Another year passes, the company president finally realizes that Kaitlin is never going to produce the PoS software. He tells her that her employment will be terminated in three weeks, and offers her a dazzling severance package. Then he tells me to learn everything she's doing so we can take over her job when she leaves.

When I ask her for documentation, she can't produce any. She claims that when she found out she was being fired, she deleted all but a handful of her files "because she was sure we wouldn't need them." Yeah, right. After she walks, the president orders the IT department to "just fix it."

I can find several lessons in this disaster, but I'll mention just one for now: Talk to your IT department once in a while, especially before you invest a ton of money in new software.