"So the vendor is called and I track down all the requirements that the vendor needs for installation," says fish. "The big day arrives and the installer shows up for the one-week project.
"After the first day, it's clear that something isn't right. The one-week installation extends to three months."
At long last, the installation is officially done. The installer, the installer's boss, the main developer for the software and the developer's boss all show up to turn over the product for testing.
And because fish has sweated through the three months of "installation week," he gets the honor of entering the first test problem.
Fish steps up to the keyboard and presses the Enter key. The software immediately crashes.
The software assumes that something will be entered, developer tells fish.
"I reminded him that assuming doesn't prevent a help desk operator from accidentally pressing the Enter key without entering data," fish says. "The installer and developer immediately jumped into the code to fix the problem.
"One hour later, all was ready for me to enter the next test problem. I entered an asterisk -- the '*' character -- into the first field and pressed Enter. The product crashed again.
"Frowns were displayed, and the installer and developer got back to work.
"I wasn't asked to enter any more test problems. The software went live -- with issues.
"My next big project, two months later: Install the product update released by the vendor to fix problem entry issues."