head. Once my eyes became unglued, I returned the page to let them know I’d be on-line within a half-hour and headed out the door.

When I got to the tenth floor, I wasn’t surprised that it was mostly dark. Security had been instructed to shut off the lights on all unoccupied floors. What surprised me was that my office lights were on. We call my office the fishbowl. In a sea of cloth-covered cubicles, my glass walled office took up the space of about six cubicles. Lit up in the darkness it looked even more exposed than it usually did.