"To get anything done on that particular CPU, I had to work evenings -- paid time -- and weekends -- my time," grumbles fish.

One Saturday he's compiling and testing code to meet a Monday deadline when the owner of the company walks into the computer room. He makes small talk, asking how the project is going and what fish is doing. Fish explains that he's trying to get work done to be ready for Monday's status meeting, which the owner is heading up.

Then the owner asks fish if he knows how to run the copier.

"I told him, yes, I could," says fish. "He handed me a book of seafood recipes with quite a few of the pages tagged with slips of paper. He asked me if I could copy those pages for him, since he was leaving late next week for his house on Cape Cod and would be preparing a lot of seafood dishes.

"He's the boss. I made the copies -- and stayed late to finish my real work."