Mumble jumble

It's the mid-1980's, but this company's mainframe is already an antique running an obsolete operating system, reports a pilot fish on the scene.

"Some sort of a failure every week was not atypical," says fish. "The company also scrimped on support personnel. There were only two of us supporting the operating system and we had to respond to all software and hardware problems."

Fish is more senior than his support co-worker, so he gets most of the calls by far. That's not a big deal, because he can handle many of the issues immediately over of the phone, and he gets along well with the operations staff.

Then one of the operators, Fred, is promoted to shift leader for the midnight-to-8-a.m. shift. The problem: Fred speaks very quietly in a barely audible mumble, and every phone conversation with him requires fish to repeatedly request, "Say it again."

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