Vince wandered through the programming area looking for Randy.  He found him, his feet propped up on his desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, a pencil in the other and a manual on his lap.  He was reading and underlining.

“Do they give you any work to do around here or do you just read manuals,” he asked.

“If I don’t read I don’t know what is happening.”  The tone was defensive.

“Easy now, I was just kidding.  What is that manual?”

“It’s the advance specs on the 2314, it’ll be out soon.  Maybe we can get out of this space crunch.”

“Can you come back to my office for a while, I want to know more about this, I gave those guys the go ahead but I want to know how we got into this mess.  I don’t want to preside over another fiasco.”

Randy slid the manual on the desk and followed the older man.  Vince closed the office door behind them.

“You know my door is always open to you.  I have a problem.  Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you. I just want to make sure if you have concerns and nobody listens you know you can come see me.”

“Crap, they told me you read my recommendations and you said no.  In fact, I have them in my desk somewhere and you did sign off.  I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble.”

“Damn, you are saying I signed off to ignore your recommendations?  And without talking to you about it? Where was my brain?”

“Yep.  You signed off.  You can’t babysit that bunch all the time.”

“Can I see that document?”

Randy nodded and went to his desk.  He was back in three minutes. “Here, they recommended we proceed, that IBM would have the sort ready.  I returned it with the comment that we couldn’t count on it, even then the delivery date was 12/69, they sent it to you with a recommendation we wait for the sort and you agreed.  I even told them their code wouldn’t work if the sort came in on time.  It isn’t only the sort, it is also the comparisons of the dates in the program.  They ignored that too.”