(From a prior interview, held somewhere around the Ninth Bolgia)

Dante:  Ted, it’s a great pleasure to have you here with us tonight.

Ted:  Trust me, the pleasure is all mine.

Dante:  Then let’s begin.  Our listeners have a vague idea of what you do from reputation, so what prevents you from doing your job as effectively as possible?

Ted:  Well, simply put, I facilitate the business process and when the business process is ill-defined, confusing or better yet, non-existent, I have a difficult time because I have to invent my own or refine the one that already exists.

Dante:  Is that why people call you “The Cleaner”?

Ted:  No.  People call me “The Cleaner” because, in the IT industry, I have become notorious for cleaning up multi-million dollar mistakes.  Most of which were perpetrated by none other than the biggest IT firms in the business… who shall remain nameless.

Dante:  So you haven’t actually killed anyone?

Ted:  That’s right.  He was dead when I got there.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Dante:  Who was?

Ted:  Nobody.  And don’t let Polyphemus tell you otherwise.

Dante:  Alright, so for how long have you been “cleaning up” IT-related disasters?

Ted:  Surprisingly, it’s been almost twenty-two years now… six continents, about one-hundred and eighty-four different countries, almost countless projects, and more than a lifetime of jetlag.

Dante:  Why do you do it?

Ted:  IT never ceases to be a challenge and consequently, IT keeps my attention.  I tend to enjoy adversity and there is plenty of it in the IT field.  If this were not the case, I would get bored very quickly and change to another profession.

Dante:  Good.  This leads me to my next question.  In the IT field, what accomplishment are you most proud of?

Ted:  The IT industry is one in which less than thirty percent of all projects succeed.  I am proud to be one of the few IT professionals in the world that has never had a project fail.  In my mind, failure has never been an option and many companies have recognized that so I’m never out of work.  In fact, I routinely turn down at least fifteen contracts a week from companies all over the world.

Dante:  May I modify the subject for a moment?

Ted:  Sure, whatever floats your boat man.

Dante:  From what I understand, you are somewhat of a security expert.  What is the difference between a security expert and a hacker?

Ted:  Well, the most striking difference is that the Department of Defense pays me to break into their information systems.  Hackers in general do it for free.

Dante:  OK.  One last question before we’re out of time.  My friend Virgil would like to know if you’re “The Phone Guy”?

Ted:  This probably won’t be the last time I say this, but let’s have a go with it.  I do not do telecommunications!  In fact, I strongly dislike the industry altogether.  The last time I led a telecomm project was to clean up a ten million dollar voicemail mistake in 1998 for Marquette University.  Succinctly stated, I am not “The Phone Guy”.

Dante:  We’re out of time.  Ted, thank you for dropping by.

Ted:  No problem.