It was already $22$ degrees when Astrid Young pulled into the parking lot at the

Western Oceanography Institute $($WOI$).$ The radio announcer was reminding

listeners to leave out extra water for their pets because the temperature was going

to be in the high $30$s for the third straight day. Astrid made a mental note to call her

husband, Jon, when she got to her office and make sure that he left plenty of water

outside for their cat, Figaro. Astrid was three$-$quarters of the way through the

Microsoft NT conversion project. Yesterday had been a disaster, and she was

determined to get back on top of things.

Astrid Young

Astrid Young was a twenty$-$seven$-$year old graduate of Western State University

$($WSU$)$ with a B$.$S degree in management information systems. While at WSU she

worked part time for an oceanography professor, Ahmet Green, creating a

customised database for a research project he was conducting. After graduation

she worked for five years at Evergreen Systems in Seattle, Washington. Green

was recently director of WOI, and Young was confident that this prior experience

was instrumental in her getting the job as information services $($IS$)$ director at the

institute. Although she took a significant pay cut, she jumped at the opportunity to

return to her alma mater. Her job at Evergreen Systems had been very demanding.

The long hours and extensive travelling had created tension in her marriage. She

was looking forward to a normal job with reasonable hours. Besides, Jon would be

pursuing his MBA at Western State. While at Evergreen, Astrid worked on Y$2000$

project and installed NT servers. She was confident that she had the requisite

technical expertise to excel at her new job.

WOI was an independently funded research facility aligned with WSU.

Approximately $60$ fulltime and part$-$time staff worked at the institute. They worked

on research grants funded by the National Science Foundation $($NSF$)$ and the

United Nations $($UN$),$ as well as research financed by private industry. There were

typically $7-8$ major research projects under way at any one time as well as $2-25$

smaller projects. One$-$third of the institute$$s scientists had part$-$ time teaching

assignments at WSU and use the institute to conduct their own basic research.

First Four Months at WOI

Astrid worked at the institute for four months prior to initiating the NT conversion

project. She made a point of introducing herself to the various groups of people on

her arrival at the institute. Still, her contact with the staff had been limited$.$ She

spent most of her time becoming familiar with WOI$$s information system, training

her staff, responding to unexpected problems and planning the conversion project.

Astrid suffered from food allergies and refrained from informal staff lunches at

nearby restaurants. She stopped regularly attending the biweekly staff meetings in

order to devote more time to her work. She now only attended the meetings when

there was a specific agenda item regarding her operation.

Last month the system was corrupted by a virus introduced over the internet. She

devoted an entire weekend to restoring the system to operation. A recurring

headache was one of the servers code$-$named $$Poncho$,$ which would occasionally

shut down for no apparent reason. Instead of replacing it$,$ she decided to nurse

Poncho along until it was replaced by the new NT system. Her work was frequently

interrupted by frantic calls from staff researchers who needed immediate help on

a variety of computer$-$related problems. She was shocked at how computer

illiterate some of the researchers were and at how she had to guide them through

some of the basics of e$-$mail management and database configuration. She did find

time to help Assistant Professor Amanda Johnson on a project. Johnson was the

only researcher to respond to Astrid$$s e$-$mail announcing that the IS staff was

available to help on projects. Astrid created a virtual project office on the internet

so that Johnson could collaborate with colleagues from institutes in Italy and

Thailand on a UN project. She looked forward to the day when she could spend

more time on fun projects like that.

Astrid had a part$-$time of five student assistants from the computer science

department. At first she was not sure how freely she could delegate work to the

students, and she closely supervised their work. She quickly realised that they

were all very bright, competent workers who were anxious to leverage their work

experience into a lucrative career on graduation. She admitted that she sometimes

had a hard time relating to students who were preoccupied with fraternity bashed

and X$-$games. She lost her temper only once, and that was at Samantha Eggert

for failing to set up an adequate virus screening system that would have prevented

the internet corruption that occurred. She kept a close eye on Eggert$$s work after

that, but in time, Eggert proved her worth. Young saw a lot of herself in Eggert$$